Building Sales Processes for Cold, Educated, & Vetted Prospects

“I want to expose you to this concept. Pre- and during discovery, how do you understand if a buyer is cold. How do you uncover if they’re educated. And how do you uncover if they’ve already vetted you.”

Today’s topic on intent-based sales processes will be relevant for anyone looking to up their skills around the discovery process and learn better ways to interact with buyers. I’m breaking down step one of this concept around intent-based leads and understanding how we can do a better job of triaging different buyer types based on where they’re at in the intent funnel. 

I’ll say that in another way.

For the first time in the history of B2B sales, companies are coming to sales professionals and saying, “I already know a little bit about what you do.” They may have even talked to the competition or done other research to learn more about you before ever accepting a meeting. 

As we build new sales paradigms, a buyer’s understanding of their needs and education on what you do should be what we correlate to intent, not just the digital trail or lack thereof that they leave behind.

Below is a breakdown of what a cold, educated, or vetted buyer looks like and how to interact with buyers who might be coming to you with a strong level of education and intent. 

• • Sales Discovery
  • Intent Levels
  • Moving Buyers from Cold to Educated
  • Understanding Vetted Buyers

Recap: Building Sales Processes for Cold, Educated, & Vetted Prospects

The important bits:

• • 4:47 – The topic for today is how to find out where someone is and get them down the right path as quickly as possible. To do this, you have to understand the concepts of cold, educated, and vetted buyers.
  • 6:00 – A cold buyer is somebody who hasn’t done any research or due diligence on your product. 
  • 7:11 – What if you could get a buyer a little more prepared before meeting with them? Something that helps them get a little more educated on what they’re getting into? I’ll give you some examples.
  • 8:51- Every single buyer dreads getting on the phone with salespeople because they know they’re going to get bombarded with questions. 
  • 9:50 – An educated buyer has researched your offering, has a clear business outcome they’re looking to achieve, and has an idea of timeline.
  • 11:15 – You have buyers today that are coming to you in a vetted stage. Vetted buyers are people who know or have done all the things of an educated buyer but have also talked to a peer, have done demos before you, and are coming to you looking for insights.
  • 12:21 – If you don’t have intent-based discovery questions, there is a high likelihood you will be talking about things that people already know. 
  • 13:01 – We have to get away from this mindset that the sales cycle is one-size-fits-all. Your discovery process has to be able to suss out where someone is in the actual buying process.
  • 16:24 – Today, in B2B sales, you have to be able to meet the buyer where they are from an intent level. 

Sales Discovery 

Today’s sales processes are often over-focused on the word qualification. But buyers and sales pros don’t like that word – qualification. Deciding if someone is “qualified” to meet with you doesn’t feel like the start of a good relationship. 

In reality, your first call is a discovery call, not a qualification call. 

The word discovery builds an understanding on both sides. What do we do? What do you do? Is there somewhere we can potentially work together? 

Many sales professionals might use MEDDIC or MEDDPICC or some other qualification steps to help them learn where their buyer is in the discovery process. How much do they know about your company? How much research have they done about you?  

Some buyers haven’t done any research and are just reaching out on a whim. But maybe they had a meeting with a colleague, or perhaps something popped into their head, like, “Is there a solution for this problem?” Maybe they searched Google, filled out a form, and came to you inbound. 

Maybe they reached out to someone in their network and said, “I need this problem solved. Does anybody know someone who can help?” Or maybe they went on G2 to search your competitors and found you or your company. 

This is a totally different process than a few years ago. 

Back then, there just wasn’t that much information available about organizations. Someone could visit your website but didn’t have many other resources to find information about you.

Even still, if somebody comes to your website to download a whitepaper or to attend a webinar, that does not translate to intent. You can’t track how or why they reached your site. You have no history with this person. 

On the other hand, you also shouldn’t automatically think, “Oh, they filled out a form but that’s the only interaction we’ve tracked. They’re not qualified, and their lead score isn’t high enough.” The reality may be that the buyer already did all their vetting ahead of visiting your website or downloading your content. 

So how do you understand where someone is on their path? And how do you get them further down that path as fast as possible? 

Intent Levels

Intent, in this case, is defined as the buyer’s understanding of your solution and where they are on their purchase path. With that in mind, intent can be classified into three categories: 

• • Level one is cold 
  • Level two is educated
  • Level three is vetted

Cold intent is for someone who hasn’t done any research or any due diligence on your product. They haven’t met with your competitors. They haven’t researched your offerings. They haven’t looked at pricing. They haven’t visited your website or watched a demo. 

These buyers, who aren’t aware of your product, are usually the bulk of your cold meetings from cold outreach. 

An educated buyer has researched your offering, has a clear business outcome they’re looking to achieve, and has an idea of timeline.

You want to limit the amount of “cold” discoveries you take and do your best to eliminate them by building education into your process. Here’s how.

Moving Buyers from Cold to Educated

Get buyers to be a little more prepared. This doesn’t mean sending them a PDF and saying, “Hey, please take a look at this.” They’re never going to look at that. 

Instead, send them something interactive. Maybe send a questionnaire that helps them understand where they are in their sales process. 

That’s where the opportunity is. 

Can you get a buyer to be a bit more educated on what you do? You might think, “People don’t want to do homework.” That’s true. 

So again, what are some creative, quick things you could leverage to get your buyers more educated? 

Could you come up with a quick four- to five-question survey? This would allow someone to quickly pick answers from a list of preset responses. And a survey could help you better understand their level of intent. 

You could send the survey and say, “Hey, I’m looking forward to the conversation. To save us both five to ten minutes during the initial call, could you let me know these four things? It will make for a much more productive conversation.” 

Every single buyer dreads getting on the phone with salespeople because they know they’re going to get bombarded with questions. So if you tell them the small ask you have will actually save them time, they’ll be more likely to do it.

Do you have a standardized demo recording? Something that your buyers could watch asynchronously to get an idea of what your product does? What problems does it solve? Or maybe you could ask them to check out your G2 page to see what your customers are saying. 

If a customer spends just a few minutes on the questionnaire, watches the video, or goes to G2, that customer will move into the educated tier. They have now researched your offering. They’ve thought about a clear business outcome they’re looking to achieve. And maybe also have an idea of their timeline. 

So what’s the next tier? 

Understanding Vetted Buyers

Some of the buyers coming to you have already done their research on your company or product. They’ve already talked to a peer about you. Maybe they saw a demo or two before contacting you. 

This means they’re coming to you because they’re looking for insights. They’re coming to you with a clear purpose. They’re already at step three. They want to know the path from here. They do NOT want to be qualified.

The problem is that most sales processes are only designed to meet people at step one. But the vetted client doesn’t want you to turn back their timetable and start from square one. 

So what are your intent-based discovery questions that will lead the discovery call? 

If you don’t have intent-based discovery questions, there is a high likelihood that you will start talking about things that people already know. Talking about the things that they don’t care about. 

Imagine if every purchase/product was treated the same on Amazon. There were no filters to order something day-of, on Prime Delivery, or two to three weeks from now. If you’re just browsing, you don’t care about speed. But if you know what you want, you want it ASAP.

Sales professionals have to get away from this mindset that a sales cycle is one-size-fits-all. 

The reality is some people are coming to you at step six or seven.  

So the core concept around uncovering intent-based leads and running intent-based discoveries is this… 

Does your discovery process have the ability to suss out where someone is in the actual buying process? If it doesn’t, and you don’t have a way to meet people where they’re at, you will be at a massive disadvantage. 

Do your call questions start off with, “Tell me about your budget,” or “What are your pain points?” Those are great questions, but they don’t tell you where a prospect’s level of intent is.

Everyone has a budget (whether it’s $0 or $1 million), and everyone has pain points. But it’s a much different conversation if you have to convince someone that your solution should be a priority now versus they’re already thinking about it or they’re ready to move on it.

So, what can you do before your first meeting to get people from cold to educated, from educated to vetted? 

Can you put together content that’s not in a PDF? Can you create a questionnaire? Or a quick video? Or maybe a customer story that is relevant to your prospect? 

And if someone says,” I’ve already done this. I’ve already researched this,” you can then say, “Okay, great. Tell me what the next two steps of your sales process are.” Most likely, if they’re at this stage, they already know their next steps.

Today in B2B sales, you have to be able to meet the buyer where they are from an intent level. Pre- and during discovery, how do you understand if a buyer is cold. How do you uncover if they’re educated. And how do you uncover if they’ve already vetted you. 

Then you can deliver the best possible semi-customized experience to your buyers.