04 Aug Improve sales productivity with effective B2B account qualification
Improving B2B sales productivity is key to achieving a solid ROI, more sales and ultimately business growth. Yet too often time is wasted on trying to reach senior C-suite decision-makers that may not be able to buy from you. Not only that, but today it is harder to reach these people and can often lead salespeople into a perpetual loop of trying to connect.
Rather than spend too much time on this task, we know that the more productive path is to first focus on qualifying accounts much earlier and then identifying sales opportunities. Some of this ‘account qualification’ activity can be carried out by checking information on a company’s website, looking at the accounts and confirming publicly available information.
A great way to get a better picture of an account is by connecting with people across the depth and breadth of the organisation and this is an extremely useful exercise. In fact, quite often people lower down the perceived food chain can regularly answer important questions that help with B2B account qualification long before you get close to those in more senior positions.
Asking key qualifying questions of these people in the organisation allows you to qualify the account and determine if the organisation could buy your solution early in the process. You are also likely to identify some pain and need points that could help you to get the attention on the C-Suite. Yet, if you find out early on that they have just signed with a competitor then you would have saved yourself and others a lot of time.
People in senior positions may be less likely to share information, whereas others are more likely to be open in having conversations and answering important questions Ultimately, they are approached less, can be easier to reach, and quite often can share more information and are often dealing with the very problems that your solution solves, which can help to strengthen an approach to more senior contacts.
Your questions may be varied and relate to the number of employees, turnover, the systems the business uses, and as mentioned earlier if there is already a competitor involved with the account. Finding the answers to these questions will often lead to qualifying the account in or out. And if the latter then it can save lots of expensive sales time and resource. These questions help to qualify the account, but can also generate key information that will make all the difference when reaching out to a key decision-maker.
Key thought. By focusing on early account qualification, sales teams can save significant amounts of time. Qualifying accounts as soon as possible will allow sales executives to be more productive and focus on the accounts that are most likely to convert.