Prepare qualifying questions

Open your CRM and pull the last five deals you won and the last five that went nowhere. For each one, write down what you knew before the first call that predicted the outcome. You will usually find the same four things: a trigger event, one named owner for the problem, a rough deadline and money already set aside.

Those are your qualifiers. Your questions exist to surface exactly these facts and nothing else. Aim for eight to ten questions on one page. Any more and the call turns into a form.

Questions about what someone would do produce polite answers. Questions about what they did produce facts. The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick makes this point well: people lie kindly about hypotheticals and tell the truth about history.

Compare these two:

• "Would you use a tool like this?"
• "What did you do the last time this problem came up?"

The second one tells you whether they act on the problem or only complain about it.

Keep the structure from Structure your discovery framework and give each area its own questions:

1. Situation: "How do you handle this today?" and "Who is involved?"
2. Problem: "What made you book this call now?" and "What have you already tried?"
3. Impact: "What happens when this goes wrong?" and "What does that cost you in a typical quarter?"
4. Decision: "Who else will want a say?" and "How did you buy something similar last time?"
5. Timing and money: "Is there a date this has to be fixed by?" and "Is money set aside for this, or would it need approval?"

Pain without a number is a feeling. If they say leads go cold, ask how many leads and what each one is worth. If they cannot estimate it, the problem is probably smaller than it sounded. If they can, you now have the figure that justifies your price later.

"What is your budget?" gets a defensive or a deliberately low answer. Ask how they bought last time and who signed it off. You learn the process, the people and the typical size of spend without asking for a figure at all. Then the money question is easy: "Is there a number you have in mind, or should we scope it first?"

Start with easy, factual questions about their situation. Move to the problem, then the impact, then the decision. Keep money and timing for the last third. After each answer, ask one follow-up before moving on: "Tell me more about that." or "What happened next?". Two follow-ups per answer is where the real information sits.

Decide before the call what you will say when the answer is no. There are three common cases:

• Wrong fit: say why in one sentence and name a better option.
• Wrong time: agree a date to check back and log it in the CRM.
• Wrong person: ask who owns the problem and whether they would introduce you.

A simple line works: "From what you have told me, I do not think we are the right fit right now, because of X. Here is who I would speak to instead." People remember that and refer you later.

Print the question card or keep it beside the call. Afterwards, write the answers into CRM fields rather than free-text notes, so you can compare deals. A HubSpot property for each of the five areas is enough to start. You will use these fields in Refine scoring criteria.

• Asking all the questions in a row, with no follow-ups. It feels like a survey.
• Treating budget as the only qualifier. A prospect with money and no urgency still stalls.
• Reading the questions word for word. Use them as a map, not a script.
• Hiding the no. A vague "let me know" costs you a month of follow-ups.
• Changing the questions after every call. Keep them for a quarter, then revise.

You can name, for every call, the problem, the owner, the impact and the timeline in one sentence each. Fewer calls end with "we will see". Your qualified-to-closed rate rises over a quarter, and the prospects you turned away still reply when you write to them.