Lead Qualification is the process of determining whether a lead has the potential of becoming a customer based on a set of characteristics matching your ideal customer profile (ICP).
Those characteristics can include purchasing ability, budget availability, deal making authority, product need and buying intent.
The lead qualification process, divides incoming leads into marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs). There are also product qualified leads (PQLs) or service qualified leads (SQLs), who are leads that have used your product or service already, free trials users for instance.