As your company grows and your schedule gets busier, qualifying your leads before your first Discovery or Design Call is a prudent way to make sure you are only spending your valuable time on leads that could potentially turn into (the right kind) of business! Here is a quick guide for how (and why!) to qualify your incoming interior design leads. 

Some designers choose not to pre-qualify their leads for the following reasons: 

  • They are not yet busy, and value the opportunity to take every Discovery Call, even just as a means for practicing their sales skills and confidence. 
  • They have services for a variety of price points (Example: Virtual vs. Full-Scale design), and don’t want to weed out clients based on budget. 
  • They are building their email audience and want to collect as many contacts as possible, in case they can convert to business later down the line. 

If any of these pertain to you, maybe you want to think twice before taking on any of the lead qualification strategies outlined below! 

However, if you are really busy and looking for a way to make sure that any one-on-one conversations you have are promising to turn into a closed deal, lead qualification is your best way forward. 

One of the easiest ways to spot any “red flags” before wasting too much time on a lead that will never be the right client for you is to qualify your leads as much as possible. The most common qualification points are: 

  • Budget – If they cannot afford your services, that is not likely to change no matter how great your sales skills are. 
  • Timeline – If they want to begin work in the next month, and you are fully booked through the end of the year, there’s likely not going to be a solution that works for both you and the client. 
  • Values – Remember, you are going to be in this client’s home and spending time with them regularly. If you get a bad feeling or are treated poorly in the beginning, take note! 

 

How And Why To Qualify Leads From Your Website 

Publicly including information like pricing, availability/timeline, and how your process works right on your website will help clients determine if your business is a good fit for them. This puts the client in the position to pre-qualify themselves. However, there are a few things to think about before adding all of this information to your web copy: 

  • If the client never reaches out through the contact form, you never get their email or other contact info. This is a missed opportunity to add them to your audience and engage them in the future. 
  • While you want your website to be thorough, you don’t want it to feel overwhelming. Be careful of overloading the primary pages on your website with too much information. It is better to include internal links to secondary pages with more details. 

 

How And Why To Qualify Leads Through Your Automated Funnels

In order to save on web development time and encourage more (less qualified) contacts to reach out through your form or booking calendar, you could instead include your qualifying information in your automated email funnels. 

For example, every contact who reaches out through the website might receive: 

  1. A welcome packet with information on your pricing and process. This educates the contact so that they can qualify themselves a bit more before booking the Discovery Call. 
  2. Before the Discovery Call, you might automatically send a design questionnaire (sign up to 4Dbiz) to get our free Design Questionnaire template) with very specific questions about budget, desired style, ideal timeline, etc. This will give you the information you need to determine if this client is a good fit. 

 

How And Why To Qualify Leads In The Discovery Call

Ultimately, whether or not you have done any pre-qualification before your Discovery Call, your first touch point is the biggest tool you have for spotting red flags and weeding out the clients who are not a good fit for you. 

This is where you can get a sense of both the tangibles (budget, timeline, etc.) and the intangibles, like how this client communicates and what they expect from your collaborative relationship. 

 

Ready to create a lead qualification system and elevate your lead-to-sale funnel? Contact 4Dbiz today!

Our Marketing Team can help with everything from strategy, to content creation and implementation.