In 2013, I had one goal. To maximize my time. And I had a feeling the best way I would do that would be by saying No. Not no to a meeting with a client or a prospect, but rather to clutter. How can I figure out, early on, who would give me most bang more my buck? Let’s call it a qualification round. How can you qualify your leads and qualify quickly?

 

This is hard for me to say, because I want to meet with as many people as possible, but is there something I can do; something to verify how much someone believes in themselves. 

 

3 Ways to Qualify Your Leads to Maximize Your Time

 

1. Ask Them to Your Event
2. Send Your Rate Card 
3. Approach Their Budget Early

 

Let’s set the scene. You have a great business advocate for you who sends you a welcome note introducing you to someone new to the area or a note introducing you to someone who is looking for new work. While both seem like great opportunities on the surface to physically meet, do you think that you need either in your life right now? Maybe. Maybe you are looking to hire this person or they have a skill set that you are looking for to solve a need. You can quickly review their Linkedin profile to see if they qualify for what you are looking for. You could also see what they have done in the past and see who they have relationships. Is there anyone they are paired with that you would welcome the opportunity to meet yourself?

 

If you are like me you receive a ton of emails and introductions about a person who is looking to start their company or grow a specific avenue. Perfect. You have your target customer right in front of you. Now here is the qualifying part.

 

Ask Them To Attend Your Event

 

Instead of saying let’s grab lunch (cost: meal + time + travel) or coffee try to get more information out of the introduction. You can do this by asking specifically what they are looking for. They may say, I want to share with you what I am working on. In a case like this likely at least an hour of time will be spent ‘learning’ about their new idea. When this happens to me I typically invite a burgeoning entrepreneur to one of our ‘qualifying’ meetups: Coffee Downtown. While this meetup is for everyone, it is the top of the funnel for our sales process. This could also be an online event like a webinar or blog post.

 

If you are unfamiliar with a sales funnel, it is the process in which it takes to have a prospect be qualified and converted into a customer. In my line of work, this typically takes 5-7 positive interactions to convert. Meaning communication between both parties at least 5-7 times. This typically involves a physical meeting (like Coffee Downtown) to educating the prospect in material that will help them through the problems you learned about in one of the previous conversations. 

 

1. Introduction — Invite To Coffee
2. Physically Attend Coffee — Spend a few minutes learning about what they are working on
3. Follow-Up — Provide Additional Information (Content you have canned, but on the topic they need)
4. Dig Deeper– Any Questions? See if the prospect has read or watched the content you provided. Do they have any questions?
5. Hard Sell — Now, if you have the goods to provide, sell it!
6. Follow-Up — Do this within 24 hours

 

 

Mastering your funnel takes time and tweaking, but the general idea is that this is a numbers game. Try to bring as many faces to the top of your funnel knowing that you will only convert a fraction that started. And that is okay. 

Send Your Rate Card 

 

A consultation may be what the doctor ordered. If this is the case, you pay for a diagnosis right? You should charge too. Why? Because you are providing a ton of value.  That one meeting could turn your words of wisdom into thousands of dollars. Early on in the conversation, ask to set-up a meeting and provide your rate card. A rate card is a document or just a number of how much you cost. I know what you are thinking, “Zack, this is bold. And couldn’t I be missing out on this opportunity by pushing the sale too hard early?” Sure you could, but you could also be qualifying this business or person to see how much they value you and themselves. 

 

Maybe they just wanted to talk to someone, but do nothing with what you spoke about. If there is one thing that I want you to realize from this post it’s that time is the only thing in the world we can never get back. So be sure to use it to your advantage. Qualify those that come into your life and maximize your time in them. 

 

So, in 2015, what am I doing? I am bringing people to me. We, at Hatch, create content and gigs which bring those target customers to us. It is not that I don’t want to meet with them, but I want to verify that they care. I want to know that the people I am investing time in are willing to invest in the time we have together.

 

I remember the first time I actually tried this. A co-worker, Erik sent me an introduction that he said was a lead. But, was it? Is there something I could do to determine quickly how committed this person was to themselves.

Seriously, themselves.

How often do you receive an introduction to find out that the person is trying to just fill time or prove to their boss that they are doing something or just talking. Talking like a LinkedIn Founder: someone who only wants to be a founder of a company on their LinkedIn profile, but do no work to actually grow their business.

I have seen this. Crazy I know.

But, if someone doesn’t respect their own time, would they respect yours as well. What if you verified this time, not just with a cup of coffee, which is what they want to do. But rather, your hourly rate.

 

So, I sent this individual my hourly rate. Guess what the answer was.

 

Nothing.

 

And I was okay with this. Of course I followed up and tried getting a response. But the second I qualified this engagement with capital the conversation changed. It went from, “I really need your help” to “I’m broke and don’t want to pay you.” 

 

Approach Their Budget Early

 

The last qualifier you can test is asking what one’s budget is, and do this early on in the conversation. I believe this is important to do early because you need to know what ballpark they are in. You don’t want to spend any additional time crafting a message that is towards something one cannot afford.

Now I get that some people truly don’t know how much something will cost, but the goal of asking the budget question is to see how much time they have put into knowing what they have to spend. Often times the answer is, ‘as little as possible’. To me, that’s a red flag because if this is an investment opportunity for their business the amount invested shouldn’t be the only number they focus on rather what kind of return on that investment can I expect. 

The next time you get a lead or an introduction, be sure to use one of these qualifiers to maximize your time. 

Introducing Inbox: A multi-series of scenarios you never want to go through but as you continue your days as a business owner you likely will. Inbox is the emails I get from those situations and how I respond. Here’s what I did when they hit my inbox: https://www.startwithhatch.com/inbox/