Qualifying A Soulmate in Your Customers

Choosing a soulmate-customer doesn't necessarily translate to you wooing those that comes into your store by roses, wine and sweet nothings or man-handling those that falls short of your expectations.  Although that does sound a bit fun (admit it), qualifying customers is important in figuring out if what you offer and what they need, perfectly meshes with each other. It's like finding a like-minded person amongst a crowd of silliness and pretentiousness, your soulmate. In this case, a dream customer.

I used to qualify them based solely on their looks and their questions (click here to learn more about it) but the thing is, that will never get one nowhere, especially if the customer is the most unassuming, quite tricky man/woman in the world. Speed dating might spell potential mates but when it concerns to customers, taking the time to know them better is the way to go.

To carefully qualify them, consider the following:

1.) Find out their current situation. 

Your product might not be necessarily right for them so it'd be best if you can discern as soon as possible if your product is the one they're looking for to avoid wasting both your time and theirs. So find out if they really need or want your product, their level of interest, when would they need to have it, who will actually use it or if they just got curious and walked inside your store.

2.) Identify a concern or problem

Why exactly are they seeking out your product? What advantages or solutions are they looking for in regards to your merchandise? Learning the difficulties they've had and the things they'd want to avoid would give you a better perspective in gauging how much they need your product.

3.) Price

This might be a most sensitive topic to bring up but knowing where they stand would give you a better measure of their purchasing capabilities. They may not be aware of the budget needed at hand, they may have the wrong budget range, they may have no budget at all or they simply don't care for the budget (sky's the limit: a favorite term amongst sales people). These conditions are important to find out early on as to give them a better idea of how much are they going to spend for your merchandise.

It's better to be clear about these things right from the start as oppose to hauling in massive time and effort for someone who doesn't know what they want or need, doesn't even know if they had a problem to begin with that led them to your merchandise and lastly, doesn't even know if they can afford it. Ask the right questions and you'll have the right soulmate-customer.