How Do You Qualify Leads?

When a prospect contacts you, how to do determine whether this person is ready to do business with you - or is just looking for information? Not all people who contact you are ready to buy. You need a system in place to help you decide whether your prospect is ready to buy or sell, if they’re still in the information gathering stage, or if they’re just a bad fit for you.

Not all people who contact you are ready to buy. For each phone call or email you receive, you must determine:

1. Who is contacting you?
2. How did they find you? (so you can keep track of your marketing ROI)
3. What stage of the decision making process are they in?
4. Are they qualified to do business with you?

The next step is to classify each contact based on how good of a prospect he/she is at this current time. Generally, most people that contact you will fall into one of the following categories:

Inquiry: When people contact you in any way - via phone, email, website, etc - they are making an inquiry. They want to know more about you and whether you can help them. Here, you know nothing about them, while they know at least enough information to contact you. At this stage, you have no idea if they have a problem you can solve and can/will pay your fees to hire you.

Lead: Inquiries become leads when you pre-qualify them. This is the basic information you need to know to determine whether this prospect is worth setting up a phone or face-to-face consultation. If they are still in the information gathering process, you should get permission to add them to your mailing list and/or offer to send them free information - thus adding them to your follow up system.

Qualified Lead: Leads become “qualified” if they meet your criteria for your ideal prospect. Do are they ready and motivated to buy? Are they the sole decision maker(s)? (If not, who else are?) Are they pre-qualified for financing? Do they have a set move date? Some questions you might ask:

• how long have you been looking for a home
• where do you live now and how long have you lived there
• are you renting or do you own a home
• will you need to sell your present home to purchase a new one?
• have you seen any homes that you really liked?
• how soon are you thinking of moving?
• what price range are you considering?
• could you describe your present home, citing what you like and dislike about it?
• do you have any special requirements for your new home?

Keep in mind - just because someone isn’t yet a qualified lead doesn’t mean you should discard their information. Rather, you should put them back into your follow up system so that when the time comes and they do become a qualified lead, they think of contacting you first.