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Standard work

Qualification standard work

Qualification standard work is licensed CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com).

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1 · What it is

What it is

Qualification standard work is the same three-column job instruction as the canonical version — major steps, key points (a specific technique, not a generic prompt), and the reason each one matters — pointed at deciding whether a lead genuinely fits the ideal customer profile (ICP) before it consumes a discovery call's worth of time. The lean connection is ICP as "specify value — lean's step one," with qualification as its standard work: without a repeatable technique, a rep either advances everyone (burning downstream time on deals that were never going to close) or advances inconsistently (losing real fits to a bad day's judgement call) — the same failure any work instruction exists to prevent.

2 · When to use it

When to use it — and when not to

Use it when

  • Lead volume is high enough that qualification quality varies visibly by rep or by day, not because anyone is careless but because there's no shared technique to fall back on.
  • You have a real ICP canvas and anti-ICP already defined — this standard work is what turns those definitions into a repeatable check, not a substitute for having them.
  • You want to see honestly which qualification steps still rely on individual judgement rather than a real technique, not a checklist that looks complete but isn't.

Not when

  • You don't have a defined ICP or anti-ICP yet — build those first; a qualification checklist with nothing real to check against just adds process without adding signal.
  • Lead volume is low enough that every lead already gets a real, consistent conversation from an experienced rep — the standard work earns its keep at volume, not as ceremony.
  • The 'key point' would just restate the step ('check if they're a good fit') — a real key point adds a specific technique a step alone doesn't convey.

3 · How to fill it in

How to fill it in

Purpose
What does qualification need to establish before a lead advances, and what does advancing an unqualified lead actually cost downstream?
Steps, key points & reasons
Drafted from your description of the qualification process — major steps, each with zero or more key points and, for every key point, the reason it matters. A step with no real technique yet is flagged, not hidden.
Narrative
Drafted from the steps actually built.

4 · What good looks like

What good looks like

The example below is a mid-market inbound qualification process — four of five steps carry a real technique and reason, and the final routing step is honestly left flagged rather than padded with a generic 'route appropriately' instruction.

Same example, as a downloadable xlsx workbook.

Download .xlsx

Work instruction

Lead qualification standard work — mid-market inbound

Sales — mid-market lead qualification

Priya Anand, Sales Enablement · 2026-03-16

Purpose

A repeatable technique for deciding whether an inbound or outbound lead genuinely fits the ICP before it consumes a discovery call's worth of time — so qualification depends on the same checks regardless of which rep or SDR is running it, not individual judgement that varies call to call.

Steps, key points & reasons

5 steps · 4 key points

1. Confirm firmographic fit against the ICP canvas before doing anything else

  • Check company size, industry, and segment against the ICP canvas's defined ranges, not against a general sense of 'seems like our kind of customer' — A lead that fails firmographic fit outright rarely becomes a good account regardless of how the rest of the conversation goes — checking this first avoids investing a full discovery call in a deal the firmographics already ruled out.

2. Confirm a real trigger or pain signal exists, not just inbound interest

  • Ask for one specific, recent event or symptom — not a general statement of interest ('we're always looking to improve') — A lead with no real trigger is early-stage curiosity, not a qualified opportunity — advancing it anyway is what fills a pipeline with deals that stall at 'no decision' later.

3. Check the lead against the anti-ICP disqualifiers before investing further time

  • Run the specific disqualifying patterns (not a vague gut check) — known churn-prone segments, company-size floors, missing implementation resources — Anti-ICP disqualifiers exist because past deals with this exact pattern already failed — skipping this check means repeating a known-bad outcome instead of learning from it.

4. Identify who holds budget authority, even if they're not on this call

  • Ask directly who would need to approve spend, and whether the current contact has spoken to them about this yet — A lead with real pain but no path to an actual budget holder isn't disqualified, but it changes what 'qualified' means — it needs a multi-threading plan, not a straight advance to discovery.

5. Log the qualification outcome and route accordinglyNo key point yet

Narrative

Four of five steps carry a real technique grounding the check in something concrete — firmographic ranges, a named trigger, the specific anti-ICP patterns, a real budget-authority question — rather than a general instruction to 'use judgement.' The final routing step is honestly left without a key point yet: what happens to a lead that passes three checks but fails one is a real decision this standard work doesn't resolve, not an oversight to paper over.

5 · Common mistakes

Common mistakes

  • Checking firmographic fit last, after a full discovery call has already happened.

    Firmographic fit is the cheapest check to run and the one most likely to disqualify outright — running it last means the expensive parts of the process happen before the one check that could have ended it early.

  • Treating 'they filled out a form' as evidence of a real trigger.

    Form fills are interest, not urgency — advancing on interest alone is how a pipeline fills with deals that stall at 'no decision' three months later, the same failure a deal A3 usually traces back to a discovery-stage gap.

  • Running the anti-ICP check from memory instead of the actual defined disqualifiers.

    Anti-ICP patterns exist because specific past deals already failed this way — a rep's general sense of 'red flags' isn't the same as the disqualifiers that were actually derived from churn data.

6 · What it connects to

What it connects to

upstream

  • Ideal customer profile (ICP) canvas

    This standard work only works if the firmographic ranges and trigger signals it checks against are the real, current ICP definition — not a rep's mental model of it.

  • Anti-ideal customer profile (anti-ICP)

    The disqualifier check is only as good as the anti-ICP list it's checking against — a stale or missing anti-ICP means this step has nothing real to run.

downstream

  • Discovery call standard work

    A lead that passes qualification is exactly what advances into a discovery call — qualification decides who gets there, discovery decides what happens once they do.

Part of these playbooks

7 · Where AI helps

Where AI helps

Judgement — stays yours

  • Deciding whether a step genuinely needs a technique or is simple enough not to
  • Deciding whether a drafted key point reflects a real, usable technique or is worth sharpening

Analysis — AI helps

  • Drafting major steps, key points, and reasons from a rough description of the qualification process
  • Drafting the narrative from the steps actually built

Drudgery — automated

  • Counting steps and key points
  • Identifying which steps still have no technique
  • Exporting to xlsx in the house format

9 · Rate this kata

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