Qualify the job before the account
A promising inventory software lead needs more than a company in the right sector. Confirm the job: stock appears available in a spreadsheet after it has already moved to another location. Identify staff receiving, moving, and counting stock as the possible user group, then find who can authorize a pilot; the working buyer hypothesis is an inventory or store operations manager.
Ask about the current workaround, separate location spreadsheets reconciled at the end of the week, and what would make changing it worthwhile. Do not assign a budget or procurement timeline from company size, funding, or job title alone.
Use a category-specific qualification rubric
Use the calculator below to organize your judgment after reading the source. Unknown evidence should remain unknown. Its weights are a transparent prioritization convention, not a prediction of purchase probability.
| Dimension | Evidence to seek | Reason to pause |
|---|---|---|
| Problem | At what point does a transfer reduce stock at the origin and add it at the destination? | The person cannot describe a recent instance of the problem. |
| Product fit | Can you track a small set of non-critical SKUs through receipt, transfer, and count? | buyers needing warehouse robotics or unsupported marketplace integrations |
| Timing | the business has opened a second stock location | The proposed change has no confirmed date or relevance. |
| Implementation | Which existing system must remain authoritative for product and order records? | barcode formats, offline work, and unit-of-measure handling may determine feasibility |
| Value | both locations reconcile a completed transfer against a physical count | The buyer and user disagree on what success looks like. |
Work through an illustrative assessment
Suppose the source says: “Our second store keeps promising items held at the first one. We need transfers to update both locations immediately.” That supports investigating the problem, but it does not yet settle purchasing authority or technical compatibility. A reviewer should ask the two discovery questions above and preserve the answers beside the source.
Compare that with: A shopper complains about a retailer being out of stock. This weaker example should not receive the same pain or timing score. A relevant public topic is not evidence of a current evaluation.
Even a strong problem signal should be rejected when the need belongs to buyers needing warehouse robotics or unsupported marketplace integrations. Qualifying out prevents a misleading promise and preserves time for a prospect the product can help.
Create a reviewable handoff
A qualified opportunity should contain the original evidence, a summary of the job, confirmed and unknown constraints, the buyer/user distinction, and an agreed next step. Keep a score attached to those facts so another teammate can challenge the conclusion.
Propose a pilot only when the critical gap is addressed: barcode formats, offline work, and unit-of-measure handling may determine feasibility. Evaluate the pilot through a real observation that both locations reconcile a completed transfer against a physical count, and keep that observation separate from the initial qualification score.
About these playbooks and examples
Prepared by DemandBolt with AI assistance as practical planning resources for people building and selling software. The category scenarios and message examples are illustrative, not quotations from real prospects or claims of customer results. Adapt the hypotheses to your product, verify original sources, and review capabilities before making an offer.
The workflow follows our first-customer guide and buying-signal review method. Our PyInvesting and Rae records distinguish actual internal work from targets. Published .