SOP-REV-lead-qualification-v0 (DRAFT)¶
1. Purpose¶
Define two things, in one document, so the revenue pipeline stops creating data it then has to clean up:
- Assessment-tier qualification criteria — what qualifies a company for our $2,500 Assessment offer, and which Tier (1/2/3) they belong to. This is the gate every new prospect passes through before outreach starts.
- LinkedIn signal-note handoff format — the structured intake format
mining.mind(or any LinkedIn-watching agent) uses to hand top-of-funnel signals tosales.ops. This closes the cross-department gap called out in the sales.ops v1.1 contract (Sub-domain 1).
Both sections enforce the import stage gate: no item lands on the Prospects board without Name + Domain + HQ + Tier + ICP Score at minimum. This is the rule whose absence produced the 82% duplicate rate on 2026-04-17 per the pipeline audit at /Claude/operations/audits/pipeline/2026-04-17.md.
What this SOP is not: a 30-field scorecard. Marcus's instruction on the v1.1 contract was explicit — keep it lean and concrete. If a criterion doesn't drive a disqualification or tier decision, it's not here.
2. Scope¶
| In scope | Out of scope |
|---|---|
| Any prospect entering the Prospects board for the first time | Existing prospects already being worked (governed by SOP-REV-opportunity-inspection when that ships) |
| LinkedIn top-of-funnel signals (posts, DMs, comments, meeting requests) | Cold outbound to unqualified lists (we don't do that) |
| Assessment-tier ($2,500) qualification | Tier 3 / Network category — routed but not qualified against this SOP |
| Import stage gate for bulk CSV / JSON loads | Monday.com board hygiene post-entry (covered by pipeline-audit cadence) |
3. Assessment-Tier Qualification Criteria¶
A prospect qualifies for an Assessment conversation if all four gates below pass. If any one fails, the prospect goes to Tier 3 / Network or is rejected at intake.
3.1 Company-size gate¶
Budget capacity follows employee count more reliably than revenue reporting in our target industries.
| Employee count | Gate |
|---|---|
| 200+ employees | Pass — Assessment-ready |
| 100-199 employees | Conditional — requires one compensating signal (strong ecosystem complexity, named exec referral, or >$50M revenue confirmed) |
| < 100 employees | Fail — typically can't support a $2,500 Assessment + the subsequent engagement without churn risk. Route to Tier 3 unless CRO explicitly overrides. |
Why 200: the $2,500 Assessment prices in a ~$25K follow-on engagement range. Companies below 200 employees rarely have the operational complexity, budget authority, or ecosystem maturity to justify that math. This number comes from the 2026-04-17 audit where several LinkedIn imports at 51-200 employees were re-tiered down (Intezer, CAEVES, DataGaps) because the size-vs-spend ratio was visibly off.
3.2 Ecosystem-complexity signal¶
The eco|monetize™ offer is for companies with real partner / channel / ecosystem revenue motions. A prospect passes this gate if at least one of the following is true:
- Has a named partner program (AWS, Azure, GCP, Salesforce AppExchange, Snowflake, ServiceNow Partners, HubSpot, etc.)
- Has a Channel / Alliance / Partnerships function in the org (Head of Partnerships, CRO with channel scope, VP Alliances)
- Public reference: co-sell deals, marketplace listings, ISV partnerships, system integrator relationships
-
20% of reported revenue attributable to partner-sourced or partner-influenced pipeline (when we can verify)
Fail mode: companies that sell direct-only with no partner motion don't fit the offer. They may be great companies, but they're not our buyer. Route to Network rather than pushing through.
3.3 Decision-maker accessibility¶
We need a plausible path to the economic buyer — VP-level or above, with authority over ecosystem / partner / channel strategy. Pass requires one of:
- Second-degree LinkedIn connection to a VP+ in the relevant function
- Named referral from an existing contact, partner, or investor
- Documented speaking / podcast / content appearance by a relevant exec (warm entry point)
- Inbound signal (they engaged with us first — post reply, DM, meeting request, website form)
Fail mode: cold with no path in. For Tier 1 / Tier 2 we need the accessibility gate met before outreach; for Tier 3 we accept cold and route via content / inbound patience.
3.4 Budget-authority signal¶
At least one of the following must hold to justify Assessment-tier qualification:
- Company revenue $50M+ (Assessment is discretionary spend at this scale)
- Named CRO / CPO / Chief Partnership Officer (i.e., the ecosystem function has its own budget owner)
- Recent funding event <18 months old (Series B+, PE investment, secondary liquidity)
- Public commitment to partner-program expansion (press release, earnings call mention, job postings for alliance roles in the last 90 days)
Fail mode: no clear budget signal → Tier 3 or rejection.
4. Tier Assignment Matrix¶
Tier decides outreach cadence, not just prospect eligibility.
| Tier | Gates passed | Outreach posture |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | All 4 gates + 200+ employees + direct decision-maker path + strong ecosystem signal (e.g., public partner program + named CPO) | Active outreach — sequenced cadence, CRO-reviewed messaging, executive engagement target |
| Tier 2 | All 4 gates but one or more "just barely" passes (e.g., 150-199 employees with compensating signal, or second-degree rather than named referral) | Standard cadence, automated sequences with human oversight |
| Tier 3 | 1-3 gates pass; company is still worth tracking (competitor, ecosystem-adjacent, future fit) | Network / nurture only — no active Assessment pitch. Revisit quarterly. |
| Network | No current fit but relevant relationship (alumni, advisor, partner, investor overlap) | Relationship track, no outreach automation |
| Reject | 0 gates pass OR disqualifying signal (non-English-speaking market, known sanctions, competitor) | Do not add to board. Archive the intake record. |
The Tier is set at intake and revisited only when material company change occurs (funding round, exec hire, partner announcement, revenue milestone).
5. LinkedIn Signal-Note Handoff Format¶
mining.mind watches LinkedIn for top-of-funnel signal. When a signal lands, it hands off to sales.ops via a structured intake note.
5.1 Where to deliver¶
Signals drop into /Claude/sessions/sales.ops/signals/linkedin-YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md and a one-line notification posts to #agent-handoffs per CLAUDE.md Section 9 Rule 6.
5.2 Required fields (stage gate for intake)¶
Every signal-note must carry these fields — no exceptions. Missing fields = note bounces back for completion before sales.ops works it.
| Field | Values / format | Why required |
|---|---|---|
source |
one of: post / dm / comment / meeting-request / connection-request |
Triage routing — DMs and meeting-requests are P1; comments and post engagement are P2 |
prospect_name |
Full name as it appears on LinkedIn | Dedup against existing contacts |
prospect_linkedin_url |
https://linkedin.com/in/... |
Enrichment key |
company_name |
Current company per LinkedIn profile | Dedup against Prospects board |
company_domain |
Normalized domain (e.g. example.com) |
Match key — see Section 6 stage gate |
signal_type |
one of: engagement / inbound / meeting-request / reference |
Determines next action |
signal_summary |
1-3 sentences describing what happened | Context for outreach messaging |
icp_match_score |
0-100 integer per 5-dimension ICP model | Priority ranking |
captured_at |
ISO 8601 timestamp | Staleness check (>14 days old = re-validate) |
captured_by |
Agent ID (typically mining.mind) |
Audit trail |
5.3 Optional enrichment fields¶
Populate when available, skip when not — don't block the handoff on them:
prospect_role(job title)decision_maker_proximity—direct/one-step/two-step(relative to the prospect)prior_touchpoints— list of prior interactions (podcast, conference, LinkedIn post reply)suggested_response— mining.mind's read on the best next action
5.4 Example intake note¶
---
source: dm
prospect_name: Jane Doe
prospect_linkedin_url: https://linkedin.com/in/janedoe
company_name: Acme Cloud
company_domain: acmecloud.com
signal_type: inbound
signal_summary: Replied to Rick's Substack post on partner-led GTM with "this is exactly the math we're trying to crack at Acme." Offered to grab 20 minutes next week.
icp_match_score: 82
captured_at: 2026-04-17T14:20:00-07:00
captured_by: mining.mind
prospect_role: VP Alliances
decision_maker_proximity: direct
---
Jane Doe leads alliances at Acme Cloud (1,200 employees, AWS + Azure
partner). Her DM is the first inbound of the week.
6. Import Stage Gate — Prospects Board¶
No item lands on the Prospects board (Monday board 18406915789) without these fields populated at minimum:
| Field | Monday column | Why required |
|---|---|---|
| Name | name |
Identity |
| Domain | text_mm218qe9 |
Dedup match key |
| HQ Location | text_mm21caks |
Geo segmentation |
| Tier | color_mm217sw4 |
Routing |
| ICP Score (Weighted) | numeric_mm216nk9 |
Priority |
Any item missing one of these five fields is rejected by the stage gate at intake and routed to manual enrichment before retry. This rule is enforced programmatically by DedupGate.check() in /Claude/scripts/integrations/monday/dev/prospect_dedup.py — domain-normalized, within-batch dedup, cross-board duplicate detection.
6.1 Import paths and required hygiene¶
Any script or human action that creates Prospects board items must run through the dedup gate:
prospect_pipeline_sync.py— domain gate enabled by default (post-2026-04-17 patch)- CSV / JSON bulk imports — pipe through
python3 prospect_dedup.py --input data.json --output sorted.json, then load only theuniquebucket - Manual Monday UI creation — governed by this SOP as convention; any manual add without the 5 required fields must be amended within 24 hours or it gets archived during the next pipeline audit
6.2 What the gate rejects¶
The gate returns three buckets; only one is safe to push:
unique— safe, push theseduplicates— domain already on the board; reconcile with the existing record (enrich if new data is richer, otherwise drop)rejected— missing Name or Domain; never auto-push these — route to a human for enrichment
7. Handoff and Escalation¶
7.1 Normal flow¶
mining.mind → signal-note drop at /Claude/sessions/sales.ops/signals/ + #agent-handoffs ping → sales.ops runs Section 3 gates → Tier assigned → item created on Prospects board via dedup gate → outreach hand-off to CRO or department agents per CRO's cadence SOP (pending).
7.2 Escalation triggers¶
Per CLAUDE.md Section 11:
| Trigger | Route |
|---|---|
| Signal-note fails required-fields check 3x from same sender | Flag mining.mind owner (CDO) for intake protocol review |
>10% of weekly imports land in rejected bucket |
Audit upstream data source with CRO |
| Tier 1 outreach fails acceptance-gate re-check (company size verification flips) | Re-tier immediately, note at /Claude/operations/audits/pipeline/YYYY-MM-DD.md |
| Import batch dup rate >20% | Incident (SEV2) per Section 6E |
8. QA and Audit¶
- Monthly pipeline hygiene audit —
sales.opsruns duplicate / completeness check on Prospects board, files report at/Claude/operations/audits/pipeline/YYYY-MM-DD.md - Quarterly tier-review — re-validate Tier 1 and Tier 2 assignments against current company state (funding, exec changes, revenue updates)
- Handoff sampling —
chief.staffsamples 5 recent signal-note handoffs per month for format compliance
9. Draft Notes for CRO Review (REMOVE BEFORE PUBLICATION)¶
Points where I'd value your explicit approval before this goes to Active status:
- Employee-count threshold of 200. Pulled from audit observation but it's a judgment call. If you think 150 is more commercially honest, say the word.
- Tier 1 eligibility requiring "all 4 gates + strong ecosystem signal." I tightened this deliberately — Tier 1 is currently overpopulated. Happy to loosen if you disagree.
- Decision-maker accessibility gate is in the qualification criteria. That makes it a disqualifier rather than a nice-to-have. If you think it should be a Tier selector rather than a gate, I'll rewrite it as such.
- Mining.mind handoff format. Drafted based on the fields you confirmed in the contract amendment. Await CDO (Dave's) input on whether mining.mind can actually produce all the required fields reliably — may need to relax on
icp_match_scoreif their scoring model isn't mature yet. - Domain normalization — currently strips
www.and protocol. Want me to also handle country-code TLDs (.co.ukvs.com) as distinct or collapsed? Right now they're distinct (safer default). - Publication path: Marcus — your work order said "don't publish." Understood. This file is
-draft-v0.md, not the live SOP-REV-lead-qualification-v1.0.md. Rename and promote after your review and any revisions.
10. Changelog¶
| Version | Date | Change |
|---|---|---|
| v0 draft | 2026-04-17 | Initial draft by sales.ops per weekend work order step 9 |