Qualify the job before the account
A promising product analytics lead needs more than a company in the right sector. Confirm the job: the team counts registrations but cannot identify where useful product adoption stops. Identify product analysts interpreting event sequences as the possible user group, then find who can authorize a pilot; the working buyer hypothesis is a product manager deciding which activation problem to address.
Ask about the current workaround, page-view reports and occasional database queries, 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 | Which completed user action demonstrates the product did something useful? | The person cannot describe a recent instance of the problem. |
| Product fit | Can you trace a consented test journey from signup to one verified value event? | teams seeking to capture private user content when aggregated event measurement is sufficient |
| Timing | a new onboarding flow changes the path from signup to value | The proposed change has no confirmed date or relevance. |
| Implementation | Can you distinguish a successful persisted action from a button click? | identity, consent, and duplicate events can invalidate an attractive funnel |
| Value | the team can reproduce the funnel using documented event definitions | The buyer and user disagree on what success looks like. |
Work through an illustrative assessment
Suppose the source says: “Signups increased, but we cannot tell whether users finish their first project. How do you define and track meaningful activation?” 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 request for a dashboard full of metrics without a product decision. 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 teams seeking to capture private user content when aggregated event measurement is sufficient. 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: identity, consent, and duplicate events can invalidate an attractive funnel. Evaluate the pilot through a real observation that the team can reproduce the funnel using documented event definitions, 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 .