The lead scoring system that could have saved deals

Good Morning {{first_name}}!

It’s Fri(yay) - and that means it’s time for your Revenue Play - an issue where I share some real stories from real ecosystems.

Fair warning: there's no tidy number at the end of this one. This is the story of a client who wanted to hand his entire inbound lead response over to AI, and what happened when nobody had actually built the thing AI was supposed to be running on top of.

Grab your coffee. This is the cautionary version of Monday's argument, not the highlight reel.

Let’s dive in.

Okay, so I get the hype around AI. There’s so much of it that you quickly feel that you are falling behind.

I worked with a client who had installed AI to handle all inbound inquiries.

People out, AI in.

He wasn't looking for a strategy conversation. He'd already picked the tool and wanted help bolting it onto whatever was already running underneath. Needless to say, AI wasn’t exactly helping.

While he was eager to get AI escalated and operational fast, thinking that it would increase his sales, the AI had little to work with. And it quickly became annoying and generic.

No real speed-to-lead process, no nurture catching anyone who showed interest and didn't close on the spot.

A prospect could fill out a form, go quiet for two weeks, and disappear completely, because nothing was tracking intent or pulling a cooled lead back into view.

AI responded faster to a process that didn't exist yet. So when the prospect didn’t reach out, the lead still died.

Listen, at the end of the day, people trust people. We may not want to deal with people or sit through a sales call, but we do want honest answers from real people.

While I could support the vision of AI in the sales process, what I recommended was less exciting.

Build lead scoring around actual buying behaviour instead of just form fills, flag high-intent signals like repeat website visits so the team could see who was still warm, and run an email nurture underneath all of it so cooled leads stayed in motion instead of vanishing.

And all of those tools are already paid for.

AI is moving from experiment… to essential.

Every major industry is integrating it.
Every major company is investing in it.

By late 2025, AI was already an $800B market — growing at a pace that could push it well beyond $1 trillion in the years ahead.

Cloud infrastructure is scaling fast.
AI-enabled devices are multiplying.
Automation is becoming standard.

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Despite my best efforts, none of it went live. The relationship ended before the build started, so the most honest result here is that there isn't one. Just a gap that's presumably still sitting open somewhere in his pipeline.

Sometimes, we want a tool that will fix an issue. “AI will generate more sales.” But will it?

If AI doesn’t have a process to work from, it can’t fix it for you.

TL;DR

Whether you are automating or implementing AI, always go back to your foundation. Foundation first, and then add automation and AI.

Have questions? Email me at [email protected] and let’s talk!