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How to qualify an inbound lead in minutes
The five checks that tell you whether an inbound lead is worth a call, a fit rubric you can copy, where each answer lives, and how to get the read in minutes.
Benjamin Ben HattarAn inbound lead is someone who wrote to you first. A demo request, an email to sales@, a message on LinkedIn. Qualifying it answers two questions: can we help this person, and is the next conversation worth an hour of our time?
The judgment takes about a minute. The lookup around it is what takes the afternoon. Their website is in one tab, the CRM in another, and the email thread is in a colleague's inbox. So leads wait, and the good ones wait as long as the noise.
Here is a routine that works, and the rubric behind it. It works by hand. Further down is the version where Cedric does the lookup and you keep the judgment.
- Qualifying is two questions: can we help them, and is the next call worth it.
- Most of the time goes on finding the facts, not on deciding.
- Six checks cover it: who they are, size, need, role, timing and your own history with them.
- Every verdict gets a written reason, so a colleague can disagree with the reason instead of the hunch.
- Reply the same day, even when the answer is no.
Five steps, in order
- 01
Gather everything they sent
Read the form, the email and any chat message together. Some people write twice, the form and then an email to someone they found on your team page. Put it all in one place before judging any of it.
Search every shared mailbox, not only sales@. The lead you miss is usually in the one nobody watches.
- 02
Look the company up
Open their own website first. What do they sell, to whom, and where? The team page gives you size and the person's role. A LinkedIn profile confirms the title. Two minutes here saves a thirty-minute call with someone who was never going to buy.
- 03
Check your own CRM
Are they already a customer? Is there an open deal, a lost one from last year, or a colleague who owns the account? A lead that is already someone's relationship goes to that person, not into a new sequence.
- 04
Score them against the rubric
Run the six checks in the table below. You are not adding up points. You are looking for one clear reason to talk and no reason to stop.
- 05
Decide, write the reason, reply
Pick one of three verdicts: book a call, reply and keep in touch, or pass politely. Write one line on why, where the team can see it, and log the lead in the CRM with that line. Then reply the same day.
A polite no still counts as a reply. Silence does not.
A fit rubric you can copy
Six checks, the sign to look for, the sign to stop, and where the answer usually sits. The last column is where Cedric reads it.
| Check | Good sign | Red flag | Where Cedric looks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who they are | Looks like a customer you already have | No website, or a business you do not serve | Their site and team page |
| Size | Inside the band where your best customers sit | Far outside it either way | Team page, LinkedIn |
| Need | Names a problem you solve, in their own words | Asks for something you do not sell | The email or the form |
| Role | Decides, or works for the person who does | Job seeker, student, a vendor pitching you | Signature, LinkedIn |
| Timing | A date, a deadline, a trigger | "Just exploring" with nothing behind it | What they wrote |
| History | New, or a past deal worth reopening | Already a customer, or a colleague's account | Your CRM |
Budget is missing on purpose. It rarely shows up in a first message, so it belongs on the call.
Why the reason matters more than the score
Point systems look rigorous and hide the thinking. A lead scores 62 and nobody can say why. One written sentence does better: "Pass as a supplier, but they are the shape of company that buys from us." A colleague can read that and say "actually, we are hiring suppliers this quarter". Nobody argues with a 62.
The rubric also catches the lead that reads wrong at first glance. A firm writing to sell you something can still be a customer. You only notice if someone looks at who they are as well as what they asked.
The Cedric version
One question, and the lookup is done.
Hannah Berg9:14 AM
@Cedric who is this new lead?
CedricAPP9:15 AM
Elias Vogt, co-founder at Kestrel Partners, a firm that places contractors. 28 people in 3 countries. He wrote to sales@ on 1 September offering contractors at a fixed margin. Nobody has replied in 9 days, and there is no CRM row yet. As a supplier, pass. You hire through your own network. The other way round, yes. A firm with a bench that size is the shape of company that buys from you, worth 20 minutes. What I could not find: nothing pipes the website form into these mailboxes, so inbound may be landing where I cannot read it. The draft reply is in the thread.
Every place they wrote
The mailboxes he can read, the contact form and the CRM, swept in one go.
A verdict with its reason
From their own public pages and what they wrote, including the read the other way round.
Sent on your yes
The reply and the CRM row wait for one approval. Nothing goes out before it.
From one lead to every lead
The run above is from the qualify-a-lead page, names changed. Notice the part that says what he could not see. That line is worth as much as the verdict, because it tells you where leads might be slipping through.
Asking once is useful. Saying it once is better: "every new inbound, give me the same read in #sales with the reply drafted." From then on each lead arrives already looked up. Deskimo does the intake half of this. Their website forms send each new lead to Cedric, who adds it to the tracker, skips duplicates and confirms in Slack. Their story has the rest.
If your CRM is HubSpot, the verdict and the reply can land on the contact as a note, on your yes. See Cedric with HubSpot.
What still needs a person
The rubric itself. Cedric applies your definition of a good customer. If the definition is wrong, he will be consistently wrong with it. Revisit it when your best deals start to look different.
The close calls. When the verdict says "worth 20 minutes" and your gut says no, your gut has context he does not. The reason is written down so you can overrule it quickly.
The reply to a big account. The draft is a starting point. For the lead that could change your quarter, rewrite it in your own words.
FAQ
Deciding, from what they sent and what you can look up, whether they are someone you can help and whether a call is worth the time. The output is a verdict and the reason for it.
The same working day is a good rule, including for a no. The person was thinking about the problem when they wrote. A day later they are thinking about something else.
A marketing-qualified lead has shown enough interest for marketing to pass it on. A sales-qualified lead is one sales has checked and accepted as a real opportunity. The steps in this post turn the first into the second, or into a polite no.
Use the parts you can check from a desk: need, authority and timing. Budget rarely appears in a first message, so leave it for the call rather than guessing.
Yes. Say it once and every new inbound gets the same read, posted in the channel you name, with the reply drafted. The reply and the CRM update still wait for your yes.
Free to start, no card.