Qualifying the right leads for your business is a more strategic and tactical approach. Your sales and marketing team must have the expertise to filter out the best leads that match your selling criteria.
Lead qualification usually includes –
- Basic Fit Check: Is the lead an ideal customer profile (industry, company size, role, etc.) match?
- Behavior Analysis: Has your lead interacted with your emails, your website, or your content?
- Sales Frameworks: Entering gathered information, such as BANT/CHAMP, to ask qualifying questions.
In this article, we will give you a complete guide from top to bottom of the lead qualification process. So let’s read the whole article and educate yourself on lead qualification.
What is Lead Qualification?
Lead qualification is the process that helps to determine if your lead (potential customer) has the interest, intent, and ability to purchase your product/service. It allows sales and marketing teams to decide which leads are hot enough to pursue, which ones require more nurturing, and which arenât likely to convert.
The purpose of lead qualification is to make sure your team does not spend time and effort on low-quality leads, meaning leads that are less likely to buy from you. This will help you save time, work smarter, and boost your overall conversion rate.
All leads are not created equal. Some may simply be browsing. Others may not have the discretionary budget. Still others may not need your product. The wrong approach to a lead qualification process can lead to your sales team spending hours on leads that are never going to close.
It helps sort through bad leads so that you and your sales team can focus on real opportunities. It is the process of ranking the leads by assigning scores to them based on their profiles and engagement.
Why Should you Qualify your Leads?
Quaiflying the right lead is always essential for the overall growth of your business. Specifically, it’s a highly important factor for determining the right prospect that can be a trustworthy customer for your business.
These are some of the common reasons that you and the sales & marketing team carefully focus on the lead qualification process.
- Improve the Conversion Rate – Through the lead qualification process, you only capture those leads that are fit for your products and services. So it automatically improves the conversion rate.
- Reduce the Wastage of Time – When you get the qualified leads at the right time in the most convenient way, this will save your overall lead generation time and effort.
- Better the Customer Experience – Qualifying the lead means you have enough knowledge and ideas about the most common problems of the customer. Also, know what solutions they are looking for. So, at the end of the day, it improves the overall customer experience.
- Make a more Productive Sales Team – Your sales team qualifies the leads through a deep analysis of the customer demographics and behavior. Qualifying multiple types of leads can significantly improve their productivity.
- Team Work Efficiency – The marketing team and sales team are working together in the lead qualification process. They share multiple insights and strategies with each other. As a result, it improves the efficiency of the teamwork.
How Does Lead Qualification Work?
Lead qualification simply means determining is someone (a potential customer or lead) is a good fit for your product or service. It enables sales teams to not waste their time on unqualified leads, but be more targeted in focusing on leads that are most probable to convert.
This process is directed by lead qualification frameworks, which involve asking questions to create a clear, detailed picture of a leadâs needs, decision-making authority, potential budget, and likelihood to purchase. Hereâs how five of the most powerful frameworks operate:
BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline)
BANT is an old-school lead qualifying technique, popularized by IBM. It enables salespeople to efficiently determine if a âleadâ or prospect is worth pursuing with the following four questions:
- Budget: Does the decision maker have the money to pay for your product or service?
- Authority: Does the person you’re talking to have the power to decide? Or do they need to consult someone else?
- Need: Is there a real business problem that your product and/or service can solve for the lead?
- Timeline: When will the lead make its purchasing decision?
If a lead falls into all four, great, theyâre highly qualified. BANT is particularly applicable to B2B sales where transaction sizes are larger and require the input of several decision makers. It serves to rank leads so your sales team can zero in on the right prospects. Although simple, BANT is still a very powerful way of finding sales-ready leads right at the beginning of the sales funnel.
CHAMP (Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritization)
Two increasingly popular frameworks that replace BANT are CHAMP, which emphasizes the buyerâs pain. It immediately takes the conversation away from the seed and to the leadâs real problem. Their challenges and how your solution can help.
- Challenges: What are the leadâs pain points or pain points the lead is experiencing that the lead wants to solve?
- Decision-making authority: Which person is going to do the buying?
- Money: Can the lead afford to purchase your product or service?
- Priority: Where does this issue rank on their priority list?
Starting from the challenges, CHAMP is customer-centric. Sales reps can also learn a better sense of why the buyer is motivated or urgent. Prioritization is also important because not every problem requires an instant solution.
CHAMP helps qualify the leads based not just on what they need, but also on how urgently they need it and how likely they are to act in the near future. This model is effective in solution selling, where trust and understanding the customerâs pain are paramount.
MEDDIC (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Pain, Champion)
MEDDIC is an intricate qualification methodology designed for complex, large-value sales. By attacking from all angles, it guarantees no leads are left unturned in the deal because it focuses on six specific areas in detail:
- Measure: What does the buyer you’re selling to want to see for results or ROI of your solution?
- Economic Buyer: Who signs the check and controls the cash?
- Decision Criteria: How are they imagining deciding among alternative solutions?
- Decision Process: How do they decide for or against a solution?
- Pinpoint The Pain: What is the single biggest thing your product or service can do for them?
- Champion: Do you have an ally in the company that will back your solution and help push it through?
MEDDIC provides sales reps with a complete understanding of what exactly the buying process looks like. Itâs particularly useful when selling to big companies that have a lot of stakeholders in the buying process. By knowing metrics and pain points, sales teams can customize the pitch to provide empirical value.
It also increases the likelihood of winning the deal. If you operate a long or complex sales process, MEDDIC will help you keep everything on track as well as improve your win rate.
GPCTBA/C&I (Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline, Budget, Authority / Consequences & Implications)
Modern sales teams refer to this framework, especially in inbound sales, where identifying what the customer wants to achieve and where they plan to be in the future is key. GPCTBA/C&I goes in-depth into the leadâs journey by posing the question:
- Goals: What kind of business goals is the lead looking to achieve?
- Plans: How are they currently attempting to achieve those goals?
- Challenges: What obstacles are preventing them?
- Timeline: When would they like to solve a problem?
- Budget: What is their budget?
- Authority: Who participates in the buying process?
It is the Consequences and Implications (C&I) that differentiate this framework. It asks:
- What if the lead does not act?
- What will happen to their business or team if they do nothing?
GPCTBA/C&I is great when your product is directly linked to performance or growth results. It doesnât reveal just what the lead wants. It uncovers the urgency with which the lead needs it. The “C&I” section builds urgency and can place the cost of hesitancy in context.
This enables sales teams to articulate the value proposition in more combative terms as something you need rather than something you want.
ANUM (Authority, Need, Urgency, Money)
ANUM is a simplified form of BANT that changes the order and prioritizes authority first. This ensures youâre always talking to the right person before committing any time to the sale.
- Authority: Are you speaking to the person who can say âyesâ?
- Need: Does the lead have a need for your solution?
- Urgency: How soon do they need the problem resolved?
- Money: Are they spending that cash?
An ANUM places emphasis on authority and urgency from the start, removing time wasted for salespeople with contacts who might not be the right fit. Or the leads who arenât yet ready to purchase.
It is particularly beneficial for teams that require speed and scalability in their lead qualification. ANUM is simple to use, adaptable, and useful for outbound or cold outreach campaigns. It helps disqualify leads fast, but at the same time, it touches on the key things that matter most to converting customers.
How does Lead Scoring Work?
Lead scoring is a clever way to qualify leads by awarding them a score depending on how likely they are to become paying customers.
Rather than approaching all leads the same way, lead scoring enables your sales and marketing teams to give attention only to those that are demonstrating serious interest and fit your ideal customer profile. It renders the entire lead qualification process more accurate, quicker, and efficient.
Importance of Lead Scoring in Lead Qualification
Lead qualification allows you to determine if a lead is a good fit. But not all leads are equally ready. Some are interested, while others are prepared to buy right now. Lead scoring helps you distinguish.
For example:
- A lead who has downloaded a whitepaper may only be doing some research.
- But a lead who visited your pricing page twice and requested a demo is probably pretty close to deciding.
Lead scoring is when leads are prioritized based on their behaviors plus their profile, so sales know who to reach out to first.
What Are the Factors for Lead Scoring?
Lead scores are obtained from two primary categories of data:
1. Demographic or Firmographic Information
This gives you an idea on if or not a lead qualifies to be your target audience.
Examples of high-scoring attributes:
- Job Title: Marketing Manager = +10 points
- Industry: SaaS = +8 points
- Number of Employees: 50-200 = +5 points
- Location: United States = +3 point
Low scoring or disqualifying characteristics might include:
- Student/Intern = -10 points
- Within serving country / Outside serving country = -5 points
2. Behavioral or Engagement Data
This is an indication of how interested the lead is, based on interactions.
Examples of scoring actions:
- Visited homepage – +2 points
- Opened an email, CTA – +5 points
- Purchased an eBook – +10 points
- Requested a demo – +25 points
- Participated in a webinar (up to 1 hour) – +15 pts
- Priced page viewed – + 20 points
- Opted out of emails -10 points
Every action serves as a clue about how willing the lead is to purchase your product.
How to Create a Lead Scoring System with Examples
Step 1: Build Your Perfect Customer Profile
Consider who your best customers are. For example:
- Industry – eCommerce
- Title – Operations Manager
- Budget – Mid-level or above
Step 2: Detail the Actions That Show You Are Interested
These might include:
- Email opens and clicks
- Website visits
- Time spent on product pages
- Form submissions
- Resource downloads
Step 3: Allocate Points for Each Action
| Action/Attribute | Score |
| Opened an email | +3 |
| Clicked an email link | +5 |
| Visited pricing page | +15 |
| Downloaded a case study | +10 |
| Requested a demo | +25 |
| Job Title: “CEO” or “Manager” | +10 |
| Company Size: 100+ | +5 |
| Unsubscribed from emails | -10 |
Step 4: Set a Threshold
Suppose your threshold for scoring is 60 points. Once a lead hits 60, it is marked âSales Qualifiedâ and delivered to sales.
How Lead Scoring Works – A Fast Example we want to share with you
Lead A:
- Downloads a whitepaper (+10)
- Opens three emails (+9)
- Clicks an email CTA (+5)
- View pricing page twice (+30)
- Marketing Director (+10)
Total Score = 64 Qualified
Lead B:
- Opens one email (+3)
- Visits homepage (+2)
- Job Title: Student (-10)
Total Score = -5 Unqualified.
This shows how lead scoring enables you to prioritize more valuable leads over weaker ones.
Tools That Can Assist Lead Scoring
Multiple CRM and marketing automation platforms let you automate this:
- HubSpot: Includes lead scoring that’s built in (based on behavior and contact details).
- Salesforce: Provides its own custom lead scoring model through automation rules.
- Lead scoring is also available via Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, and ActiveCampaign.
These are lead actions that are monitored and scores that are modified automatically and in real time.
Conclusion
We have come to the end of our discussion about the ultimate guide on the lead qualification process. To qualify the right prospect, you have to choose the accurate framework or method that suits your business purposes. We have talked about all the lead qualification frameworks here, such as –
- BANT(Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline)
- CHAMP(Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritization)
- MEDDIC(Metrics, Economic Buyers, Decision Criteria, Decision Procces, Pain, Champion)
- GPCTBA/C&I (Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline, Budget, Authority/Consequences & Implications)
- ANUM (Authority, Need, Urgency, Money)
Also, we have discussed the lead scoring process, how it works, and how to measure it properly. So this discussion will help you in the long run for lead qualification.
