It’s a pretty obvious statement that running a successful business is largely dependent on constantly winning new clients, projects and contracts. Keeping cash ringing through the register is what keeps a company moving forward and every sale can be classed as a well-deserved victory. However (and be honest now) how many of us have leapt blindly into working on a job based on the obvious financial benefits, only to regret it later on? This could be down to a any number of factors. Perhaps you underestimated the workload. Maybe you and the client aren’t gelling. Your processes perhaps aren’t setup to deal with particular types of job… you get the picture.
The bottom line is if a job goes awry, you will always be hit hardest at a financial level and, if a job isn’t profitable, what’s the point in doing it in the first place?
All relationships have to be and remain WIN / WIN for both parties throughout!
So how do you stop this from happening? Well before you take on a new job/client/anything you need to disqualify. Disqualify HARD!
Determining your disqualification criteria
1) Disqualifying is basically a means of empowering your business so that you only work on your ideal projects with your best kind of client. How you work out these ‘ideals’ is down to you (after all, you know your industry and what works best for your business right? Right? If not, we really need to talk!) however here’s some general criteria to help determine your own disqualification process:
2) Work out your ideal client profile (or profiles — you can happily have more than one) based on things like:
– Location
– Industry
– Team size
– Turnover
– Attitude
– Do both parties get on?
You can then measure any future prospects against this criteria.
3) Are they immediately talking ‘how much will this cost us?’. This should ring alarm bells as it usually means they’re shopping around and perhaps are not ready to commit anyway. Disqualify!
4) If you have received an inquiry via email, or other referral, then request a 5 minute phone call. If they don’t want to do this then its obviously not that important to them. Disqualify!
5) If the phone call does happen and it lasts less than the 5 minutes… Disqualify!
6) If the call goes well (say you’ve been talking for 20 minutes and seem to be on the same page) then request a 1 hour face to face meeting. If they don’t want to commit… Disqualify!
7) If the meeting happens and it goes well then the next step is totally your decision and dependent on your business processes. At GGA our next step is to have a chargeable 1 day consultancy session that helps us finally determine the prospects seriousness in proceeding with a project (but more on that in a future Get Lean).
In summary, a well documented disqualification criteria is a crucial step in a business’s sales process. Although at first it may feel unnatural to be turning down potential work (after all the default mindset for most companies is ‘YES, YES, YES!’) it WILL save you vast amounts of time, and a fair few brain cells, in the long term.
Perhaps most importantly, it gives both parties the opportunity to say ‘NO’ at multiple stages before a project starts.
So why not give ‘NO’ a go? Sometimes being negative is the most positive thing you can do!
