Your Prospect Uberfact Friend Check

Oh yes, “a study”. Still. Once you get past those that either you owe money or who always cadge things from you, there is something sellingish in this.

Imagine if these two modified sentences were true;

A study found that only half of your prospects would consider you their prospect. Salespeople have a very poor perception of buyer ties.

I remember an early career introduction to this concept. Wondering why a particular prospect individual was newly coy on committing to a corporate hospitality event in the near-future. One that they’d previously expressed great interest in. That rightly rang alarm bells for me.

A little further in time, I was passed on a line to deduce the correct level of a likely signature. All stemming from taking your closest contact to one quiet side, and gently starting off with;

“I’ve got you on my forecast, have I made a mistake?”

There’s many ways to assess the strength of your bid. One or two may even give (some small) credence to the percentage chance or letter grading that crm systems so enjoy enforcing upon your forecast.

There’s two points to drum in here.

If you tilt your pipeline management so as to map your process onto each bid, you’ll be way stronger.

And if you maintain the mindset to always qualify out, as opposed to being desperate to grab any crumbs that enable you to keep qualifying in, you’ll also strengthen your funnel.

How many of your current list of potential customers would consider you almost certain to become a valued business friend?