Disqualification is completely up to us. Just because somebody comes in, wants what we have to sell, and has their checkbook ready, doesn't mean we have to sell it to them. For those that really like to help people, that can be a challenge. You can see your prospect is in pain, so it's hard for you to disqualify them, because you know you can help them.
But we can't want it more than they want it for themselves! They may not be willing and able to do all the things necessary for us to help them.
It's easy for us to see that we can help someone. But if they really weren't a good fit, we've invested our time, energy, and resources to help them, and it's wasted. Every wrong person that we attempt to help, we cheat one or more of the right people out of it.
That's the mindset you have to have!
If you see red flags, say to yourself, "If I take this on, how many of the right people am I going to be cheating out of my time?"
Time is finite. You only have so much! So when you find yourself in a situation where someone really wants to buy, you need to reverse roles with them. They need to sell you on why you should work together.
I have a counterpart in another Sandler office that does something that works very effectively for him. He starts out every conversation with someone like this:
"Can I tell you why we're not going to work together?"
That's the very beginning of his conversation with everybody! He is very smooth at it, and it doesn't sound awkward or forced, because he's done it for years.
He'll follow it up with something that starts out like this, "People in your industry usually..."
If his prospect is a good fit, they'll come back with something like, "Wait, that's not how I do things!"
Talk about guts! He turns it around, and they have to sell him on taking them as a client!
Of course, if you want to do anything remotely like that, you need to have a lot in your sales pipeline already.
