When it comes to sales, these are mine: I spent eight years selling radio advertising. It was not a complex sale, so there was no marketing department involved, no support sales team, no automated nurturing, no scoring, and no free content offers. As a direct marketing consultant and copywriter, my experience with the sales departments at a few of my client companies has been that sales doesn’t want anything to do with a lead until the lead is ready to buy. On one hand, I think sales should do it all. passed along to me by a colleague. MORE >>

thought it might assist many readers, especially those newer to the complex sales and marketing process (and thank you to Felix for allowing me to share this publicly). Defining a lead as qualified basically means they are qualified to talk to a sales representative. Essentially, this is a prospect who has a high likelihood to buy and is ready for sales engagement. This involves a sales-marketing huddle since, much like good art, it is not only the artist but also the art viewer and buyer that must agree on a definition. It has been very useful for me. MORE >>

When you’re a B2B sales rep, few things feel worse than spending weeks or months on a high-priority prospect only to find out that your biggest competitor won the business. Fortunately, you can turn things around with a simple secret: if you master the art of qualifying your leads, you can achieve greater sales with less time and effort. Maintain Control of Yourself and the Conversation During your first contact with a lead, you may be eager to begin your sales pitch. The BANT framework is very effective. or “Who’s on your purchasing committee?” MORE >>

I often find that most struggling sales people are resistant to dump a non-qualified prospect because they are afraid they are going to miss a sale or not make quota that month. As a result, their pipeline gets blogged with time wasters and prospects that are not going to buy anytime soon. Too many salespeople keep leads in their sales pipeline that have zero potential of ever resulting in sales, , tThey do this just to give themselves a sense of security. Many times the sales representative is acting on a “Gut” feeling. MORE >>

As CEO of UK-based Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners , Bob works with the leadership teams of technology-based B2B-focused companies, enabling them to make the critical connections between their marketing messages, their sales conversations, their true differentiators, and their customer''s priorities. Many sales pipelines include a stage labeled “qualified”. And you’re not the only party doing the qualifying—your prospect is going through a similar exercise throughout their buying decision process. BANT Won’t Help. It’s time to return to our prospect. MORE >>