There is a conversation that happens in most companies roughly every quarter. Sales says the leads are bad. Marketing says the leads are fine and sales is not working them. Both are sincere, both have data, and the meeting ends without a decision.
That argument is almost never about lead quality. It is about the absence of a shared standard, which makes both positions unfalsifiable.
What the document contains
Four components. One page. It should fit on a screen without scrolling.
The four components of a qualified lead
An enquiry missing any one of these is a lead, not a qualified lead.
- 1
Fit
Industry, size, geography, structure — who you can actually serve well.
- 2
Trigger
The event or need making this relevant now rather than someday.
- 3
Budget signal
Evidence they can pay, not a stated number.
- 4
Authority
Whether this person can buy, or can reliably reach whoever can.
The disqualifiers matter more
Most definitions list what a good lead looks like and stop there. The more useful half is the explicit list of what disqualifies one.
Too small to serve profitably. In a sector you have no evidence in. Looking for something you do not sell. Shopping a price you cannot match. Located where you cannot deliver.
Writing these down is uncomfortable because it means turning revenue away on paper. It is also what stops the definition being quietly widened whenever the pipeline looks thin.
A definition that gets loosened when volume drops is not a definition. It is a mood, and every number built on it moves with it.
The ten-enquiry test
Before adopting the document, take ten past enquiries. Have someone from marketing and someone from sales grade each one independently against the draft, without discussing it.
If they agree on eight or more, the definition is specific enough to use. If they agree on five, it is a set of adjectives rather than a standard, and the disagreements show you exactly which clause is vague.
This takes twenty minutes and is the difference between a document people use and one that lives in a folder.
What it unlocks downstream
Cost per qualified conversation becomes computable, which usually reorders your channel ranking substantially — the cheapest source of form fills is frequently the most expensive source of real conversations.
Routing rules become writable, because a machine can apply a specific standard and cannot apply a vague one.
Forecasts become defensible, because the conversion rate you are multiplying by is measured against a stable definition rather than a shifting one.
None of that is available while 'qualified' means whatever the person reporting believes it means.
Common mistakes
- Writing it after the first argument instead of before generating demand.
- Getting verbal agreement rather than a signature from whoever takes the calls.
- Listing qualifiers without listing disqualifiers.
- Using unmeasurable language — 'genuinely interested', 'a good fit'.
- Never revisiting it, so it drifts out of line with what you actually sell.
- Loosening it quietly when the pipeline looks thin.