Lead qualification

PortifyLead turns LinkedIn conversations into an AI Sales Brief, and its fields are these same questions: need, timing, budget, authority, decision process and competitors. Each one is filled only when the conversation shows it, and marked “Not detected” when it does not.

How do you qualify a lead in sales?

Check the lead against the customers you serve, find out whether they have a problem you solve, then confirm they can buy: budget, the authority to decide, and a reason to act soon. Do it in that order, because a lead that fails on fit does not need a budget conversation.

In practice that is five steps:

1. Write down who you sell to: industry, company size, the role that feels the problem.
2. Research before you reach out. The LinkedIn profile and the company page answer most fit questions without asking.
3. Ask about the problem first. Budget and authority questions land better once the prospect has told you what is wrong.
4. Score what you heard against one framework, the same one every time.
5. Record the answers and the next step where the whole team can see them, which usually means the CRM.

What is the lead qualification process?

It is the path a lead takes from first contact to a real opportunity. Marketing usually qualifies first, on fit and interest, and passes a marketing qualified lead (MQL) to sales. Sales then qualifies on need and readiness, and a lead that passes becomes a sales qualified lead (SQL) and then an opportunity in the CRM.

Small teams often skip that pass from marketing to sales: the same seller finds, qualifies and works the lead. The steps stay the same. What changes is that nobody else is there to catch a guess, so writing down what was actually said matters more.

What are the lead qualification criteria?

The criteria are fit, need, budget, authority, timing and, for larger deals, the decision process. Every framework is a different way of grouping them.

• Fit: the company and the role match the customers you serve.
• Need: they have a problem your product solves, in their words.
• Budget: money exists, or can be found, for a solution.
• Authority: you are talking to the person who decides, or you know who does.
• Timing: there is a date, deadline or event that makes now matter.
• Decision process: the steps and people between yes and a signature.

Which qualification framework should you use?

Use the simplest one that fits how your deals are decided. BANT works when one person decides and the deal is small. CHAMP suits sellers who open with the prospect’s problem. MEDDIC and MEDDPICC fit longer B2B deals with a buying committee, a champion to win and a procurement step.

Pick one and use it for every lead. Mixing frameworks makes leads impossible to compare, and the point of qualifying is to compare them.

How do you qualify inbound leads?

Qualify inbound leads on fit first, because they chose you and interest is already there. Check the company and role against your customer profile before anything else, then ask about the problem that brought them in. Budget and authority come later in the conversation, not in the first reply.

Inbound leads also arrive with a record of what they said: a form, an email, a LinkedIn message. Read it before you ask. A question the prospect already answered costs you more than silence.

What goes on a lead qualification checklist?

A short checklist, answered yes, no or unknown:

• Does the company match the customers we serve?
• Does the person feel the problem, or manage someone who does?
• Have they described the problem in their own words?
• Is there budget, or a clear route to it?
• Do we know who makes the decision?
• Is there a date or event that makes this matter now?
• Do we know the next step, and has the prospect agreed to it?

“Unknown” is an honest answer. It tells you the next question to ask, which is more useful than a yes you guessed.

What happens on a discovery call?

A discovery call is where most qualification questions get asked out loud. You open with the prospect’s situation and problem, then work towards timing, the people involved and how they buy. End by agreeing a next step, and write down the answers while they are fresh.

What we see in the field: an answer is only as good as its evidence

When we built the AI Sales Brief, we had to write down what counts as evidence for each qualification field, because a brief that guesses is worse than no brief. Timing counts only an explicit timeframe, deadline, date or urgency signal. Authority needs evidence of decision authority, influence or ownership. Budget needs a mention of budget, price, a commercial constraint or funding.

A field with no such evidence in the conversation stays marked “Not detected”, and anything inferred is labelled as inferred. That turns a gap into the next discovery question instead of a guess in the CRM. The same rule works without software: next to each answer, note whether the prospect said it or you assumed it.

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