In my last post I mentioned that I believed “intent to purchase” is the #1 criteria that makes any lead qualified.

I also mentioned that for the lead to stay truly qualified, they would need to purchase my product, or a product like mine at the conclusion of the sales cycle.

So what happens if they do neither? What happens if they make no decision on your product or a product like yours? Then I think its important to take into account what part of the market the lead came from so you can start to understand what is going on with your deals.

That is: was it an SMB lead or an enterprise lead?

If it was an enterprise lead that didn’t close for you or another vendor, then it was probably not qualified in the first place. Barring buyer force majeure, enterprise leads have to budget for purchases. Thus, my first question that I ask: was it ever budgeted in the first place for it to not close for anyone? Should it have even remained in the funnel? Should we have ever considered it for one of our myriad forecasts? Probably not.

If it was an SMB lead, it can get a little murkier in the event of a non- decision. Because attention spans in the SMB are so short, intent to purchase one day becomes intent to purchase something categorically different from your solution the next day. Their budgets are often not as clear cut (or large) as enterprise buyers. And this can take sellers for a loop. What seemed like a good product demo just a few days back might be the start of months of misleading behavior by the buyer and their organization.

For an enterprise lead to be truly qualified, budget must be set aside for this product or a product like it. Earmarked, appropriated, whatever.

And for SMB leads to be truly qualified: let me know what you have found a way to verify intent purchase at all stages of the deal cycle without being too needy for the buyer. You will have solved a major challenge all sellers have when going after the SMB category.