Simple Way to Create a Prospect Scorecard
It’s easy to create a prospect scorecard (or virtual prospect scorecard if you’re a virtual agency or independent agent). First, start with your top ten criteria for an ideal, in profile client (if you don’t have ten, you can select 5 or 6). Criteria can include items like industry, revenues, growth, target buyer title, specific insurance requirements, participating employees, group coverage needs, and other attributes relevant to your ideal prospect. Once you have identified your top ten (or whatever number you select), you can rate them on your scorecard on a scale of 1 to 10, a 10 being your perfect prospect and a 1 not even worthy of discussion. We currently use a 5 point scale on our own scorecard, and our sales agents consider anyone less than a 3 as an unlikely prospect. If they aren’t a 3 or better, they don’t even make it to the pipeline. The scorecard helps producers (salespeople) match their prospect against specific and quantifiable criteria selected for your ideal prospect profile, turning the subjective into the objective. They can also compare their current prospects with prior opportunities which were won and lost, and match their current prospects against this historical information. Prospect scorecards are easy to create and useful for almost any type of company.
Once you have created your scorecard criteria, you can simply add ideal buyer attributes, or to simplify the process, a prospect identification acronym. The acronym we use is “BUD”, which stands for Budget, Urgency and Decision maker. If we are speaking with a principal or CEO, and they understand the pricing paradigm, we have a capital “B” and know that the budget will not be an issue. If we are speaking with a marketing manager and they are uncertain, we have a lower case “b”, and they are a less qualified prospect. The same holds true with urgency and decision maker. If we have all three, and the prospect score is a 3 or better, we know they are very likely to become a client.
BUD can be modified for your insurance agency or company. For example, perhaps your prospect identification acronym will be BUNT (Broker allegiance, Urgency to change, New insurance needs, Timing). What’s an example for “Timing”; a new person or organizational change is causing your prospect to rethink their needs and their current broker, thus the timing is a capital “T”. The prospect identification acronym needs to be short and simple, and should include critical qualification elements of your sales cycle. I remember using the scorecard and BUD at a company about 10 years ago, as we rapidly ramped up our pipeline and sales volume. Salespeople would frequently walk into my office and say, “I have aBUD-qualified prospect.” Or they might ask for help, “can you come to XYZ Company on Thursday, they are a 9 on the scorecard and BUD qualified.” We were all speaking the same language, having turned subjective terms like “good prospect”, “hot prospect” and “well qualified prospect” into quantifiable terms like “a 9″ which is “BUD qualified”. Make this part of your everyday language and weave it into the fabric of your sales culture.
Tags: Insurance