Lead qualification

HubSpot's default lifecycle stages show the pattern: a marketing qualified lead (MQL) is one marketing has judged ready for sales, and a sales qualified lead (SQL) is one sales has confirmed as a potential customer. Leads that fail go back to nurture or are disqualified with a reason, so the pipeline holds only real opportunities.

Frameworks give the conversation structure. BANT checks budget, authority, need and timeline, and Salesforce suggests it for leads already eager to buy. CHAMP starts from the prospect's challenges. MEDDICC adds metrics, the economic buyer, decision criteria and process, pain, a champion and competition for complex enterprise purchases.

For example, an outbound team starts with 10,000 companies in its industry filter. An AI check of each website against three ICP rules (sells to businesses, has a sales team, uses a CRM) keeps 3,200. After an interested reply, the SDR runs a 15-minute BANT call, and 1 in 4 interested replies becomes an SQL.

In outbound, much of the fit check happens before the first email: you qualify the list, not just the replies. Teams filter accounts by industry, size, location and signals, and use AI to read each company's website against ICP rules. That keeps sequences relevant and protects sender reputation, because fewer emails go to people who will never buy.