After finding more opportunities/building the pipeline, qualification remains the most critical part of the sales cycle.  Unfortunately, in a tight market too many sales people start “selling scared.” They find someone that will talk to them and shows some interest in their product or service, and immediately start a sales cycle.  In a tight market, sales people most develop better skills and sales training organizations must train on these needed skills.  Organizations also must understand the value and RIO they receive from a "good" results orientated sales training program.

The acid test for an organization or sales rep on this notion of selling scared is to measure how many sales pursuits each year ended up with “no fruit” for the labor.  If you find this percentage to be high, it can be attributed to:

1. Reps selling too low in the organization
2. Reps not asking the hard questions up front to qualify opportunities
3. “Making it as you go” is the real sales strategy
4. Pipeline is weak, so any warm body becomes a prospect
5. There has been no formal training on how to generate leads or build a pipeline
6. Reps don't understand decision maker's roles well enough to stand toe to toe with the executives
7. Reps exercise little control over the sales cycle
8. Products/solutions are inferior
9. There are weak measurements and little accountability for results
10. Competition has better sales skills

At Sales Builders, we offer the Quid Pro Quo Series of sales training courses.  This approach now has been trained in ten countries with outstanding results. It is starting to be coined as, “Selling with the backbone not with the wishbone”.  Many sales people start the relationship with a prospect in a subservient position. They have been classically trained that, people buy from people they like.  Of course, but today people buy more from people they respect.  Sales people have a solution to an issue a prospect has.  A prospect has some type of issue they need to solve. Sales people need to know how to stand as an equal with prospects and expect/demand a give and take relationship. They need to stop selling scared!