The Ultimate Guide To Qualifying Clients, Friends, And Girls

If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day.

-Naval Ravikant

What’s The Point In Qualifying Clients, Friends, And Girls?

Time/value is of the essence.

Life’s too short to tolerate “good enough“.

Investing your energy into the wrong things deprives both yourself and others of a better life.

You owe it to your potential to minimize headaches and maximize outcomes.

This post will save you tons of time and peace of mind while helping you make more money in the process.

When you get to the end, you’ll know exactly what a quality client looks like.

Let’s do it.

Table of Contents

Qualifying Clients: The Basics

Qualifying clients is surprisingly easy.

Sales pros have a repeatable process they follow every single time. And this process is powered by a set of iron principles.

If you don’t have a strong process, then you will default to the process of others. You can be casual in your demeanor, but you can’t be casual in your process.

You can’t control the outcome, but you can control the screening process.

Your first priority is to get in touch with a decision maker (someone who can actually approve the purchase and pay you). If you skip this step, you will waste tons of time and energy interacting with someone who can’t even take action.

You see, blindly accepting + targeting all leads is extremely foolish. It costs you tons of time, energy, and stress in the long run.

Next, you want to find the deal killing objections. Only start providing value after they’ve passed through your disqualification process.

But it doesn’t stop there. Qualification is an ongoing process. Use gut feelings to disqualify, and logic to qualify.

All prospects are not created equal.

Closing a deal / sale is not success. You have to do it with the right people who are easy to work with.

It’s insane how much of a difference quality people can make.

They’re understanding, encouraging, positive, and more.

Even better, quality leads give you quality referrals.

Low-end people will attempt to abuse you and expect you to put up with it.

Here’s How To Set Your Boundaries

Always work with the smartest, brightest, most competent people you can find.

-Jack Trout

You want to use discipline in qualifying and managing your leads.

After all, everything valuable has a barrier to entry.

The main problem people have is weak boundaries.

It’s important to position your brand to attract those for whom price isn’t an option. Avoid people who are overly concerned with price. In addition, you want to repel everyone who isn’t serious about solving their problem.

Bring up the most common objections as a reason why they aren’t a fit.

EXAMPLE:

Successful music producer Zaytoven charges a starter amount to weed out the less serious prospects.

This saves time and energy.

(Skip to 12:08)

How does this apply to women?

You may have heard about the concept of a choosing fee.

The basic principle is to require an upfront investment to get your attention (i.e. be “heavy” to move).

Force people to reveal themselves as worthy of your energy.

After all, the more people are willing to pay, the more they value your product/service.

Some clients pester you with questions. However, they’re actually uninterested. They’re simply looking for validation and interaction.

Don’t believe me?

Politely ask a demanding client to do their research before buying your service and see how they respond.

People who approach you unprepared don’t want to buy your service anyway. They dwell on what’s unimportant.

They’ll ask a bunch of questions and disappear when you present your quote.

Make your hours clear
Make your penalties clear
Make your expectations clear

(Note: in the rare case an uninformed prospect would like to buy, make it clear you aren’t to be played with.)

How can you do so?

Always charge for research / pre-work / demos.

But here’s the most important part.

Do You Know What Kinds Of Questions To Ask?

If you don’t qualify your leads you’re wasting long-term time and energy.

— Mister Infinite (@mister_infinite) September 19, 2016

The deeper you get into the game, the more clear the vision must be.

The clearer the vision, the harder it is to BS.

How can you make sure your client knows what he’s talking about?

By asking detailed questions of course.

And the more detailed your questions the better.

Here are some brief examples:

What are your business goals?
What is your company’s monthly revenue?
What made you pull the trigger and contact me today?

The more experience you gain, the easier it’ll be to spot time-wasters from the get go.

Qualifying Clients – Other Applications

As you know, it’s important to make connections across various fields.

Let’s get macro with it.

Not only does qualifying apply to clients, it also applies to friendships and relationships.

What do low value “friends”, clients, and women all have in common?

They increase feelings of doubt in your abilities.

In addition, they reinforce a lower-value identity.

Low-value frames are extremely abusive to be around.

When you feel less about yourself, you allow “sneak haters” into your circle.

These people drain your energy and mistreat you in subtle (and sometimes blatant) ways.

Anyone with any self-respect would avoid them at all costs.

When you love yourself (have inner-strength), there’s only room for good vibes and encouragement.

The questions will obviously change when you’re qualifying a potential friend/girlfriend.

The main lesson here is to keep the overall frame in mind.

(Fact: Desperation attracts the worst.)

Quality mental models limit your choices from the get go.

A huge mind-f*ck for me was finding no difference in difficulty of surrounding myself with winners or losers. The real challenge is winning the inner-battle.

There are lots of value mismatches out there. Don’t let delusional egos throw you off your game.

Once you’ve established momentum, it’s a lot easier to feel like “you deserve it”. It’s effortless to dismiss low-value frames. They become flat out WRONG to you.