Insights on conversational agents.
Plain explanations of AI agents, conversational agents, and qualifying inbound leads, from the team building them.
Qualifying inbound leads: the complete guide
The end-to-end method for qualifying inbound leads: which criteria to write down, where qualification should happen, the questions to ask, the handoff to your team, and how to automate it without hurting conversion.
Qualify your inbound leads
What is lead qualification?
Lead qualification is deciding which inbound leads are worth your time, and scoping what they need, before you invest in them. The criteria teams use, the BANT, MEDDIC and CHAMP frameworks, MQL vs SQL, and how to qualify at the moment of intent.
What is BANT?
BANT qualifies leads on four checks: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. What each one means, where the IBM-born framework still works, the honest case against it, and how teams run BANT automatically on inbound leads.
What is MEDDIC?
MEDDIC is a qualification framework for complex B2B sales: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion. What each letter means, where it comes from, the MEDDICC and MEDDPICC variants, and where it fits for inbound leads.
Understand AI agents
What is a conversational agent?
A conversational agent is software that holds a real dialogue with a person: it understands intent, keeps context, and works toward an outcome. How it works, the main types, where businesses use one, and how to get one.
AI agent vs chatbot: what is the difference?
A chatbot follows a script; an AI agent understands and acts. Where each came from, the differences that matter in practice, when a chatbot is enough, and the questions to ask any vendor before you put one on your site.
How to create an AI agent
You can build an AI agent from scratch with code, or stand one up on a no-code platform in an afternoon. What an agent actually needs, both routes step by step, how to choose between them, and the mistakes that sink first agents.
Templates and checklists
Sales qualifying questions: the ones that work
A question bank for qualifying inbound leads: opening questions, budget questions phrased to get answers, timeline, authority, disqualifiers, and the discovery-call set, with the order and delivery that keep it from feeling like an interrogation.
Client intake form template: fields, variants, trade-offs
A copy-ready client intake form template: the field set by section, per-industry variants for agencies, consultants, accountants and architects, the field-count trade-off nobody mentions, and the conversational alternative.
Quote follow-up emails: the three that get replies
Three quote follow-up emails that get replies: the day-3 nudge, the day-10 value add, and the day-25 close-out, with the timing that works, the mistakes that keep clients silent, and the upstream fix for ghosted quotes.