How to Qualify Your Consulting Clients

In today's edition of THE INDEPENDENT, let's talk about your sales process:

When you think about qualifying your consulting clients, do you consider BOTH sides of the equation?

In other words, are you qualifying your potential client as much as they're qualifying you?

As independent consultants, most of us worry about convincing potential clients that we're the best fit for their engagement.

We don't think of this as a two-way street, where both parties are qualifying each other.

Think of this as going on a date.

I've been married for 24 years, so I haven't dated in a very long time. You might be in a similar situation, but let's use a dating analogy to explain this anyway.

Are you coming across as someone who's most interested in getting the potential client to like you and be interested in a second date?

Or, are you confident and strong in your capabilities, setting up your process so it's mutual, where you AND the potential client are vetting each other?

You might be worried about turning away work, and not feel in a position to be as selective as you'd like to be.

Even if you aren't fully utilized right now, or are in between clients, there are benefits to qualifying your clients, to decide if they earn a spot on your client roster:

1. You land higher-quality clients.

2. You protect your capacity for the ideal clients you do want to work with.

3. You increase your close rate by coming across more expertly and confident.

For  more on this, including a tool you can use to qualify potential clients, I've recorded Episode 178 of the podcast - How to Qualify Your Consulting Clients

• Listen to Episode 178

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