7 Questions to Ask Before You Move Forward With a Sales Opportunity

This post originally appeared on the Force Management Blog. To read more content like this, visit the blog here.

Consistently enforced qualification criteria is a cornerstone to any great sales process.

As a sales leader, It’s important to provide a mechanism to ensure that sales opportunities warrant the investment of your sales team’s time and resources.

Your salespeople need guidelines on whether the opportunity is ready to advance to the next stage of the buying process.

Use these seven questions as a starting point. Their answers should provide enough information to determine whether or not the opportunity should move forward or if more work needs to be done on the account.

Seven Questions to Qualify an Opportunity

1.  What is the compelling event? What is the business impact if they don’t take action or take the wrong action? 

2.  What are the business problems the customer is trying to solve? What is the impact to both the individuals and the business?

3.  How have you calculated the negative consequences? Do you have customer agreement on the quantifiable impact?

4.  Who benefits from the customer buying your solution? Describe the “After Scenario” and the Positive Business Outcomes.

5.  How are the Positive Business Outcomes aligned with the business issue the customer is looking to solve?

6.  Who are the people that are most impacted by the Positive Business Outcomes? Are they involved in the sales process?

7.  Are they compelling enough for the Economic Buyer to take action?