How to Qualify a Local Business Lead Before You Contact It
· 3 min read
A list of five hundred businesses is not five hundred leads. Some will have no way to reach them, some closed last year, and some do not need what you sell. Qualifying is the work of finding out which, before you write. It saves you hours and keeps you from sending messages that should never have gone.
Qualify on three questions
- Can I reach them? (A phone number or a published email.)
- Are they active? (Recent reviews, opening hours, a site that loads.)
- Would they plausibly want what I sell? (The fit.)
A lead that fails the first or second question is not a lead yet. The third question decides who to write to first.
What to look at
| Signal | What it tells you | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Phone number | You can contact them | A landline is a call, not a WhatsApp message |
| Published email | Email is possible | Use only what the business published |
| Website: none, broken or slow | Your offer may fit if you sell sites | A Facebook page is not a website |
| Rating and number of reviews | Real customers exist | A 5.0 from three reviews tells you little |
| Date of the latest review | The business is open | A last review from years ago suggests it is not |
| Opening hours listed | Someone runs it | Closed or "permanently closed" flags |
| Category | Whether the offer is relevant | Broad categories hide big differences |
| Independent or chain | Whether the owner decides | A chain's branch is usually not the buyer |
| Duplicate | You may write twice to the same business | Same name, same phone, two listings |
A rating is a weak signal alone
Combine the rating with the number of reviews: a 4.8 from 300 reviews is a stronger sign of a busy business than a 5.0 from 4.
Be careful when you compare ratings from different map services. Some services show ratings that come from a different review site, with far fewer reviews, and they are not comparable with the ratings on a service that has its own large review base. A business with a lower number on one service is not necessarily worse. Compare like with like, or ignore the number across sources.
Judge the fit in one sentence
Write down, for the lead, why this offer for this business:
- "A plumber with 200 reviews and no website: a booking page."
- "A café with a good rating and a site that does not work on a phone: a mobile fix."
- "A dentist with a modern site and online booking: no fit for a website pitch. Skip."
If you cannot write the sentence, do not write the message.
Decide what you will not contact
Qualifying also means saying no:
- No phone and no published email.
- Closed or inactive.
- Duplicate of one you already wrote to.
- A chain branch where you cannot reach the decision-maker.
- Anyone who has asked not to be contacted, in any earlier campaign.
Keep it light
You do not need a large scoring model. Three questions and a column for the one-sentence fit are enough for the first hundred leads.
The same logic in AyePin
AyePin scores each lead from the same kind of signals: reachable by phone, rating weighted by how many reviews it rests on, review volume, and an AI judgement of fit to your offer with the reason shown. Ratings that come from Bing and Apple Maps are shown but not counted in the score, for the reason above. Repeats are marked, closed businesses and landlines are kept out of message drafting, and each lead carries where its details came from.
To find leads worth this treatment, see how to find local businesses without a website.