If your contact is the right person to be associated with the opportunity; and there is a confirmed fit between your solution and their company; and there is confirmation of need; you’ve qualified the prospect.
KNOW the answer to every one of these questions to satisfy the stage of Qualified Prospect:
First and foremost, if your upcoming meeting a Business Discussion or a Product Demo and is it an introduction or a deep-dive? This is essential to know ahead of time as it will help you set internal expectations at your company – like with your supervisor who watches the pipeline like a hawk – and with the core experts that you plan to bring with you to the meeting.
Was the meeting successful based on GOALS that you had set PRIOR to going in? Are you moving forward? And more importantly, does the Client think so too? If a different kind of meeting took place than you had expected, did you lose control of it or did you pivot and get other valuable things from it that will still progress the opportunity? Always post-mortem your meeting to learn from it and involve the participants from your team to elicit feedback. Be sure to check your ego at the door first.