playbooks

home / skills / refoundai / lenny-skills / sales-qualification

sales-qualification skill

/skills/sales-qualification

This skill helps you qualify sales leads effectively by building a framework, designing discovery questions, and disqualifying early to improve conversion.

npx playbooks add skill refoundai/lenny-skills --skill sales-qualification

Review the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.

Files (2)
SKILL.md
3.0 KB
---
name: sales-qualification
description: Help users qualify sales leads effectively. Use when someone is wasting time on bad leads, struggling with low conversion rates, needs to build a qualification framework, or wants to improve their discovery process.
---

# 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

Overview

This skill helps you qualify sales leads quickly and systematically so you spend time only on opportunities likely to close. It teaches a repeatable discovery framework, aggressive disqualification rules, and practical questions to surface fit on the first call. The result is higher conversion rates and fewer hours wasted on unpromising leads.

How this skill works

I start by auditing your current qualification process and pipeline metrics to spot whether the problem is quality or execution. Then we define clear disqualification criteria, craft focused discovery questions, and assemble a simple scoring framework you can use on the first call. I provide language and decision rules so reps can say yes or no decisively and consistently.

When to use it

  • Conversion rates are low and you suspect lead quality is the issue
  • Your team spends many calls per opportunity without clear outcomes
  • You need a repeatable discovery script that identifies fit fast
  • You lack explicit disqualification criteria or want to stop hope-selling
  • You want to increase seller productivity by reducing time spent on poor-fit leads

Best practices

  • Make ‘no’ an acceptable and measurable outcome — train reps to disqualify confidently
  • Build objective, observable disqualification rules tied to customer traits and budget/timeline
  • Design discovery questions that reveal core fit in the first call, not after multiple meetings
  • Track percent of pipeline that closes and the time-to-disqualification as key metrics
  • Prioritize fewer high-quality opportunities over many low-probability ones

Example use cases

  • Audit your current discovery calls and get a prioritized list of quick fixes
  • Create a one-call qualification script that reveals budget, authority, need, and timeline
  • Define company-level disqualification rules to stop pursuing poor-fit inbound leads
  • Coach reps to use decisive language that leads to immediate yes/no outcomes
  • Implement a simple scoring sheet to standardize qualification across the team

FAQ

How do I know if the problem is qualification or sales execution?

Compare close rates for deals that met your ideal-customer traits vs. those that didn’t. If deals fitting your profile close at much higher rates, the issue is likely qualification. If even ideal-fit leads fail, inspect execution.

What if my pipeline feels thin and I can’t afford to say no?

Measure the cost of chasing low-probability leads. Aggressive disqualification frees time to pursue higher-quality accounts and generate better pipeline. Short-term discomfort usually leads to better long-term conversion and efficiency.