Lead scoring sounds like enterprise software territory, but the useful version fits on an index card. The goal is simple: spend your best hours on the candidates most likely to close, and stop letting a loud inbox set your priorities.

The four criteria that carry the weight

1. Liquidity

Cash the candidate can deploy without a loan. This is the single strongest predictor, because every franchise conversation eventually arrives at "how much can you actually put in?" A candidate below your concept's minimum liquidity is not a cold lead — they are not a lead for you at all.

2. Net worth

The balance sheet a franchisor screens against. Net worth matters differently from liquidity: it determines which tier of concept is realistic and whether financing will clear. Score it as bands, not exact figures — you need to know which tier they fit, not their account balance.

3. Timeline

"Actively looking, want to decide this quarter" and "just researching, maybe someday" are different products. A candidate with strong finances and a twelve-month horizon belongs in nurture, not on today's call list. Score timeline explicitly or it will quietly distort everything else.

4. Engagement

The soft signal: did they answer the verification call, respond to the first outreach, ask specific questions? Engagement cannot rescue bad finances, but between two financially equal candidates, the one asking about territory availability beats the one who has gone quiet.

A score you can run in your head

Give each criterion 0–2 points:

  • Liquidity: 0 below your band, 1 at the band, 2 comfortably above
  • Net worth: same scale against the concept's requirement
  • Timeline: 0 over a year, 1 within six months, 2 within a quarter
  • Engagement: 0 unresponsive, 1 responsive, 2 proactively engaged

Eight points possible. Six to eight: call today. Three to five: work the cadence. Below three: nurture or release.

What not to score

  • Enthusiasm on a web form — free to express, worthless as evidence
  • Demographics — age and location correlate weakly and bias your pipeline
  • Source prestige — a portal lead and a referral get the same score; let the criteria speak

The verification problem

Scoring only works on true inputs, and self-reported form data is routinely optimistic. A candidate's stated liquidity on a form is a claim; the same figure confirmed on a verification call is a fact. This is why we score only call-verified leads in our own tiers — Bronze, Silver, and Gold are defined by verified liquidity and net worth bands, so the scoring is done before the lead reaches you.

If you would rather buy leads with the scoring already done, see the tiers or talk to us.