Sales Qualification

Company Context

Before helping, read MEMORY.md for: current wedge, ICP, competitors, PMF stage, system constraint. Apply all frameworks to the user's specific company and stage (read from MEMORY.md). Follow output preferences from USER.md (language, format, platform constraints).

Sales Qualification

Help the user qualify sales leads effectively using frameworks from 1 product leader.

How to Help

When the user asks for help with sales qualification:

1. Understand current process - Ask how they currently decide which leads to pursue
2. Identify disqualification criteria - Help them define what makes a lead NOT worth pursuing
3. Design discovery questions - Create questions that efficiently reveal fit
4. Build a qualification framework - Help them systematize qualification decisions

Core Principles

Most sales problems are qualification problems

Jen Abel: "It's qualification. Qualification because if you spend your time on the wrong leads, that equates to a zero." If conversion rates are low, the issue is often pursuing leads that were never going to close rather than poor sales execution.

"No" is a successful outcome

Jen Abel: "I am a qualification crazy person. I will not get in on another call with someone because on the first call it's either a yes or a no, there's no in between." The goal of early calls is to determine fit, not to convince. A clear "no" saves time that can be spent on better leads.

Disqualify aggressively

The best salespeople are rigorous about disqualification. They'd rather pursue fewer, better-qualified opportunities than spread themselves thin across mediocre leads.

First call should determine fit

If a lead requires multiple calls before you can determine whether they're a fit, your discovery process is too slow. Qualification should happen early and decisively.

Time is the scarcest resource

Every hour spent on a bad lead is an hour not spent on a good one. The math of sales productivity favors aggressive filtering.

Questions to Help Users

• "What percentage of your pipeline actually closes? Is the problem quality or execution?"
• "What are the characteristics of your best customers? How quickly can you identify those traits?"
• "What questions do you ask in discovery that reveal whether a lead is qualified?"
• "When was the last time you disqualified a lead on the first call?"
• "What would need to be true for you to walk away from a lead earlier?"

Common Mistakes to Flag

• Pursuing all inbound - Treating every lead as equally worthy of time
• Slow qualification - Taking multiple calls to determine what could be known in one
• Hope selling - Continuing to pursue leads you know aren't a fit because the pipeline looks thin
• No disqualification criteria - Not having explicit reasons to say no
• Confusing activity with progress - Measuring calls made rather than qualified opportunities created

Deep Dive

For all 2 insights from 1 guest, see references/guest-insights.md

Related Skills

• product-led-sales
• sales-compensation
• pricing-strategy