| name | lead-scoring |
| description | When a founder needs to qualify inbound leads, define their ICP, build a lead scoring model, set MQL criteria, or route prospects through pipeline stages. Activate when the user mentions lead scoring, ICP, MQL, SQL, lead qualification, inbound leads, or pipeline design. |
| related | ["cold-outreach","sales-script"] |
| reads | ["startup-context"] |
| tags | ["nontechnical","startup-founder-skills","lead-scoring","workflow","database","experimental-design","sales"] |
---|-------|--------|
| Qualified — Hot | 85-100 | Immediate sales outreach. High urgency, strong fit. |
| Qualified — Warm | 75-84 | Active pursuit within 24 hours. Good fit, moderate urgency. |
| Borderline | 50-74 | Requires human review. Qualified with caveats — flag specific concerns. |
| Near Miss | 30-49 | Nurture sequence or referral opportunity. Not ready for sales. |
| Disqualified | 0-29 | Does not fit ICP. Includes competitor employees. Polite decline. |
Handling Unknown Data
Score unknown dimensions at 30 points (out of 100 for that dimension). This acknowledges data absence without automatically rejecting leads. A lead missing company size data is not the same as a lead with the wrong company size. Flag unknowns for enrichment rather than penalizing them.
Inbound Intent Premium
Prospects who initiate contact demonstrate genuine interest. For borderline cases (scores 50-74), inbound signals should tip the scoring decision toward qualification. A borderline lead who requested a demo is a better prospect than a slightly-above-threshold lead who has never engaged.
Pipeline Overlap Routing
Before scoring, check for overlaps and route accordingly:
- Existing customer — Route to account management for upsell/expansion conversation
- Active deal in pipeline — Flag for the assigned sales rep to coordinate, do not create a duplicate
- Prior contact with no deal — Note history and score normally, but include context for the sales rep
- Competitor employee — Auto-disqualify and log for competitive intelligence
Multi-Dimensional Scoring
Company evaluation — Score against: company size, industry vertical, company stage/funding, geography, and use case fit. Weight dimensions based on which most predict closed-won deals in your data.
Person assessment — Score against: job title, seniority level, department alignment, and decision-making authority. A Director of Engineering at a perfect-fit company scores higher than a junior developer at the same company.
Use case alignment — Map the lead's stated or inferred needs to specific product capabilities. Strong alignment on the core use case matters more than broad but shallow fit.
Dual-Threshold MQL Definition
An MQL requires BOTH fit and engagement. Neither alone is sufficient.
- Minimum fit score: 30 points (must have basic ICP match)
- Minimum engagement score: 20 points (must show some intent)
- Combined minimum: 60 points
A perfect-fit company that never engages is not an MQL. A student downloading every whitepaper is not an MQL. The dual-threshold prevents both failure modes.
Maintaining and Iterating
- Recalibrate quarterly. Pull closed-won data and check if the model correctly predicted winners.
- Watch for score inflation. If 80% of leads become MQLs, the threshold is too low.
- Track MQL-to-SQL acceptance rate. If sales rejects more than 30% of MQLs, adjust the model.
- Start simple. Score the first 50-100 leads by hand before automating.
- Speed-to-lead is critical. Contact within 5 minutes is 21x more likely to qualify.
Related Skills
cold-outreach — Use the ICP and scoring to prioritize who to reach out to firstsales-script — Use pipeline stage definitions to prepare the right script for each stage
Examples
Example prompt: "We get 200 inbound leads a month from our website and events. Most go nowhere. Help me build a system to score and route them."
Good output excerpt:
Lead Qualification Report (Sample)
| Lead | Company Score | Person Score | Use Case Score | Composite | Verdict |
|---|
| Jane Smith, VP Eng @ Acme (200 emp, SaaS) | 88 | 85 | 90 | 88 | Qualified — Hot |
| Bob Lee, Developer @ TinyCo (15 emp, Agency) | 35 | 40 | 50 | 40 | Near Miss |
| Unknown Title @ MegaCorp (10K emp, Finance) | 60 | 30 (unknown) | 45 | 47 | Near Miss — Enrich |
Routing: Jane gets immediate sales outreach (AE assigned within 1 hour). Bob enters nurture sequence. MegaCorp lead flagged for enrichment — title and use case data needed before routing.
Example prompt: "A lead from a current customer's company just filled out our demo form. What do I do?"
Good output approach: Flag the pipeline overlap — check if this is a new department/team or the same buyer. If same account, route to the existing account manager for upsell coordination. If new department, score normally but include account context. Never create a duplicate deal.
