Qualify with the four-letter test

1. Your advertising brings in three kinds of people

Advertising splits your audience into three buckets.

The yeses: the lay-downs. Lay-downs buy your thing no matter what. It is worth so much to them that they will go out of their way to buy. The advertising itself closed them; you only need to show up and take payment. For most businesses, this bucket is the only source of customers. With these people you would have to try to mess up the sale, and some businesses manage it.

The nos: the unqualified. Unqualified people are a bad fit for the product. The example given is a person in one state who opts in to a gym offer in another. This tends to happen because of confusion about three things: what you sell, the results you promise, and how those results happen. In short, the advertising pulled in the wrong person.

The maybes: the people on the fence. They value what you sell but hesitate to trade money for it. They might buy, and they might not. Most people who are interested in what you sell fall into this bucket, and they are the people closing is trained for. The salesperson's job is to check their boxes, close the deal, and finish the job the advertising started. Closing decides who gets the large number of customers in this third bucket: the people who might say yes, if only somebody closed them.

Do not believe the myth that some prices, or some buyers, "would never" buy without a salesperson. People buy cars online with their credit cards. People have bought and sold property for millions on the internet. It is not impossible, only a smaller pool. You can advertise well enough to get someone to buy on their own. But when you do, you typically also have a large group of other people you could convince too, by explaining away their concerns and nudging them over the line. So better advertising brings more maybes, and better ads also reach more people. Better ads make the pie bigger; closing gets you a bigger slice of it.

2. The test: STAR

Use common sense: qualify prospects before you sell to them. Trying to sell somebody a product well beyond their means wastes everyone's time. And an unqualified prospect is not a sales problem. It is an advertising problem, which fits the second bucket above.

To qualify a prospect, make sure they have every letter of STAR:

Letter	Stands for	The prospect has
S	Situation	the problem to solve
T	Timing	the time to solve it
A	Authority	the authority to decide
R	Resources	the money to spend

A prospect with all four is a STAR prospect.

How to run it on a call, letter by letter:

• Situation. Establish that they have the problem your product solves.
• Timing. Establish that they have the time to solve it.
• Authority. Establish that they can make the decision themselves.
• Resources. Establish that they have the money to spend.

The questions you use to establish each letter are not given here. This page gives no script for them.

3. Why a STAR prospect still has to be closed

Prospects fib, and they change their answers. That is why you train closing as well as qualifying.

Three of the letters have a matching objection, each with its own page:

• time: SOP 105 — Handle time and resourcefulness objections;
• the partner or another decision maker: SOP 104 — Handle the spouse or partner;
• money, where "I can't afford it" is described as the far rarer money objection: also SOP 105.

Sorting an objection by kind is SOP 99 — Classify an objection.

4. Close them anyway: the practice rule

A rule of closing covers the prospects who do not pass. Its heading: yellows are golds; be a trashman; practice on unqualified leads.

• Reps matter. The more you close, the better you get, so you want as many repetitions as possible.
• Be an equal-opportunity closer. As long as the person has the problem to solve, try to close them.

That may seem to contradict qualifying, if STAR there means the qualification test (see the flag in section 5). The rule says it does not, mainly for three reasons, in this order:

1. people lie;
2. you already have the time blocked for the consult;
3. you might as well practice closing, which makes you better faster.

Less qualified prospects are a bigger challenge than lay-downs, which makes them the perfect chance to practice. And you might just make some money too.

Read against section 2, the one letter the rule keeps is the S: the person must still have the problem to solve.

SOP 84 — Score and route inbound leads, section 4, already carries the story behind the heading: a rep who took other reps' yellow leads as free practice and kept closing them. There, yellow is the middle band of a red, yellow and green score. Whether this rule's "yellows" means the same band is not stated here. Not established on this page. SOP 84, section 1, carries a different move: taking leads unlikely to buy off the calendar before the call, to free time for the likely ones.

5. Flag: STAR is spelled out differently

The same letters are spelled out differently in the practice rule.

• As a qualification test: Situation, Timing, Authority, Resources, as in section 2.
• In the practice rule: the rule that says practicing on unqualified leads "may seem in contrast to STAR" spells it Situation, Task, Action, Result.

What each reading costs you:

• If the rule means the qualification test, its "contrast" is exactly the tension in section 4: STAR screens people out, and the rule tells you to close them anyway. The three reasons then answer that tension directly.
• If the rule means Situation, Task, Action, Result, it is naming a different four-part method that is not explained anywhere near it, and the "contrast" it answers is not stated.

This page does not settle which reading is right. The spelling used in section 2 is the one given with a definition and a use.

6. What this page does not decide for you

• What to ask to establish each letter. Not established on this page.
• How far below the bar a prospect can be before practicing on them wastes the time. This page gives no figure for it; the only condition stated is that they have the problem to solve.
• Whether to cancel or keep a booked call with a prospect who fails STAR. SOP 84 section 1 takes leads unlikely to buy off the calendar before the call. Section 4 of this page closes a booked prospect who fails the test, as long as they have the problem to solve. This page does not settle which reading is right.
• Whether to try to close a prospect below your entry bar. The practice rule closes anyone who has the problem to solve (section 4). SOP 208 — Set prerequisites, raise lead quality and add friction keeps anyone under a set bar off the calendar, and asks who you ought to be selling to rather than whom you can sell. This page does not settle which reading is right.
• Whether to close a prospect who is not the customer you want. The practice rule closes anyone with the problem to solve (section 4). SOP 229, section 6.1 says to say no to bad customers, or the ones with the most money are driven off. Closing them buys practice and some sales now; saying no gives up that money to keep the better customers. This page does not settle which reading is right.

7. The checklist

Question	The answer
The three buckets	Yeses (lay-downs), nos (unqualified), maybes (on the fence)
Who closing is for	The maybes
Where unqualified prospects come from	It tends to be confusion about what you sell, the results you promise or how they happen
The letters	Situation, Timing, Authority, Resources
What each letter needs	The problem, the time, the authority to decide, the money
Why still close a STAR prospect	Prospects fib and change their answers
Close an unqualified prospect?	Yes, as long as they have the problem to solve: for practice, and you might make some money
The open flag	STAR is also spelled Situation, Task, Action, Result

8. What this page does not cover

Lead scoring and routing are SOP 84. Setting prerequisites and friction before anyone reaches a call is SOP 208 — Set prerequisites, raise lead quality and add friction. Objection handling is not covered on this page beyond where each letter leads.