Qualifying a lead is deciding, before the next hour of selling goes to it, whether the lead has a problem the seller solves, a person who decides and a reason to act soon. In a 2013 Journal of Marketing study of 461 sales reps at four firms, the more experienced reps responded more to the quality of lead prequalification and less to managers tracking their follow-up (Sabnis, Chatterjee, Grewal and Lilien, 2013, abstract). A founder who sells alone does both jobs the study splits between marketing and sales: the screening and the follow-up.
What counts as qualified
The 2011 Harvard Business Review study of lead response counted a lead as qualified once the firm had a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker (Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, 2011, subscription); one of its authors ran a sales software company. This site sets the bar one step higher for a solo seller. Three things are confirmed in conversation before a lead counts as qualified:
- The problem is one the seller solves, described in the buyer's own words.
- The seller knows who decides, and is talking to that person or has a clear path to them.
- There is a reason to act inside the seller's planning window, such as a deadline, a loss the buyer is carrying or an event that forces a change.
A lead short of that has interest. Interest goes on the record with a follow-up date; it does not get a proposal yet.
Alex Hormozi's book $100M Leads (2023) draws an earlier line, between a contact and an engaged lead who has shown some interest. The three checks above are for engaged leads only.
The leads nobody works
The 2013 study's authors call it the sales lead black hole: their abstract opens on the estimate that 70 percent of the leads marketing departments generate are never pursued by sales reps, which the authors suggest may come from competing demands on the reps' time. In their data, reps who performed better responded more to the volume of marketing leads and less to managers tracking their follow-up.
A one-person company has no marketing department handing leads to a sales team, so the same person decides which leads get worked and then works them. A lead that the scores move down the list is one the seller has chosen not to pursue this week, and the record says why.
Where BANT and MEDDIC come from
BANT stands for budget, authority, need and timeline. Sales writers usually trace it to IBM; the story has no single dated source. For a small company, its weak point is budget: a small buyer often has no budget line for a service until the day it decides to buy, so a strict budget question screens out buyers who were about to say yes.
MEDDIC stands for metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, identify pain and champion. MEDDICC, an organization that sells training in the method, says Dick Dunkel created it at the software company PTC in 1996, working with Jack Napoli under John McMahon. It was built for complex business sales with many people on the buying side. When the buyer is a founder who decides alone in one meeting, half the letters have nothing to attach to.
Both are checklists for what a seller learns before a proposal. The two scores below come earlier, when a week of replies needs putting in order.
Two scores a solo seller can keep
Fit and timing are each scored from one to three. Fit comes from research before any contact. Timing comes from what the lead says and does.
| Score | Fit | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Outside the problem or the size the seller serves | No reason to act inside the planning window |
| 2 | Has the problem, at a size the seller can serve | A reason to act, with no date on it |
| 3 | Matches the accounts the seller has already signed | A reason to act and a date the buyer named |
Fit is read first. A fit of one gets a polite close whatever the timing. For every other lead the total sets the order.
| Total, with fit of two or three | What happens |
|---|---|
| 5 or 6 | An answer today and the offer of a call |
| 4 | An answer within two days and a follow-up date |
| 3 | A short answer and a date a month out |
Fit changes only when new research changes it, and timing only when the lead says or does something new.
Made up for this example: a two-person bookkeeping firm whose last three signed accounts were small dental and medical labs gets a reply from the owner of a regional dental lab, saying the lab's part-time bookkeeper leaves soon. The lab matches the signed accounts, so fit is 3. Leaving soon is a reason to act with no date on it, so timing is 2, and the total of 5 gets an answer today and the offer of a call. On the call the owner says the bookkeeper's final day falls in March, and timing moves to 3.
Deal breakers checked before any call
A lead that hits any one of these gets no call, whatever its scores.
- The seller cannot legally or practically serve the lead, because of where it is or a license the seller does not hold.
- The problem the lead describes is one the seller does not solve.
- What the lead expects to spend is far below the seller's smallest engagement.
- Nobody the seller can reach has a path to the person who decides.
- The lead's timing is well past the planning window, with nothing to pull it forward.
- The lead is a competitor gathering information.
- The lead has asked for no more messages, or sits on the suppression list. For email, the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide allows ten business days to honor an opt-out.
When a lead is not a fit
A lead that hits a deal breaker gets a reply the same day that names the deal breaker, and the seller drafts no proposal for it. When someone else is better suited to the problem, the reply names them. The record keeps the reason, so the lead is not worked again by mistake.
The first minutes of a discovery call
The opening minutes confirm timing and look for a deal breaker. A seller working alone might ask:
- "What made you reply now?"
- "What happens if this stays as it is for six more months?"
- "Who else has a say in fixing it?"
- "What have you already tried?"
- "When would you want this solved, and what sets that date?"
The answers go into the notes in the words the buyer used. They set the timing score, and later they shape any proposal.
Where qualifying stops
A lead is qualified when the seller and the buyer agree that a proposal conversation is worth having. Offer design, pricing and negotiation start from there, and this site does not cover them. The lead qualification worksheet holds both scales and a week of blank rows, and counting outreach before judging a channel shows how many qualified conversations a revenue target needs.
Sources
- Gaurav Sabnis, Sharmila C. Chatterjee, Rajdeep Grewal and Gary L. Lilien, "The Sales Lead Black Hole: On Sales Reps' Follow-Up of Marketing Leads," Journal of Marketing 77(1), January 2013, pages 52 to 67 (abstract, Penn State research record). https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-sales-lead-black-hole-on-sales-reps-follow-up-of-marketing-le/
- James B. Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran and David Elkington, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads," Harvard Business Review, March 2011 (subscription). https://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads
- Federal Trade Commission, "CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business," August 2023, edited January 2024. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business