Are your salespeople qualified to qualify? No, it's not a trick question, but rather a question to focus on the fallacy of the underlying premise so many salespeople rely on as they attempt to "qualify" and develop a selling opportunity. That premise is: prospects understand their problems sufficiently to not only recognize what created them, but also, aided by a few "probing" questions from salespeople, identify suitable solutions. That would be akin to patients visiting doctors with the ability to diagnose their own ailments and prescribe treatments. If patients could do that, why would they need doctors? Likewise, if prospects could "diagnose" their problems and "prescribe" and implement their own solutions, why would they need salespeople? Price schedules and order forms would suffice.

Salespeople can't rely on prospects to be thoroughly knowledgeable about their own situations. When prospects are confronted with problems, what they experience are the manifestations of the underlying causes of the problems. Their attention and focus is on that which has bubbled to the surface, instead of the whole picture. However, it is the identification of the underlying principal and contributing elements of the problems that are required to develop appropriate solutions. The more complex the problems are and the more pressing they seem to be, the less likely it is that prospects will have invested the time to look beyond the symptoms (even if they knew what to look for) to identify the origins of the problems.

Relying on prospects to be knowledgeable enough to discuss their problems and likely solutions gives rise to two unproductive situations. First, the salespeople "buy in" to the prospects' perceptions about their problem s , which rarely touch on the real causes for them. Second, the conversations quickly focus on solutions, which at best are premature and at worst are entirely inappropriate. The prospects and the salespeople may have intellectually stimulating conversations about the perceived problems and their consequences but, in the end, neither of them knows any more about the origin and evolution of the problems than they did at the outset. And, to make matters worse, those types of conversations usually end with the salespeople going off to develop presentations or proposals for possible solutions to ill-defined problems.

The implication from these situations is clear: salespeople must not only have comprehensive knowledge about the products and services they sell, but also a comprehensive understanding of the current and potential problems and challenges of the prospects on whom they call. And, they must know how to diagnose prospects' perceived problems by looking beyond the symptoms and identifying the underlying causes -- the real problems to be addressed.

If salespeople don't bring that knowledge with them on a sales call, it is unlikely that they will find it there. By knowing their prospects almost better than they know themselves, salespeople cannot only ask "probing" questions, but ask questions that help prospects discover aspects of their situations - the real problems to be addressed - which they were unaware of before the conversations. When salespeople accomplish that, they not only bring value to the relationship, but they also establish their credibility. When they can do that, they are "qualified" to qualify.

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