This document provides guidance on how to qualify deals and close sales by understanding the needs and decision-making process of prospects. It outlines 8 key questions to ask prospects to gather needed information on their budget, timeline, needs, and decision criteria. Understanding the answers to these questions is critical for moving deals forward or understanding why they may be stalled. The document emphasizes that preparation is key, and salespeople should plan their calls to ask these qualifying questions at appropriate times and confirm the answers to properly qualify deals and make closing easier.

1. Is your deal qualified to close?
Closing the deal starts with building a solid relationship with the people who will make the
decision, clearly understanding their needs, matching your offering to their needs to show
them the fit, providing your offering for a fair price and asking for the business. Not to over
simplify, I know there are demos, trials, proposals and other things that need to happen in
some cases.
The single most important part of closing a deal is preparation. The groundwork of all
sales deals starts with your ability to gather the information about what the prospect
needs. Here are 8 questions you'll need to find the answer to before you can close the
deal:
8 Qualifying Questions to ask your prospect
1. What is your budget?
2. Who else besides yourself will be involved in making the decision?
3. What is the best way to include everyone involved in the decision making
process?
4. What is your timeline for implementation?
5. What is your timeline for making a decision?
6. How will our solution meet your needs?
7. What other solutions have you considered?
8. On what factors will you make your decision?
Many times, salespeople tell me they are having trouble closing a deal. I ask them to tell
me the situation and the answers to those questions. Typically, they can't answer all of
them but they were ready to close. Once they go back and ask those questions they are
usually able to move the sale forward or at least understand why the sale is stalled.
Make it part of your sales call planning to ask these questions at the appropriate times and
confirm the answers. If you do, closing will be much easier.

2. Here are some underpinning principles of a decision-based selling system we will use at
LightBridge:
 The seller's job is to help people understand what their systems require in order to change.
 Only a person working or living within a culture or system can understand it. (The seller can
never truly understand the buyer's system because it is so complex and dynamic - if you
are in any doubt about this think how long it takes to really get to know an organization
when you start a new job...)
 People only make a change when they're sure they can manage the resulting chaos.
 A seller is uniquely positioned to help the buyer discover how to solve a problem within
their system.
 Only the buyer, never the seller, is able to work their way through the decision within the
system. However, the seller can help the buyer do this because the seller has the macro
view.
 The buyer needs to recognize all the specifics of what a solution will entail within his or her
unique environment.
 By matching the buyer's unique buying criteria, the seller is a true advisor and can be easily
differentiated from the competition.
 The seller is uniquely positioned to be a brand ambassador for the supplier.
This decision-based system will help buyers discover:
1. All of the elements that need to be included within their purchasing decision, and
2. The systems variables that need to be accounted for as a result of a purchasing decision,
so their internal systems stay intact.
Traditional selling is based on the product or service sale, and yet until buyers know how
decisions and new purchases will affect their culture they will delay their decisions.
This methodology is a front-end decision-facilitation methodology, used by sellers, to lead
a buyer through the examination of all the variables that need to be included in deciding
how a new solution will enter their systems.
It is different to traditional sales techniques, which invariably lead buyers through an
information process to strategically place a product or service. The method helps buyers
how to align all organizational variables affected by the change, so as to prevent chaos
once the change is made.
As result, the methodology enables multiple-point decision-making to an extent that the
sales person effectively becomes an organizational consultant to the buying organization,
by focusing strongly on the decision-influencing teams and systems within it. Moreover,
this selling system is an adjunct to the normal sales process that supports the buyer's
buying patterns. Conventional sales methods can be added once the buyer has aligned all
of their decision variables. "Do you want to sell? or have someone buy?"

3. By helping the buyer make sense of the system they live and work within, the sales person
becomes a part of the buyer's decision team and therefore operates as a true consultant.
The sales person must therefore help the buyer become aware of the variables within the
buyer's organizational system, and how the purchase of the new product or service will
affect it.
QUALIFICATION QUESTIONS & REQUIREMENTS
PAIN & NEED Discovery
 What are you trying to solve or accomplish using Cloud Based Storage that you are not receiving today
with your current solution?
a. Capture every reason a prospective client might want to buy
b. Quantify the pain, issue or goal, that can be addressed by LBD
 How do you currently use your storage for aging data; sharing data; data protection?
a. How is that working for you?
b. Is anything missing?
c. If there is something further you'd want but aren't getting?; what's stopping you from getting what
you want from your sales training?; From your (function) people?
d. How are you currently set up to fix this problem with the current resources you've got in place
(i.e. Current vendors)?
What's stopping you from using your current resources to fix the problem?
STAKEHOLDERS
 Determine who is most affected by the problem or need
 Consider who has the most to gain and who has the most to lose from the pain, issue or goal
 Only list those individuals who can make or influence a buy decision
 OK to list multiple positions for each business issue statement
CLIENT has MONEY to spend on this project
 If the problem can be solved, will the corporation spend money on the solution?
 What is your annual storage, storage related software and storage operations budget?
DESIRED OUTCOME
 Desired Outcome provides a resolution for the business issue with which they are associated
 Desired Outcome statements should always tie your why buy statements to your business issue
statements
o Unique selling proposition - "Why should I do business with you and not somebody else?
o A “Why Buy” statement is the value your solution/products delivers or is realized (and is agreed
to by the customer) in terms of COST REDUCTION; COST AVOIDANCE: REVENUE
INCREASE
o What is unique about your business or brand versus your direct competitors?
o Which of these factors are most important to your prospects?
o Which of these factors are most difficult for your competitors to imitate?
o Which of these factors can be most easily understood by your prospects?
 Desired outcome statements can be similar to why buy statements with the addition of a tangible,
quantifiable result that can be measured

4.  Single need statements, split the statement if the desired outcome is too complex – be specific as
possible
 State the desired outcome from the customers perspective
DETERMINE BUYING PROCESS
 There must be some history in how you ended up with your current storage infrastructure system
situation. What needs to happen with your decision team before they decide to do something different?
 What would need to know in order to consider doing something different from what you are currently
doing in the area of cloud based storage?
 How will you know that whatever skills you decide to add will work with what you are currently doing, so
that there won't be a breakdown, and you won't lose the success you've already attained?
 What type of decision would you and your team need to make that's different from the one you made to
have the storage you are now running?
 How do you plan on aligning the management and initiatives so that if you decide to add new cloud
based storage, they will be happy to work with you on the change?
 What criteria would you need to have filled to understand that a different or alternate storage approach
would work alongside the approach you are currently using to give you?
SUCCESS CRITERIA/MEASUREMENT
 How would you know that a chosen provider or solution would meet that criteria?
 What would you need to know or see from us to know that our material would meld with what you've got
in place?
 How would you know we could deliver this and match your criteria?
 What success criteria will you use to measure the successful outcome of a Cloud Based Storage
solution from LightBridge?
 What Cloud Storage vendors and products have you had success with in the past? Why?
 What are the key training performance indicators you are measured against?
 Since bringing Lightbridge’s Archive Cloud Storage Solution into your organization would necessitate
changes in your normal operating procedures, what would your decision team need to understand
before they'd be willing to help with the success of the change process?
CLIENT ORGANIZATION
 Who is the recipient or user of the Cloud Storage system?
 Who makes the decision to buy the Cloud Storage system?
IDENTIFY THE COMPETITION
 Do you have an archive storage vendor?
 How do you deliver archive storage today?
Note: Capture understanding of current approaches.
WHAT TYPE OF STORAGE TECHNOLOGY DO YOU USE?
Note: Capture understanding of technology