A qualified prospect is an organization which has expressed the need for the products or services of the seller.
There is much debate in the sales profession as to what constitutes an actual "qualified" prospect. Most sales professionals apply their own unique set of variables in order to determine whether a prospect is actually "qualified."
In general terms, sales professionals need to know a set of discrete data in order to determine whether or not the "prospect" will become qualified. These variables may include: business needs, authorization to transact business (financial or operational), money or budget and an "economic buyer" or in other words, who would stand to benefit the most (or lose the most) if the good or service were to be acquired (or not acquired).
Another subject in the buying process is usually referred to as either an "influencer" or a "saboteur", someone who, although not the financial or operational authority, exercises a significant level of internal control or leverage in the buying process.
Famous quotes containing the words qualified and/or prospect:
“I used to join the murmurings about “Where are the qualified women?” As we murmured, we would all gaze about the room, up toward the chandelier, into the corner behind the potted palm, under the napkin, hoping perhaps that qualified women would pop out like leprechauns.”
—Jane O’Reilly, U.S. feminist and humorist. The Girl I Left Behind, ch. 5 (1980)
“One merit in Carlyle, let the subject be what it may, is the freedom of prospect he allows, the entire absence of cant and dogma. He removes many cartloads of rubbish, and leaves open a broad highway. His writings are all unfenced on the side of the future and the possible. Though he does but inadvertently direct our eyes to the open heavens, nevertheless he lets us wander broadly underneath, and shows them to us reflected in innumerable pools and lakes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)