Business problem qualification is the process of asking questions to determine whether a prospect has any of the business problems that your company’s offerings can address, and to quantify the impact of these business problems.
What is a business problem? A business problem is any activity or outcome that negatively impacts a business. Examples of negative impacts include reductions in revenue, profits, customer satisfaction, employee productivity, job satisfaction, etc. Here is an example of a business problem description:
Many mission-critical software applications (e-business, manufacturing, point-of-sale, etc.) need to access relational databases in order to function. If a database has problems (goes down or suffers data loss or corruption), application downtime can cost companies tens of thousands of dollars per minute in lost sales, lost customers, and lost opportunities.
Unfortunately, most product/service/solution sales training programs do not address business problems. Instead, they focus on teaching salespeople to regurgitate exhaustive lists of product features and benefits. There is some value in a salesperson being aware of key features and benefits, as features are what provide solutions to business problems. However, if salespeople just spew long lists of features and benefits at prospects, in essence they are hoping that the prospects are already aware of their own business problems, and will somehow figure out for themselves which features can solve their business problems. This is a very inefficient way to sell. Plus, salespeople run the risk that prospects will not figure out the linkages between business problems and features, or that prospects will become bored and “switch off” before potentially valuable features are identified.
Business problem identification is too important to leave to chance. Salespeople sell much more effectively and efficiently when they become conversant in the specific business problems that each of their offerings address, and the questions they can ask to determine whether these business problems exist. This type of training is discussed in Why Most Sales Training Programs Fail.
Even when salespeople become experts in business problems and qualifying questions, their education is not complete. Salespeople also need to be taught questions they can ask to quantify the impact of specific business problems. Quantified impacts are dollar values or percentages with associated time frames that can be assigned to specific business problems. For example, in the earlier business problem description, the quantified impact is “tens of thousands of dollars per minute”.
Quantified impacts are an invaluable aid to closing sales. How? If the quantified impact of a business problem exceeds the investment required to fix the problem, a buying decision becomes easy to justify. The larger the difference is between the quantified impact and the required investment, the easier it becomes to close the sale. If the quantified impact is a multiple of the required investment (for example, a quantified impact of millions of dollars versus a required investment of thousands of dollars), the buying decision becomes “a no-brainer”.
Here is an important caveat: In order for a quantified impact to add value to the selling process, the prospect must be the source of the numbers. Why? In general, prospects don’t trust salespeople. Many have been exposed to Hunter/Hard Closers who were more interested in making sales than they were in providing value. Plus, prospects recognize that salespeople have a vested interest in building a compelling business case that can be used to support a buying decision. This causes prospects to discount any information that salespeople provide. However, if the prospect is the source of the information, it takes on the veneer of unquestioned truth. This makes learning how to ask quantifying questions a valuable skill indeed!