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Triaging a newly assigned inbound lead

When the round-robin assigns a fresh MQL, the SDR verifies the company match in Sales Navigator and grades the lead 'a', 'b' or 'c' on the custom Inbound Score field. A-grade leads get a same-day call attempt, b-grade leads enter a tailored sequence and c-grade leads are disqualified with a structured reason.

Category
Tags
salesforcesales-navigatormqlinboundscoring
What and why
The observed behaviour and the reasoning behind it.
Behaviour
Reasoning
Cause and effect
What initiates this pattern and what it produces.
Trigger
Outcome
Standard operating procedure
Step-by-step instructions to reproduce this pattern.
1

Salesforce

Open the new lead from the round-robin notification and read the Lead Source, Lead Source Detail and any Marketing Notes.

The Lead Source Detail field stores the form path the prospect submitted from, e.g. 'pricing-page-trial' or 'whitepaper-2026-state-of-rev'. Trial signups are higher intent than whitepaper downloads, prioritise them on a busy day. Demo-request forms beat both.

Expected: The SDR knows the marketing surface that produced the lead and the rough intent level.

2

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Search Sales Navigator for the prospect by name and company and confirm both match what was submitted on the form.

About one in five MQLs cannot be found in Sales Navigator at the company they listed. Common causes are personal email signups by job seekers, agencies submitting on behalf of clients or competitors snooping. If the search returns no match, lower the grade by one tier before any further work.

Expected: The prospect's profile is open and matches the form submission, or the mismatch is noted for the score.

3

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Confirm the prospect's title is decision-maker level in the relevant function and that the company matches the team's ICP.

Manager-level titles in product or engineering are not buyers for this product even if the company is in ICP. SDRs have learned that 'Head of', 'VP', 'Director' or 'Founder' is the bar for grade a. Manager and below default to grade b unless the company is on the strategic accounts list maintained by the head of sales.

Expected: The SDR has formed a view on grade based on title and company alone before opening the score field.

4

Salesforce

Return to the Salesforce lead record and set the Inbound Score field to a, b or c.

Grade 'a' is decision-maker title plus ICP company plus high-intent action like demo request or trial. Grade 'b' is one of those three criteria missing. Grade 'c' is two or more missing. Always pick a grade, leaving the field blank pulls the lead out of the SDR dashboard and it gets forgotten.

Expected: The Inbound Score field is populated and the lead is queued in the right next-action bucket.

5

Salesforce

Take the next action: log a Call Attempt for grade-a leads, click Add to Outreach for grade-b leads, or use the Disqualify quick action for grade-c leads.

Grade-a leads must be called within five minutes of arriving in the SDR's queue. The team's contact-rate dashboard tracks this and underperformers get coached on it weekly. Grade-c quick-disqualify always asks for a reason picklist value, never leave it blank.

Expected: The lead is in motion on the right channel and the activity is logged on the timeline.

6

Salesforce

Tag the lead with the current Inbound Score grade and the form source, then save.

Tags drive the conversion-rate dashboard the head of sales reviews on Mondays. The format is '{score}-grade' and 'src-{form-name}', no spaces, no capital letters. Anything else fails the dashboard pivot silently.

Expected: The lead is fully tagged and ready for the next channel-specific pattern.

Supporting actions
Actions that provide evidence for this pattern.
Triaged inbound 'pricing-page-trial' lead from Brava Health, scored grade a
Disqualified inbound MQL with mismatched company and personal Gmail address
Verified 'Director Operations at Lumen Cloud' against Sales Navigator profile
Set Inbound Score = b on Senior Analyst at a Q2 strategic account
Metadata
Timestamps and identifiers.
EvidenceObserved 218 times across 4 connections
ApplicationsSalesforce, LinkedIn Sales Navigator
First seen21 Jan 2026, 14:08
Last seen6 May 2026, 16:42
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