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Common Definitions Help Prospectors Meet Sales' Expectations

Mark Friedman | Articles > From the section: Check Lists & Job Descriptions

October, 28, 2014 |

Sales professionals generally agree that it's not a list of "leads" that ring their chimes. They see their jobs as solving customers' problems and closing deals. They get their best results with an introduction to qualified, pre-screened Prospects who are at least partially pre-sold and ready and willing to purchase the right solution for their need.

That's where a well-defined Prospecting process comes into play. Prospecting is a business process, with distinct procedures and very specific goals, just like any other mission-critical company process. Importantly, the prospecting process spells out definitions for the stages a potential customer or buyer of a product or service goes through as they enter and move through the system.

Marketing and Sales need to agree on common terms

Everybody in your Marketing, Sales and Prospecting organizations have to understand and agree on the terms used to describe the stages of prospecting. Calling an inquirer or potential buyer a "lead" is too generic. The terms "lead," "inquirer" and "prospect" should never be used interchangeably to describe people at various stages of the prospecting process. This practice is confusing and nonproductive.

You need to establish a common language for the terms your organization will use to name the steps from inquiry to sale. Universal labels for defining sales targets allow you to specify what steps to take to further each type along in the education, nurturing, and buying decision process. Mutual understanding fosters better communication, coordination and cooperation between the marketing and sales functions in your company.

Here are four terms for defining the stages of prospecting that I've found work well in every case:

	Suspects	Before you can attract potential customers, you have to target a specific audience. You plan your prospect acquisition campaigns (i.e. lists, online, search, direct mail) to reach those audiences that you "suspect" will have a need for, or an interest in, your offer.
	Inquirers	The old term is "hand-raiser" – these are people who have done something to tell you that they are interested, at least at that moment. They may have responded to your ad, direct mailer, online marketing, or phone calls, but you don't know enough about them to call them a Prospect. These are the contacts that feed your Prospecting Engine™ (i.e. your prospecting process.)
	Prospect	As inquirers move through the Prospecting cycle, you keep in touch, try to find out more specifics about their interest in your product or service, do a bit of "pre-selling," and answer their questions. At some point, they are deemed qualified enough to turn over to Sales.
	Qualified Prospect	A prospect you have spoken to on the telephone or met with face-to-face, and who has defined need, a timeframe, purchase authority or influence, budget and the desire to buy. These are the prospects you turn over to Sales to convert to revenue.

How do most Sales departments define a prospect as "truly qualified" for hand-off?

How do you know when a prospect is ready to finalize a sale? The traditional guideline called BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) has worked well for years to define the characteristics of a ready buyer. Salespeople want to meet Prospects with all four; usually it's the ‘T' (timing) that turns a Prospect into a Qualified Prospect. Different products and/or markets may have a different ‘T' or timeframe constraint for this prospect qualifier.

Adopting a common nomenclature is extremely practical in an organization that sells a variety of products and services. Many successful marketers use broad common terminology as a training and motivational tool. Commonly used terms also allow you to focus everyone involved on how your company defines a "real" opportunity. For example, IBM uses "BANT" (defined above). Using common definitions helps bridge the gap between what Marketing sees as a "lead" and what leads Sales will "really take action on." Too many times these two areas are in conflict instead of alignment. Recognize the nuances in definitions that work for your organization.

By using subsets of an organization-wide set of definitions, you can get more specific for a given product and/or market. Every type of contact, from simple literature requests (Inquiries) to Prospects with a purchase timeframe six months out, can be assigned a very specific designation with a pre-determined follow-up routine.

You might classify Qualified Prospects as A and B, and only those are sent to the Sales organization for conversion. Typically, C and D designations are for those contacts that still need more education and nurturing, or where the timing is unclear or not set. C and D contacts need to be moved into an appropriate nurturing process until they reach A or B classification. I will explore this aspect of Prospecting more thoroughly in the next newsletter, which will help you answer the question: "Okay, you've determined that a Prospect is not ready for Sales Rep follow-up… now what?"

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