Qualifying a Prospect in Showroom Sales

by Ron Kurtus (updated 23 December 2022)

Showroom sales can apply to car sales, carpet sales, clothing sales and other types of sales where you sell a product or service from a showroom. A person who walks into your showroom is probably a potential customer or prospect. Before you can demonstrate your product or service as part of your effort to make the sale, you need to qualify the person to see what he or she wants. The process to qualify the prospect follows the AIDA process.

Questions you may have include:

What is the AIDA process?
What are each of the steps?
How does that qualify the prospect?

This lesson will answer those questions.

AIDA process to qualify

The process to qualify the prospect follows the AIDA process, often used in sales:

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

Following these steps is an effective way to qualify a prospect.

Steps in process

Details on the steps are as follows:

1. Get attention

When you first come into contact with a prospect, you need to get his or her attention. This is important if the person is preoccupied. It is also a way to put the person at ease and show that you are not a threat to be a "pushy" salesperson.

A simple, "Hello" is good to break the ice.

Never ask, "May I help you?" The typical answer is, "Just looking," and where can you go from there?

2. Determine interest

The person didn't come into the showroom to look for shoes (unless that is what you are selling). On occasion, a person may want to use the restroom or to get directions. But most of the time the person is looking for your product. You can verify that fact.

Often this is done by a simple obvious question: "Are you looking for carpets?" The answer is either "Yes" or "No."

3. Find desire

You want to find out what the prospect is really looking for and desires. Is there some special model or color the person wants? Is there some price range of interest?

For example, a car salesman might ask, "Are you looking for a sedan or SUV?"

It is good to give the person a choice. If you would ask, "What type do you want?" the person may often not really know.

4. Take action

Once you have a good idea of what the person is looking for, you can take action by showing him or her the product and moving into the demonstration phase of selling.

Result of process

Qualifying the prospect is very important. Not only do you find out what he or she is specifically looking for, but you also clarify things in the mind of the prospect. This is an important step in getting the person ready to become a buying customer.

Summary

You should qualify the person who walks into your showroom to verify he or she is a potential customer and find out what is wanted, so you can demonstrate your product or service. The process to qualify the prospect follows the AIDA process of Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

Find out what they want to buy