Do they need your solution?

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You are in contact with a prospect. Either he has contacted you to offer you a sales opportunity, or you have contacted him to see if there is an opportunity to sell your product or services.



Qualified
This step is crucial. If sales opportunities reach the “qualification” stage, it means that you have qualified them as an opportunity you can win.

The most well-known qualification criterion and a good starting point is BANT:

Budget: Do they have a budget to dedicate to your solution?
Authority: Are you addressing the right person within the company?

Timing: Do they have a afghanistan cell phone number list specific date to buy? Or is it just “someday”?
If a sales opportunity is qualified, it moves to the "qualified" stage. If it is disqualified, you should not spend any more time on it.

Your time is valuable, and it's better spent on prospects who are likely to buy.

Pro tip : You may be in a business where you often don’t talk to your prospect at the right time. And while you don’t want to spend your time on them right now, you also don’t want to lose track of them. In this case, create an additional “Fridge” step behind the “Lost” step for these prospects. That way, you can easily come back to them later.

the fridge stage in the sales pipeline
Consider adding a “fridge” step for opportunities you should revisit later.


Proposal made
If a prospect is qualified, you can start making them an offer.

Once you've made that proposal, you're basically waiting for them to decide; or to ask for changes to your proposal of course.



Won / Lost
This is where you close the deal.

Did they buy? Congratulations, you won the deal.

Did they fall out of the sales pipeline at any point? Mark the opportunity as lost and move on.