1. Identify
Name the product or platformized service, persona, situation, job, and customer outcome.
Activation-to-revenue qualification
Know which leads deserve the next human action.
9010 combines persona fit, observed engagement, buying intent, activation readiness, economics, and safety. A score supports judgment; it never replaces discovery.
Start here
A qualified lead is an evidence-backed next action.
A qualified lead is not simply someone who clicked, downloaded, attended, or filled a form. It is a person, account, or marketplace participant whose situation, role, consent, need, and next action justify a specific motion.
2. Observe
Record behavior, intent, evidence source, timestamp, and consent.
3. Confirm
Separate buyer, user, champion, approver, beneficiary, capacity, and decision path.
4. Route
Assign an owner, SLA, handoff, dependency, recovery path, and next measurable event.
The qualification language
MQL is a marketing decision, not a promise of revenue.
Each persona can move through a different route. A daily user may become a PQL before an economic buyer becomes an SQL. Record the evidence and the next action for the role, account, and persona.
Marketing Qualified Lead
The lead matches the agreed persona/ICP and has enough consented engagement or intent to justify a relevant marketing or sales-development action.
Sales Accepted Lead
Sales has accepted ownership, checked the context, and committed to a next action and response SLA.
Sales Qualified Lead
Discovery confirms a real job, meaningful impact, a buying process, and a plausible path to a commercial decision.
Product Qualified Lead
The person or account has completed product behaviors that historically predict first value, conversion, or expansion.
Activation Qualified Lead
The persona has reached the defined first-value event and is ready for a retention or revenue motion.
Make it concrete
The same qualification rule changes by sector.
9010 helps users discover and define the scalable model. The user must own the product, service platform, marketplace, or infrastructure that can fulfil the qualified demand.
SaaS project management
Scalable model: One software product serves many workspaces through shared infrastructure.
Qualified lead: An operations manager from a target company has a live delivery problem and agrees to review the product with the COO or budget owner.
Evidence: The team imports a real project, identifies one risk, names an owner, and confirms a review date.
Next action: Sales accepts the lead, maps security and finance approvers, and schedules a first-value proof session.
Not enough: Downloading a guide or creating a workspace without a real job is not SQL or AQL.
Home cleaning marketplace
Scalable model: The cleaning business owns its own marketplace, trust rules, scheduling, payment, and provider operations; 9010 helps discover and define this model.
Qualified lead: A household requests a recurring cleaning slot, or a vetted cleaner declares capacity for suitable jobs.
Evidence: Location, service need, availability, identity/trust requirements, price range, and consent to match are recorded.
Next action: Route the household to a trusted cleaner and the cleaner to a suitable job, with support and recovery ownership.
Not enough: A one-off enquiry with no address, capacity, or permission to follow up is not a qualified marketplace lead.
Logistics
Scalable model: A dispatch and tracking platform coordinates shippers, carriers, drivers, warehouses, and exception teams.
Qualified lead: A shipper has a recurring lane or shipment problem with volume, timing, service, and decision criteria that can be assessed.
Evidence: Lane, origin, destination, shipment frequency, SLA, current failure, budget, and operational owner are known.
Next action: Run a lane assessment, confirm capacity and margin, then create a quote or pilot with an acceptance owner.
Not enough: A request for the cheapest rate without route, volume, or delivery requirements is not sales-qualified.
Healthcare
Scalable model: A consent-aware care platform coordinates patients, clinicians, caregivers, records, appointments, and escalation paths.
Qualified lead: A patient, caregiver, provider, or payer has a defined care need and an authorized next step.
Evidence: Consent, eligibility, urgency, responsible clinician, care outcome, and safe communication channel are verified.
Next action: Route to the appropriate clinical or support owner; never treat engagement alone as permission for care action.
Not enough: A public form submission without consent, eligibility, or a safe owner is not activation-qualified.
Manufacturing and distribution
Scalable model: A manufacturer uses distributor, retailer, field, inventory, order, and support infrastructure to expand beyond one sales representative.
Qualified lead: A distributor or retailer has a target territory, product demand, stock path, and commercial owner for a trial or order.
Evidence: Territory, outlet/customer base, product fit, stock availability, expected volume, margin, and decision path are recorded.
Next action: Create a distributor activation or RFQ plan with technical proof, stock owner, delivery SLA, and acceptance criteria.
Not enough: A contact who likes the product but has no territory, stock path, or authority is not a qualified opportunity.
Education and skills
Scalable model: A learning platform combines reusable curriculum, learner progress data, instructors, employers, and support workflows.
Qualified lead: A learner or sponsoring organization has a defined capability gap, cohort, start window, and success outcome.
Evidence: Skill goal, readiness, schedule, sponsor or buyer, learning support needs, and completion outcome are documented.
Next action: Place the learner in the right cohort or diagnostic, then measure first completed lesson and progression.
Not enough: A page visit or free lesson start without a defined goal or follow-up permission is only an acquisition signal.
Transparent prioritization
Score the dimensions. Explain the action.
Start with a rules-based model the team can inspect. Add predictive scoring only after enough conversion evidence exists, and always show the factors that changed the priority.
Fit
Does this persona, sector, company, role, need, capacity, and market match the team’s target?
Engagement
What has the known person actually done recently across content, events, conversations, product, or service?
Intent
Is there evidence of an active problem, buying research, request, timing, or change event?
Readiness
Has the team confirmed the job, first-value path, decision process, owner, and next action?
Economics
What is the expected value, margin, service cost, payback, and capacity requirement?
Risk and consent
Is outreach permitted, useful, safe, and appropriate for this persona and sector?
Same persona
Rank by evidence-backed readiness, intent freshness, expected customer value, and response SLA.
Competing personas
Compare expected value, activation friction, reachable market, capacity, strategic fit, and risk—not just lead volume.
Competing markets
Use a market scorecard: fit, intent density, sales cycle, margin, localization cost, serviceability, and payback.
Turn the score into a useful conversation.
The team workshop creates the qualification rules, evidence requirements, routing SLA, and handoff action for each persona.
Book a qualification workshop