I spotted a pattern in our meeting data that’s worth sharing, because it’s costing teams unnecessary cycles.
Last month, I was reviewing a call with a prospect at a mid-market tech company. On paper, everything looked solid: they’d taken the meeting, asked detailed product questions, and seemed engaged. But something felt off when I listened back.
Here’s what happened. Early in the call, they said their main goal was accelerating top-line growth. They asked three specific questions about how we help companies land larger deals faster. I thought we had alignment. Then, halfway through, they pivoted. “Actually, what we really need is operational efficiency. We’re drowning in manual work.” Same prospect, completely different problem. We walked through how we solve that. They seemed interested.
By the end of the call, they mentioned they’d also want to evaluate us on our ability to reduce sales cycle length. Three different priorities in one meeting.
I flagged this for our team: when a single prospect bounces between unrelated priorities like this, especially when they do it without acknowledging the shift, it’s usually a low-intent signal. Here’s why it matters.
A prospect with genuine intent stays locked on one main problem. They might surface secondary concerns, but they anchor everything back to their primary goal. They’re selling internally to their team, and that requires consistency. When someone oscillates between “top-line growth” and “operational efficiency” without connecting the dots, it often means they’re not actually owning the problem. They’re checking boxes for a stakeholder, or they’re early-stage research with no real urgency.
The second signal came in how they answered followup questions. I asked, “If we solved the operational efficiency piece first, how would that impact your growth goals?” They gave a vague answer: “Yeah, that could help eventually.” No specifics. No framework for thinking about the tradeoff. A serious buyer thinks through this. They know which problem moves the needle.
Then I asked for a next step. Their response was evasive: “We’d have to loop in a few other people before we move forward.” Fair enough. But when I asked who and when, they didn’t have those names or dates ready. If this mattered enough to get on the call, it would matter enough to have already socialized it internally.
Here’s what I learned: the inconsistent-goal pattern plus evasive answers when asked for specifics is almost always a low-intent signal. It’s not a disqualifier. It just means they don’t belong in your sales pipeline yet.
Instead of scheduling a follow-up and treating them like an active opportunity, we moved them to nurture. Same company, same problem to solve, but different playbook. We sent them educational content tied to each of their stated priorities, no pressure to move. We checked in quarterly. Six months later, one of their actual stakeholders found us through that nurture sequence and kicked off a real deal. But we didn’t waste sales cycles on the first contact.
The practical fix is this: in every discovery call, listen for two things. One, does the prospect keep anchoring back to the same problem or do they jump around? Two, when you ask for specifics, do you get them or do you get generics? Inconsistency on both fronts means they’re not ready for your sales team yet. Route them accordingly.
Your sales team’s time is scarce. Spend it on prospects who know what they want to fix.