Write a disqualification checklist that saves your reps hours
Arms your team with an objective disqualification system: instant-kill conditions, a three-strike warning framework, qualify-out questions that surface bad fits early, and graceful exit templates. The math section quantifies the rep-hours recovered, which is what turns disqualification from a guilt trip into an obvious win.
You are a sales efficiency coach with an unfashionable specialty: teaching reps to disqualify. You've audited hundreds of pipelines and found the same disease everywhere — 30-40% of 'active' opportunities are dead deals walking, kept alive because reps are optimists, pipelines look better fat, and nobody ever taught anyone that a fast no is a win. Your checklists make disqualification fast, evidence-based, and guilt-free. Build my disqualification checklist. Produce: 1. INSTANT DISQUALIFIERS: 4-6 conditions that end pursuit immediately, each phrased as a checkable fact, not a judgment call — with the polite one-line exit for each. 2. THE STRIKE SYSTEM: 5-7 warning signs (stalled replies, no access to power, vague timelines, unpaid pilot demands) where accumulating 3 strikes triggers a mandatory keep-or-kill review. 3. QUALIFY-OUT QUESTIONS: 4 direct questions reps should ask early that make bad-fit prospects reveal themselves — with the disqualifying answer spelled out for each. 4. THE GRACEFUL EXIT: short templates for ending pursuit by email and by phone that preserve the relationship and leave a door open for when fit changes. 5. THE MATH: given my numbers, roughly how many rep-hours per month proper disqualification recovers, and where to reinvest them. Make every item objective enough that two reps looking at the same deal reach the same verdict. No vibes-based criteria. Before you write anything, interview me. Ask me these questions ONE AT A TIME, waiting for my answer each time: 1. What do you sell, at what deal size, and how long is your typical sales cycle? 2. Describe the deals that waste the most rep time — how do they look at first, and how do they die? 3. What does your team currently treat as disqualifying, formally or informally? 4. How many active opportunities does a typical rep carry, and how many honestly feel alive? Once you have my answers, produce the checklist. Where my current informal criteria are actually excuses to avoid hard conversations, call that out.
How to use it
- 1
Copy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM.
- 2
Answer question 2 with your two or three most memorable time-vampire deals — their shared anatomy becomes the strike list.
- 3
Roll out the strike system in your CRM as a simple counter field so accumulation is visible.
- 4
Rehearse the graceful exits in a team meeting; reps avoid disqualifying mostly because they lack the words.
- 5
Run a monthly keep-or-kill review using the checklist on every deal older than your typical cycle length.
Best practices
Celebrate disqualifications in pipeline reviews the way you celebrate wins — behavior follows what leadership applauds.
Keep instant disqualifiers factual ('no budget authority in any meeting after three attempts'), never vibes ('seems unmotivated').
Use qualify-out questions early, in the first or second conversation; their whole value is spending minutes to save weeks.
Track what disqualified prospects do next — a pattern of them buying elsewhere means a criterion is miscalibrated.
Example: what this looks like in practice
A sales leader at an IT consulting firm notices her four reps each carry 35 'active' opportunities but forecast from about 10. The interview surfaces the classic time vampire: prospects who take every meeting, praise every proposal, and never introduce the budget holder. The checklist sets instant disqualifiers including 'three meetings without decision-maker access' and 'asking for a fourth free scoping revision', a strike system where vague timelines and rescheduled calls accumulate, and the qualify-out question 'if this scoping lands where we discussed, what happens on your side next?' The math estimates 25 recovered rep-hours monthly. After one quarter, average pipeline shrinks to 18 deals per rep while closed revenue rises 20% — the hours moved to deals that could actually close.
Best fit
This prompt is one gear in a bigger machine. We orchestrate 20+ tools into outbound systems our clients own — and guarantee the results.
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Because rep time is the scarcest resource in your funnel. Every hour spent on a deal that will never close is stolen from one that could — and bloated pipelines hide real forecast risk while burning morale on ghost deals. Teams that disqualify fast consistently show higher win rates, not because they're pickier, but because effort concentrates where it compounds.
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