subject: Counterintuitive Sales Tactics - Disqualify Sales Prospects [print this page] The interesting thing about counterintuitive sales tactics is that you do the exact opposite of what you think you should do and in many cases see a very positive result. This article outlines the sales tactic of disqualifying a sales prospect by questioning whether they are the right fit at the right time. This tactic can help as it can create six powerful results:
1. Increase in Rapport
When we disqualify a prospect, at that very moment we are likely doing the exact opposite of what the prospect would expect the typical sales person to do. Most sales people will aggressively try to sell. And when the prospect is on the fence or not showing interest, the average sales person will likely increase the level of aggressiveness and try harder.
By us not doing that and actually pushing the prospect away, we will not only stand out from the majority of other sales people that the prospect has dealt with, but we will also display qualities such as confidence, integrity, humility, intelligence, directness, etc. When a prospect sees these characteristics all at once, we are likely to see a significant spike in the level of rapport that we have with the prospect.
2. Increase in Credibility
Similar to the spike in rapport, we are likely to see an increase in our credibility when we use sales tactics to disqualify a prospect. This is a result of the fact that at the exact moment that we disqualify the prospect, we are talking about what is best for them instead of what is best for us.
If one of our top goals is to close sales, and we display that we are putting the prospect's best interest in front of that, there will be an immediate display of integrity. If we display integrity and honesty in that one moment, we will then create the implied effect that we must using integrity and honesty when we are talking about our company and all of the great things that our products and services do. This can add up to an increase in our overall level of credibility.
3. Improvement of Quality of Leads
It is possible as part of these sales tactics that the prospect could confirm our disqualification and that could mean that they end up going away. While that could appear to be a bad outcome, if they were never going to buy from us, it is a very good outcome to have them go away. The result of this is that we just removed a low quality lead from our pipeline and this can help us to clean up our pipeline, improve our ability to forecast, improve our close rate, and will free up time to find better qualified prospects.
4. Improvement in Momentum
When working with prospects that are on the fence and not wanting to move in any direction, this tactic can often trigger some sort of action and get these prospects moving and off of the fence. For prospects that are indeed a good fit and qualified, this tactic could trigger a response and movement forward that might not have occurred otherwise.
5. Uncover New Information
If the reaction that we get from disqualifying a prospect is that they challenge the disqualification, we need to be sure to listen closely during this powerful moment. Not only do we want to listen for the prospect to confirm the points that we have been trying to make while communicating to them, but we also want to listen closely as the prospect may share new information for why they are interested or why they feel there is a strong fit.
6. Improvement in Close Rate
The by-product from all of these sales tactics can be an improvement in the overall close rate. If we are positively impacting any or all of the areas of rapport, credibility, quality of pipeline, deal momentum, and uncovering new information, it is very safe to assume that we could see an improvement in our close rate with the prospects we are working with.
