Scoring built for advisory selling: who is sponsoring the work, the event that triggered it, whether budget is approved, how clearly the problem is defined, and whether a diagnostic was accepted.
Quick answer
By whose relationship it is. A partner mentions a conversation, the firm mobilises around it, and a bespoke proposal is written before anyone establishes whether a budget exists or who would sign it. Consulting is unusually exposed to this because the sales process is indistinguishable from a good conversation, and good conversations are the thing consultants are best at having.
Advisory work is bought in response to events: a merger, a new chief executive, a regulatory change, a failure. An enquiry with a live trigger and a senior sponsor behind it moves. One with neither is a relationship worth keeping and not a pipeline entry worth forecasting.
There is a large difference between allocated funds and an intention to ask for them. Timing matters as much: an enquiry arriving just before a planning cycle can be funded, while the same enquiry two months later waits a year.
A client who accepts a short scoping or diagnostic engagement has decided to work with somebody and is choosing between shortlisted firms. It is the single most useful behavioural signal in advisory selling, and it costs nothing to record.
Opportunity attributes set the starting position. Behaviour, diagnostics accepted, proposals opened, sponsors joining calls, moves it. Quiet opportunities decay. Every score opens to show its reasons, which matters in a firm where partners will reasonably question any ranking they did not construct themselves.
| Signal on the opportunity | Why it predicts here | Effect on score |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic engagement accepted | Already chose to work with someone | Strong lift |
| Budget formally approved | The money exists | Strong lift |
| Chief executive or board sponsor | Survives internal argument | Strong lift |
| Live trigger event | A reason to act now | Moderate lift |
| Problem clearly articulated | Ready to be scoped | Moderate lift |
| Has bought advisory work before | No fee shock | Moderate lift |
| Interested, no sponsor, no budget | A relationship, not a mandate | Drop |
| Proposal unopened for two months | Shelved or awarded | Decay |
Add four fields and insist on them before proposal work starts: sponsor, trigger event, budget approval status, decision timeline. Track diagnostics as a distinct stage. Send proposals from the record so engagement is captured. Then record lost reasons honestly, including the uncomfortable category where the client did nothing at all, which is the most common outcome in advisory selling.
Scoring orders business development. It cannot judge whether a mandate is worth having, whether the client will act on the advice, or whether a small piece of work opens a decade of relationship. It reads only what is recorded, and partners are the least diligent recorders in any professional firm. It needs a couple of quarters of closed outcomes before it is dependable. Partners override it; that is the design, not a failure of it.
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Every team in this space loses revenue to the same recurring gaps. Here is what they cost you and how HelloGrowthCRM closes each one.
Partners write bespoke proposals for enquiries that had no budget, no sponsor and no decision timeline, because every conversation is flattering.
Sponsor seniority, budget approval status and trigger event are captured before proposal work begins, so effort is spent where a mandate can actually be awarded.Mandate qualification
Business development is a set of personal relationships held in individual heads, and nobody else can see what is live.
Opportunities sit in one pipeline with owners, next actions and scores, so the firm has a shared view without asking partners to surrender their relationships.Shared pipeline
Proposals go quiet and the firm cannot tell whether that means no or means it is with the board next Thursday.
Proposal opens and forwards are recorded, so a document being circulated internally is chased differently from one that was read once and set aside.Proposal engagement
Partners travel constantly and the pipeline is updated in bursts before the monthly meeting.
The mobile app carries the same scored list, so conversations and commitments are logged between meetings and the pipeline is current rather than reconstructed.Mobile updates
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