30-Day Challenge: Get Your First 10 Qualified Leads Using Lead Scoring

30-Day Challenge: Get Your First 10 Qualified Leads Using Lead Scoring

S
Sachin Sharma
Co-Founder
4 min read

Generating and qualifying your first 10 leads with a systematic lead scoring process requires careful planning, execution, and iteration. This comprehensive 30-day plan integrates best practices from leading CRM systems and industry insights to establish a measurable, repeatable, and scalable approach. It includes defining your qualification criteria, implementing and refining your scoring model in any leading CRM such as Freshsales, monday.com, Copper, or Marketo.


Preparatory Phase: Days 1–4

Day 1: Set Objectives and Define ‘Qualified Lead’

  • Clarify what constitutes a ‘qualified lead’ (e.g., Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL), Sales Accepted Lead (SAL)) tailored to your business context.
  • Establish your ideal customer profile (ICP), considering industry, company size, roles, and typical pain points.
  • Align sales and marketing stakeholders on definitions and expectations to ensure cohesive qualification standards .

Day 2: Research and Choose Lead Scoring Criteria

  • Select explicit demographic/firmographic criteria (job title, company size, industry) alongside implicit behavioral criteria (website visits, email opens, content downloads).
  • Assign preliminary point values reflecting the relative importance of each criterion based on industry benchmarks (e.g., webinar attendance = +10, pricing page visit = +5, unsubscribing from email = -5) .

Day 3: Select and Prepare Your CRM

  • Choose a CRM that supports flexible lead scoring, like Freshsales (with AI scoring), monday.com, HubSpot, or Copper’s workflow prioritization features .
  • Set up a basic sales pipeline and import any existing leads or sample contacts for practice.

Day 4: Finalize Your Lead Scoring Framework

  • Consolidate your explicit and implicit scoring signals and finalize point allocations.
  • Establish threshold scores for stages such as MQL, SAL, and SQL (e.g., MQL at or above 50 points) .

Lead Generation and Data Collection: Days 5–14

Days 5–6: Create Lead Capture Assets and Channels

  • Develop optimized lead capture forms on your website and landing pages.
  • Prepare compelling lead magnets (guides, templates, demo offers) to drive signups .

Days 7–8: Launch Lead Generation Campaigns

  • Initiate paid and organic marketing campaigns targeting your ICP:
    • Paid ads on platforms like LinkedIn and Google.
    • Content marketing such as blogs, webinars, and downloadable resources.
    • Network outreach for direct referrals.

Days 9–14: Collect and Enrich Leads

  • Monitor inbound leads, event registrations, and form submissions.
  • Use CRM tools for automatic enrichment of lead profiles with company data, social information, and intent signals .
  • Daily, review new leads, assigning demographic info and updating behavioral scores as interactions occur (email opens, site visits) .

Implement Scoring Automations and Early Qualification: Days 15–19

Day 15: Build Out Scoring Automation

  • Establish custom fields for each scoring criterion within your CRM.
  • Use formula columns (monday.com) or AI features (Freshsales) to compute overall lead scores automatically.
  • Alternatively, use spreadsheets with scoring tables for CRMs lacking automation .

Day 16: Set Up Notifications and Triggers

  • Configure notifications to alert your sales team when leads cross qualification thresholds.
  • Use visual flags, tags, or color-coding to indicate lead status within your CRM .

Days 17–19: Test and Refine Scoring Logic

  • Input test leads with different profiles to validate scoring accuracy.
  • Adjust point allocations to ensure high-intent leads are correctly surfaced as qualified .

Active Lead Nurturing and Engagement: Days 20–24

Days 20–21: Personalized Lead Nurturing

  • Segment leads by score tiers (hot, warm, cold).
  • Deploy targeted email sequences and outreach via LinkedIn or phone calls for high-scoring leads to deepen engagement .

Days 22–23: Score Further Engagements

  • Track ongoing actions such as replies, additional content downloads, or webinar attendance.
  • Update lead scores automatically or manually to reflect new data.
  • Deduct points for disengagement signals like unsubscribes or email bounces .

Day 24: Schedule Qualification Calls/Meetings

  • Arrange discovery or qualification calls with leads exceeding threshold scores.
  • Use these interactions to confirm fit and update scoring with qualitative insights .

Review, Iterate, and Achieve 10 Qualified Leads: Days 25–30

Days 25–27: Review Progress and Scorecard

  • Analyze pipeline and lead scoring dashboard.
  • Identify all leads surpassing qualification thresholds.
  • Refine scoring criteria using observed conversion trends (e.g., increasing the weight of webinar attendance if it strongly correlates with closing) .

Days 28–29: Final Qualifying Push

  • Engage leads on the cusp of qualification with targeted offers or invitations.
  • Consider hosting a final webinar or offering exclusive demo slots to accelerate decisions.
  • Solicit marketing and sales teams for additional lead sourcing if targets are unmet.

Day 30: Summarize Results and Next Steps

  • Confirm achievement of 10+ qualified leads based on scoring and validation through sales outreach.
  • Conduct a team debrief to evaluate what worked, challenges, and scoring effectiveness.
  • Document insights and establish an improved, repeatable playbook for future lead qualification cycles .

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S
Sachin Sharma
Co-Founder