Nearly 100% of business frustrations can be traced back to closing deals with the wrong clients. The consequences?
- Operations thrown into chaos from expanding scope to accommodate high-maintenance clients.
- Profitability shrinking because discounts were used to push deals over the finish line.
- Teams bending over backward for demanding, low-budget clients instead of filtering them out early.
These problems aren’t inevitable—they’re preventable with better discovery during the sales process and a rock-solid definition of your ideal customer.
How to Define a Qualified Lead
If bad-fit customers are a recurring problem in your business, get your leadership team in a room and answer this:
What kind of prospect has these four things?
- A problem you can solve.
- The authority to make the buying decision at full price.
- A timeline that aligns with your capacity.
- A high likelihood of success if you work together.
A true qualified lead should check all four boxes.
If you find that too few prospects meet these criteria, you don’t need to lower your standards—you may need to adjust your offer or target audience to align with the right buyers.
Sales isn’t just about closing deals—it’s about closing the right deals to build a sustainable, profitable business.
