4 Signs You Have a Qualified Lead to Schedule a Sales Meeting

A qualified lead means you are one step away from a sales meeting to discuss your product or solution with a prospect.

But how do you know when you have a qualified lead? After all, you do not want a Sales Development Rep to schedule a meeting with a prospect if the timing and fit are wrong. Otherwise, your sales team might show up to a meeting and discover that the prospect isn’t sure why the meeting is taking place.

To qualify a prospect for a meeting, your team first needs to decide whether the prospect is worth pursuing. You can make that decision based on the information gathered during an initial cold call to determine whether the prospect qualifies for fit and interest. If the answer is yes, then you have a qualified lead and are ready to pursue a meeting. 

Your team will find more success by identifying the signs that you have a qualified lead before setting up the meeting. Consider these four indicators that you have a qualified lead and learn more about the ProSales Connection No-Risk Appointment Setting Program that can provide your company with qualified meetings with real prospects.

1. Identify the Prospect’s Role

The first key to a qualified lead is identifying the prospect’s role in the decision-making process. Is this person the final decision-maker, an influencer, or an employee who will need to defer to someone else in the organization? 

You might also encounter a user, or a person that works hands-on with your solution and a person that has the most to gain or lose from a decision to purchase. This type of prospect is a good first contact because they will help you understand the landscape of an organization, the key players involved in decision-making, and how decisions are made internally.

Overall, you need to determine how the contact factors into making a decision before determining if they are the right person to meet with. That requires asking an important two-part question about whether the prospect has any say in the decision and then if not, who the best person is for you to talk to.

Best practice is to make sure the prospect is still looped into the process even if they are not a decision-maker or influencer. That way, the prospect earns your trust to help champion your solution internally or that person comes back to you when another need or opportunity arises.

2. There Is a Good Fit

The second sign that you have a qualified meeting is you believe the organization will benefit from your product or solution. The prospect does not have to believe your offering is a good fit yet, but you need to believe it.

You discover whether your solution is a fit by comparing the information gathered about this specific prospect to previous prospects or existing customers who match the profile.

That way, you know there is a greater chance of converting the prospect if there is history of success with matching companies. 

In order to determine whether the prospect is a fit, you will use your pre-call research that includes general demographic information about size, location, and industry, then you will need to craft 1-3 essential questions that will will get to the heart of the “fit” conversation. 

An example of a “fit” question might be: “Does your company own your warehouses, or do you contract for fulfillment?” Another question is: “Does your organization have a mix of device operating systems like Windows, Mac, and Chromebooks?” 

Notice that you are not qualifying for need, only fit at this stage. You discover from the way they answer these questions whether there is potential need for your solution.

3. The Prospect Understands Your Value Proposition

This is a very important step ensuring that your prospect understands the value proposition of your product or solution. Too often, SDRs coax or convince prospects to take a sales meeting without confirming that the prospect understands what your company is offering. 

Then, the sales team meets with the prospect, who does not understand what the meeting is about. Clearly, there was a lack of understanding before the meeting took place and the prospect should not have been qualified for a meeting.

This is inefficient and it could lead to a lost opportunity. Instead of the SDR taking a minute to ask the right questions on the phone or making an extra phone call to qualify the prospect for a meeting, the sales team wasted their time and the prospect will likely not want to do business in the future.

Conversely, if the prospect has a good understanding of the value proposition and they express interest in hearing more about your solution, then they have qualified for a meeting.

The SDR accomplishes this by asking the prospect a direct question such as: “What are you most interested in learning more about?” This way, the sales team will come to the sales meeting prepared with answers about the value proposition. 

4. The Prospect Has Expressed Clear Interest

This leads into the fourth indicator that a prospect qualifies for a meeting. The prospect will express clear interest in what you have to say and also be willing to invest time in a meeting to understand how your solution will help their organization.

This is the role of SDRs to get prospects to the point of expressing interest. That way, the prospect clearly understands why a meeting is taking place, what the value proposition is, and how your company can help address their need or opportunity.

Unfortunately, many appointment setting companies do not complete this process to qualify a prospect for a meeting. ProSales Connection is different because we specialize in high-quality meetings with real prospects. If you would like to know more about our capabilities, please connect with us and we can share more about our program to hire our firm on a no risk basis. 

To learn more about the No Risk Appointment Setting Program, contact me directly to have a conversation about how we can help you qualify prospects for a meeting or discuss outsourcing your prospecting to ProSales Connection.