Every outsourced pipeline programme promises "qualified meetings". Very few of them define the term, which is why so many end in an argument about whether the meetings counted. This is the definition we work to. It is deliberately strict, and every part of it is there because we have seen what happens when it is missing.
The four tests
A meeting is qualified when it passes all four. Three out of four is a conversation, which is useful, but it is not a meeting we would invoice for.
- The right company. It matches the ideal customer profile that was agreed in writing before launch: size, sector, geography, technology in place and, where it matters, a trigger such as a new leader, a funding event or a regulatory deadline. "Close enough" is decided by the written profile, not by whoever booked the meeting.
- The right person. Someone who owns the problem and either signs or can get the signature. Title is a proxy for this and a poor one. A "Head of" in one company is a decision-maker; in another it is a coordinator with the same business card. The test is ownership of the problem, established in the conversation, not the LinkedIn headline.
- A real reason. The person has acknowledged a problem your offer addresses, in their own words. Not "sure, send me something", but a sentence they said or wrote that explains why they are taking the call. That sentence goes into the brief verbatim.
- A time on the calendar, accepted. An invitation sent, accepted, and the brief attached. A "yes, next month sometime" is a lead, and we will keep working it, but it is not a meeting.
What the definition rules out
It is easier to see a definition by what it excludes.
- A fifteen-minute "intro" accepted by someone who mainly wanted the sequence to stop.
- An inbound form fill with no conversation behind it. That is a lead, and a good one, but the qualification has not happened yet.
- A meeting with a junior who was told to "take the call" by the person you actually need.
- A meeting with a company that is already in your pipeline. Clients give us a suppression list before launch; anything on it is excluded from the count, whoever booked it.
Why it has to be agreed before launch
Because the definition sets the price, the pace and the channel mix. A strict definition produces fewer meetings and more pipeline per meeting. A loose one is cheaper per meeting and far more expensive per deal, because the cost moves downstream onto your closers' calendars, where it is hardest to see.
It also decides what we build. If a qualified meeting requires an acknowledged problem, the research has to find a plausible problem for every account before anyone writes to it. If it requires the signer, the data work has to map the buying committee, not just the first name that comes back from a database. The definition is the specification for everything upstream of it.
If a provider cannot write down what counts, they are selling activity, and you will be paying for it twice.
Where the arguments come from, and how we settle them
Four situations account for almost every disagreement about a meeting count. We agree the rulings in the statement of work so that nobody has to negotiate them in week six.
| Situation | Our ruling |
|---|---|
| The prospect did not show | Not a meeting. We rebook it; it counts when it happens. |
| The prospect rescheduled | Still a meeting if it happens within the agreed window. If it drifts beyond it, it goes back to being a lead. |
| "Wrong person", raised after the call | Judged against the brief. If the brief said who they were and what they owned, and the closer took the meeting, it counts. If the brief was wrong, it does not. |
| "We already talk to them" | Judged against the suppression list supplied before launch. We ask for that list precisely so this cannot become a dispute. |
The brief is part of the meeting
A qualified meeting arrives with a one-page brief: the company, the person, the reason in their own words, every touch so far and what the meeting was agreed to cover. Without the brief, the closer spends the first ten minutes discovering what we already knew, and the prospect notices. We have written separately about how we brief a closer.
What this means for a buyer of these services
Ask any provider, including us, three questions before you sign. What exactly counts as a meeting? What happens in each of the four situations above? What arrives with the meeting? If the answers are vague, the number in the proposal is not a number. If they are specific, you can hold the provider to them, and that is the only arrangement worth having.
