What counts as a qualified appointment, and why most lead-gen numbers are junk.

“We'll get you 50 leads a month” and “we'll book you 5 qualified appointments a month” are not versions of the same promise. A lead is a name and a job title. Sometimes it is a person who liked a post. An appointment is a time on your calendar, which may be with an intern who was curious. A qualified appointment is a conversation with someone who can buy, about a problem they want solved now.

Vendors who sell leads sell volume, because volume is cheap to produce. Founders who buy leads spend their evenings chasing people who never asked to be chased. If your goal is revenue, count qualified appointments and nothing else.

A call counts as qualified when, on a reasonable pre-screen, the person has all four:

1. Budget. Money is allocated or can be, in a range that fits your pricing.
2. Current problem. Something you solve is live for them now, not “on the radar for next year”.
3. Authority. They decide, or they directly influence the person who does.
4. Timeline. They want it solved within a period you can plan around.

“Reasonable pre-screen” is doing work in that sentence. You cannot audit a buyer's finances before a first call. You can ask direct questions in the thread and take honest answers at face value. The test is whether a sensible person, reading the conversation, would call this a buyer.

We ask every client three scenario questions during onboarding, because the definition alone is not enough. Here they are, with how we count.

Scenario A: interest without budget

A Director of Operations at a 300-person SaaS company books a call and says workflow automation is on their radar but no budget is allocated yet. Qualified? No. Two of the four tests fail. It is a good conversation to have, and it goes in the nurture list, not in the count.

Scenario B: the reschedule

A CTO confirms a meeting, reschedules twice over three weeks, and eventually shows up as a great fit with budget. Count once, on the date the meeting actually takes place. Never on the booking date, and never twice.

Scenario C: two people, one company

A meeting with the Head of IT at Company X, then two weeks later another with the Head of Digital Transformation at the same company. That is one organisation, counted once. The unique-organisation rule stops a vendor booking five people from one firm and calling it five appointments.

Our contract says 30 qualified discovery calls within 90 days of launch on Growth Partner, and 20 on LinkedIn Growth, or we keep working at no additional fee until the number is reached. That sentence only means something because the definition above sits next to it, along with:

• When the clock starts: the day the first approved message is sent, not the day the contract is signed.
• What pauses it: approvals, access or attendance withheld for more than a few business days.
• What happens on a miss: work continues, nothing further is invoiced, until the number is reached.
• Who counts: an agreed pre-screen, shared in a report you can check every week.

Our full terms are public, including the guarantee clause word for word.

• Pay-per-lead pricing. It rewards volume and punishes qualification.
• Commission-only. It sounds aligned and produces the opposite: the vendor gambles on volume because they carry no cost for junk.
• Big monthly appointment numbers with no definition of qualified. Volume is easy to promise when anyone who picks up counts. Ask what has to be true before a call counts.
• No written definition of qualified. If they cannot show it to you, they will define it after the fact.
• No access to the conversations. You should be able to read every thread that led to a booking.

Write your own definition of a qualified appointment before you run outreach yourself or hire anyone to run it. Use the four tests and the three scenarios. Then hold every number you see, including ours, against it. If you want to see how we apply it to your market, book the strategy call.