What counts as a qualified meeting?
A qualified meeting is one that actually happens, with a decision-maker, at a business that matches the ICP you agreed on in writing. If any one of those three is missing, it isn’t qualified, and at Levante Leads it isn’t billed.
What are the three conditions?
- Right company. The business matches the ICP you signed off on: industry, company size and service area, with none of the disqualifiers.
- Right person. A decision-maker or the contact you agreed on, not whoever happened to reply.
- Held. They actually join the scheduled meeting with you or whoever runs your sales calls. A calendar invite on its own doesn’t count.
All three are agreed in writing before launch. They decide who gets targeted, which leads get booked and which meetings get billed.
What’s the difference between booked, held and qualified?
Booked means a meeting is on the calendar. Held means the prospect showed up. Qualified means it was the right business and the right person.
Each step filters out meetings that cost you time. Some booked meetings never happen. Some held meetings are with businesses that were never going to buy managed IT. So when an agency says it charges per appointment, the first question is which of these three words the contract uses. More on that in pay per appointment vs retainer.
Four illustrative scenarios, and what each one costs you at Levante Leads:
| Scenario | Booked | Held | Qualified | Billed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managing partner of a 40-person law firm joins the call | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Owner of a solo bookkeeping shop with two PCs joins the call | Yes | Yes | No: off-ICP | No |
| Office manager of a medical practice doesn’t show up | Yes | No | Not yet | No: we rebook it |
| Practice owner of a three-location dental clinic joins the call | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
What does a written ICP look like for an MSP?
It starts from your best current clients: their industry, headcount, locations, how far they are from your office, what they had before you (a part-time IT guy, break-fix, nothing), what made them switch and who signed. Here’s an example of how it can read:
- Industry: law firms, CPA firms, dental practices
- Company size: 20 to 200 employees
- Region: within 60 miles of Dallas, TX
- Decision-maker: owner, managing partner or practice administrator
- Disqualifiers: under 10 staff, in-house IT team, franchise locations
That’s an illustration, not a client’s real document. Yours comes from your own clients, and you sign off on it before anything goes out.
Why do disqualifiers matter?
Disqualifiers are the businesses that look right on paper but never buy. A company with its own in-house IT team. A franchise location that may not choose its own IT. A solo bookkeeper with two PCs. Writing them down keeps those meetings off your calendar, and off your bill.
Who counts as a decision-maker?
Usually the person who signs: the owner, the managing partner or the practice administrator. Sometimes the right first meeting is with someone else, like an office manager who handles IT day to day. If so, you agree on that contact in writing, and a meeting with them counts.
If the person who joins isn’t a decision-maker or an agreed contact, the meeting doesn’t meet the standard, and it isn’t billed.
What happens when a prospect doesn’t show up?
A no-show isn’t billed. We follow up and try to rebook it, and a rebooked meeting becomes billable only once it actually happens. You’re never billed for an empty call.
What if a meeting doesn’t fit the criteria?
Flag the meeting and Levante Leads checks it against the written standard; if it doesn’t fit, you don’t pay for it. Because the criteria were signed before launch, the check is against a document, not an opinion. That ends the argument over “those meetings weren’t ICP.”
What comes with each meeting?
A short brief, so you walk in prepared: the company, who’s joining, why it fits the ICP, what they use for IT today and what they want to talk about. If you take the meetings yourself, that saves you the research. If a salesperson takes them, they start from the same page.
How does this tie into price?
You pay only for meetings that meet all three conditions. There’s no retainer, and the price per meeting comes in writing on the second call. How pricing works covers what sets it.