sales-qualification

# 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