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90 • The 100 Greatest Ideas for Building the Business of Your Dreams

There are three sub-questions.

Are the customer's implementation resources available and allocated to this project?
Once again the professional solution seller is being upfront with what the customer
is going to have to do. A resource deficiency or skill absence should offer to the seller
an opportunity rather than a threat.

Are you prepared to put in the resources required to carry out the campaign plan?
To begin with, the answer to this will be 'No'. It is not until you have worked out the
plan and its resource implications that the answer to this question can become posi-
tive.

Are the implementation support resources from your side identified and allocated?
If you are to be convincing in your presentation of how the project will succeed if the
buyer says 'Yes', you need to know that your support will be available at the time it
will be needed.

Competitive position

All the qualification work which has gone before should allow the team to answer
the crucial question of whether or not they are likely to win this business against the
competition.

The biggest waste of any salesperson's time is the time spent on bids and ten-
ders that are then lost. At the end this is what qualification is about: 'Am I spending
my own and my team's time wisely? Is there anywhere else that this time could be
more profitably used?'

Can you identify one or more areas where you have competitive advantage?
Without this, the team is selling on price. That is, if all other things are equal, the