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Alakris — Qualification Guide 2026 (internal manager scorecard)
| Version | v1.0 |
| Date | 2026-07-12 |
| Status | APPROVED — published 2026-07-12 |
| Contract | MKT-030-6 (PARENT: MKT-030) |
| Usage | INTERNAL manager tool only, used during the first meeting (Sales Playbook, MKT-030-4, discovery structure). NOT a public customer quiz on the website. |
| References | Pricing Book (pricing-book-2026.md, MKT-030-3), AI Employee Catalog (ai-employee-catalog-2026.md, MKT-030-1) |
How to use this guide
The 5-axis questions below sound to the customer like natural discovery questions (see Sales Playbook, section 2 — Situation/Pain/Decision), not a survey the manager reads aloud with scores. Scores are filled in by the manager after the call (or discreetly during it) in the lead CRM card (Marina, AI sales manager).
The qualification model is BANT for the self-service/SMB segment (Lite/Self-Service/Managed) as a quick screen. MEDDIC/MEDDPICC is engaged only when the scorecard points to Enterprise — it is unnecessary and excessive at the stage of first qualification for self-service leads.
Axis 1 — Business sector / vertical
Informational axis — does not give points directly, but determines which AI personas (ai-employee-catalog-2026.md) are relevant to show on the demo.
Natural question: "What does the company do, what is your main sales channel?"
| Answer | Manager note |
|---|---|
| E-commerce / online store | Priority: Alex (consultant), Marina (CRM) |
| B2B services / consulting | Priority: Marina (CRM), Igor (cold sales) |
| Content-heavy business (blog, media, info product) | Priority: Katya (content/SMM) |
| Local business with organic traffic | Priority: Lev (SEO) |
Axis 2 — Team size / operation volume / branches
Natural question: "How many people on the team handle sales/customer support? Do you work from one office or do you have branches/franchises?"
| Answer | Points |
|---|---|
| 1 person / founder answers customers personally | 0 |
| Small team (2–5 people), one office | 1 |
| Team of 6+, one office/site | 2 |
| Network of branches / franchise / multitenant | override → Enterprise immediately (see priority rule below) |
Axis 3 — Stated budget
Natural question: "What budget do you usually allocate for sales/marketing/support tools per month?"
| Answer | Points |
|---|---|
| Up to $50/mo or "haven't thought yet, just want to try" | 0 |
| $50–200/mo | 1 |
| $200–500/mo | 2 |
| $500+/mo or readiness to discuss an individual budget | 3 |
Edge case — customer answers the budget question evasively
Do not push directly ("what's your budget?" a second time). Use fallback questions through indirect assessment of current spend:
- "How much do you currently spend on ads/marketing per month?" (order of automation budget usually correlates with this figure)
- "Do you use paid tools — CRM, email campaigns, analytics? Roughly how much do they cost?"
- "Would you hire a person for this task — what would the salary be?" (to estimate the equivalent of an AI employee)
The indirect answer is mapped to the same 0–3 scale by manager judgment, without pressuring for an exact figure.
Axis 4 — Processes to automate (quantity + complexity)
Natural question: "What processes currently take the most time — handling requests, CRM management, content, SEO, cold sales?" (map the answer to personas in ai-employee-catalog-2026.md)
| Answer | Points |
|---|---|
| 1 process (e.g., only website chat) | 0 |
| 2 processes | 1 |
| 3–4 processes | 2 |
| 5+ processes OR customization for a non-standard process is needed | 3 |
Axis 5 — Authority (who decides)
Natural question: "Do you make decisions on tools like this yourself, or does someone else need to approve?"
| Answer | Points |
|---|---|
| Interviewer decides and pays themselves (self-serve authority) | 0 |
| Interviewer is Champion, final word is with the manager (1-step approval) | 1 |
| Approval by several people required (procurement committee) | 3 |
Weighted table — total and tier recommendation
| Total points (axes 2–5, axis 1 not counted) | Recommended tier |
|---|---|
| 0–2 | Lite (if axis 1/4 point to a single channel — chat only) or Self-Service (if 2+ channels at the same low score) |
| 3–5 | Self-Service |
| 6–8 | Managed (medium complexity, onboarding specialist needed) |
| 9+ | Enterprise (procurement committee, multiple use cases, customization) → MEDDIC follow-up initiated |
Override rule (priority over total score): if Axis 2 = "network of branches / franchise / multitenant" — recommendation is immediately Enterprise, regardless of the sum of the other axes. This is the same priority rule as in the Sales Playbook decision tree (MKT-030-4, section 3.2): integration complexity matters more than the number of processes.
Distinguishing Lite vs Self-Service at a low score (0–2)
Both scales yield a low total; the final choice is based on axis 1/4: if the customer needs exactly 1 channel/process (usually website chat only) → Lite. If 2+ channels even with a small team and budget → Self-Service (needs at least CRM+chat, which the 3-agent tier covers).
Edge case — borderline total between two tiers
If the total lands exactly on the boundary (e.g., 5–6 or 8–9) — rule: recommend the LOWER tier with an explicit upgrade path, do not over-recommend "just in case." Wording for the customer:
"Based on what you shared, [lower tier] will work for you — and if it gets tight on limits in a couple of months, upgrading to [next tier] takes a minute, with no penalties."
This matches the Land and Expand strategy (pricing-strategy-2026.md, section 4.1) — land cheaply, expand through usage growth, don't overprice on entry.
Mapping to Pricing Book and AI Employee Catalog
- The final tier from this guide is fed directly into Sales Playbook section 4 ("Moving to tier and price") and confirmed on the demo (Demo Playbook, stage 7).
- Personas mentioned in Axis 1 hints are an exact match to
ai-employee-catalog-2026.md; when the catalog is updated (new personas), the Axis 1 table is updated in sync. - Tier price boundaries (Lite $30 / Self-Service $129 / Managed $349 / Enterprise from $900) are from
pricing-book-2026.md, not duplicated here as an independent source of figures.
Document maintained under task MKT-030-6. Changes to scorecard weights/thresholds are not made by the manager on the call, but through an update of this file followed by review.