Lead qualification
Assess a supplied prospect against fit and buying-readiness criteria when a seller needs a qualification judgment and focused next questions.
Inputs and scope
Use ideal-customer criteria, prospect facts, pain evidence, buying group, timing, budget context and disqualifiers. Use the available evidence and identify material gaps. Do not present unverified information as independently checked.
If a missing fact changes the decision, ask a focused question and complete the parts that do not depend on it. Otherwise proceed with an explicit, reversible assumption. Do not invent evidence to fill gaps. Keep supplied dates, units, source labels and disagreement wherever they affect interpretation.
Method
- Separate account fit from opportunity readiness. A target-industry match is not evidence of an active buying process.
- Compare supplied facts with must-have criteria and disqualifiers. Mark unknowns separately from failures.
- Assess pain, consequence, urgency, authority, access and ability to act; distinguish prospect statements from seller inference.
- Use transparent qualitative ratings or user-supplied weights. Avoid precise scores that imply stronger evidence than the record supports.
- Recommend qualify further, advance, nurture or disqualify with evidence and the next decision-changing question. Keep outreach drafting optional and separate from contact discovery.
Deliver
Return qualification verdict, fit/readiness evidence table, material gaps and proposed next conversation. Match detail to the user's decision and requested length. Clearly distinguish supplied facts, reasoned interpretations and proposed actions; do not turn an illustrative calculation or scenario into an observed result.
Quality checks
- Unknown budget or authority is not automatically failure.
- Fit and readiness are reported separately.
- No enriched contacts or inferred private facts.
Example
Example request: ICP: regional service firms with 20–100 staff. Prospect has 45 staff, owner says missed calls cost bookings, wants a solution this quarter, but budget is unmentioned.
What a good response should do: Rate fit strong and readiness promising but incomplete; ask about loss magnitude, decision criteria and funding process rather than inventing a budget.