Guest Article: Smarter Qualification: Knowing Which Opportunities to Pursue
Last updated on September 1st, 2026 |
One of the most important growth decisions a professional services firm can make happens before the proposal: deciding whether an opportunity is worth pursuing.
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Amy Franko recently contributed to the Association for Accounting Marketing’s Summer 2026 issue of Growth Strategies magazine.
The article “Stop Chasing Every Prospect: Smarter Qualification Drives Better Growth” by Eileen Monesson explores why disciplined qualification is becoming essential as firms balance ambitious growth goals with limited capacity and increasingly complex client needs.
The excitement of a new opportunity can make it easy to say yes too quickly. But poor-fit clients can affect realization, capacity, culture and long-term growth.
In the article, Amy discusses two practices that help firms make better decisions: creating objective lead-scoring criteria and understanding the “math of opportunity pursuit.” Growth goals, pipeline requirements, win rates and realization need to work together. With those metrics in place, firms can build pipelines based on data rather than optimism.
The article also includes perspectives from Gabe Tevrizian of Councilor advisors + CPAs and Neil Barrow of EnabledBD, including how teams can qualify opportunities collaboratively, recognize different types of prospect conversations and learn from opportunities they lose.
The question for growth leaders is simple: Are you filling your pipeline with more opportunities, or the right opportunities?
This worksheet from sales and growth strategy expert Amy Franko will assist you in validating your sales opportunities. It includes six essential criteria, plus an exercise to easily assess your deals. It’s an essential resource for modern sellers.
Build a Smarter Path to Growth
Sustainable growth starts with making better choices about where to focus your time, talent and resources. Amy Franko helps professional services firms strengthen growth strategy, business development and sales capabilities to create measurable organic growth. Contact Amy to learn more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Prospect qualification is the process of determining whether a potential client or opportunity aligns with the firm’s growth strategy, capabilities and ideal client profile before significant business development resources are invested.
Useful criteria to qualify opportunities can include industry alignment, access to decision-makers, the significance of the client’s business problem, budget, urgency, engagement complexity, cultural fit and potential for a long-term relationship.
The math of opportunity pursuit connects revenue goals to the qualified pipeline required to achieve them. Firms can work backward from their growth goals using metrics such as average engagement size, win rate and realization to determine how many qualified opportunities they realistically need.
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