The purpose of qualification is to decide whether or not to do business with the client. Qualification will help you to decide the likelihood of getting the business and if so to help you identify and allocate the resources needed for the
assignment.
Table of Contents
Key Deliverables
There are many tools, techniques and questions that help you qualify. The key deliverables you must achieve:
- To understand why the client wants your help (or why they should want your help). This means knowing their motives, means and business.
- To understand the nature of the prospective business or company, including it’s history and future potential,
- To evaluate the potential for your services within the company,
- To develop and maintain a relationship with key individuals,
- To identify opportunities and influence the Customer requirements,
In addition you may need some more specific processes to filter the leads. For example many leads may come from your own media advertising; PwC, IBM, Accenture, KPMG and Deloittes get many leads by this means.
Others are generated by dedicated sales efforts whether from salesmen, outbound telemarketing, trade shows or via brochures and web presence (both organic and non-organic ie PPC).
In terms of conference and trade show inquiries we find that the response is sometimes little more than name, title, and email address and phone number.
Whatever the case in your business seeking, you will still need a process to accept or reject them. This applies whether you are an internal consultant with an easy captive market; you must buy from us” or an external consultant wondering
how you will get the Assignment that will help pay for your next round at the pub.
Qualfication Criteria
This section applies whether you are dealing with one client a year or many clients; whether they are internal or external. You can qualify out a client because you do not have the time, price skills, resources, business fit, strategy or interest to do so.
To help qualify you need information. A good way to get that information is to have a phone interview with each potential client. If you work internally your life is so much easier than in the hard external world -all you need to do is just go and see them.
On your call you need to get the information that will help you to differentiate good clients from bad. You might need to rank them and prioritise; it all depends on your mission as a consultant.
The most important information needed is confirmation that the potential assignment is likely to become a real assignment.
A good way to qualify is to apply MANDACT and POCC processes however, as a minimum, you must establish:
- Their business goals and objectives, and how the business is performing against those goals and objectives
- Specific business needs. A business need, shows up as a discrepancy between where they are today, and where they want or need to be in the future.
This will help you to pick out personal needs as well as business needs. Once that is known you can qualify in money terms. For example can they afford and justify the purchase.
Assuming you ask all the right questions (see your notes and other chapters) and understand the client’s motive and means you will be able to accept or reject the business.