The Qualificator!

Sales in the Middle East can seem similar to everywhere else in the world, and for the most part it is. As mentioned in my previous posts, the Sales methodology and tools are the same that are in use across the globe. The sales engagement is inherently much longer in the Middle East region for many reasons as discussed, including the fact that there is usually the need to go through a formal RFP or Tender process.

Let's walk through a typical Middle East Sales engagement...

You, the sales person, manage to spend time with the customer, qualify the opportunity quickly and then engage your company’s resources, spend several months Piloting/POCing the solution, ticking all the boxes, and finally you submit your pricing after negotiating with the customer.

The customer loves your solution and assures you that everything is on track, it is just a matter of paperwork and you will soon get the order, "InshAllah". You go on to your forecast call and commit the deal for next quarter, thinking to yourself that you have a buffer of at least 90 days.

Half way through the next quarter, you are sitting with the customer, asking where the order is, and they inform you that all is good. The customer is happy to spend time with you, chit chat, and maybe even go out with you to dinner, shisha and most importantly, more than happy to meet your management. You take that to mean that the order will definitely come within the quarter.

Fast forward to the last week of the quarter and you are frantically trying to get hold of the customer, but they have “disappeared” and not returning your calls, messages or emails! You start panicking and begging the customer to respond, to return your calls, to give you the order!

The quarter end passes and you have missed your number. The customer finally responds and you meet them. They inform you that their management have decided to put the project on hold due to other priorities! This is just one scenario, as the customer might call you in to ask for 90% discount, or inform you that the project was awarded to your competitor, or that there will be an RFP coming out in 1 month which they would like you to respond to, alongside every competitor out there.

If you have experience Selling in the Middle East, then you should have identified a lot of red flags in the example above- obviously it wasn't qualified Middle East style. Yet, day in, day out, experienced Sales people fall into this trap and don't do a good enough job of properly qualifying an opportunity  nor do they keep qualifying throughout the process, which is a must in the Middle East.

Let's look at some of the nuances of the Middle East in the example provided above that can be applied to all Sales engagements in the region.

Middle East customers are “nice” and hospitable. What that means is that once you secure the first meeting, they will always make time for you if you ask nicely. Spending time with the customer, even if they are the decision maker, doesn't mean that the deal is guaranteed or even on track. Customers in the region will happily waste your time and theirs, even if there is no budget, and even if the project is not a priority. This has baffled me for many years. I always thought, and still do, that Time is Money. But customers in the region don’t have the same respect towards time that customers in the Western world do. Even if the individuals you are dealing with are Western, they have been indoctrinated into the ways of the Middle East!

Furthermore, Customers in the region find it difficult to say no or to tell you the truth, and as a result are willing to spend time with you and be nice to you, to avoid this confrontation. As a Sales Person, you need to be ready to challenge the customer, professionally, in every meeting, on different aspects of the opportunity. As an exampled, if the customer ever tells me that there is no competition, they are only considering our solution, alarm bells go off in my head and I restart my qualification of the opportunity from scratch, usually ending up in qualifying out. Why? This means the customer is telling you what you want to hear and avoiding/delaying the confrontation.

Furthermore, customers in the region know that the market is small and they need to keep all the vendors close to them since they might need them at some point in the future, so they are willing to spend time with you and even go out for a Shisha with you, but it doesn't mean they will give you current or future business or that they have a current need in the first place.

What that means is that more than anywhere else in the world, qualification in the Middle East is the extremely important. You need to be the superhero of qualification, the Qualificator! You will need to qualify over and over again and leverage your team to help qualify the opportunity before you even engage. You need to challenge the customer on several levels, to understand if there is a real need, and if so who the stakeholders are, deep dive into the timelines and of course understand the budget.
 And repeat this at every chance you get, professionally, and with different stakeholders. You can never qualify enough in the Middle East.

To summarize, if a customer in the Middle East spends time with you, is 'nice’ to you, and has a Shisha with you, it does not mean they will give you the business. You need to qualify hard and keep re-qualifying along the way. You need to become a Qualificator!