Decide whether an inbound enquiry needs a proposal, clarification or support

Read the actual request in its context

Confirm which inbox, person or organization the enquiry actually concerns and what they asked you to do. “My download failed” is normally a support issue, not evidence of a new consulting opportunity. “Could you review the definitions in our public worksheet?” may be a scoped service request. Do not rewrite a request into a more valuable sale because your template expects one.

Business Queensland distinguishes contacts, leads, prospects and customers and discusses qualification against needs and decision ability. That sales guidance is broader than our task. This guide deliberately handles genuine inbound requests only; it does not recommend buying contact data, enriching demographics, unsolicited sequences or assigning a numerical closing probability from a social profile.

Check fit with the smallest useful clarification

Separate five questions: what problem needs resolving; what concrete output would help; who can legitimately authorize the work and material; what source/access is actually available; and which time or commercial constraints could make delivery impossible. A job title is not authorization, an attached private file is not permission to publish it and a proposed deadline is not your accepted commitment.

Ask only missing facts that would change the decision. For a definition review, you may need the worksheet version, fields in scope, intended public/private use and authorized source. You generally do not need a personal income statement or the full customer list. Keep necessary private context in an appropriate protected system; do not copy messages or identifiers into public example records.

Work through four different inbound situations

The fictional queue has Q1: review two definitions in an authorized public worksheet, deadline proposed and capacity unknown; Q2: an existing download fails; Q3: a request to recover private platform data without permission; Q4: praise with no request. Proposed decisions are Q1 clarify capacity/scope, Q2 route to support, Q3 decline the unsupported method, Q4 no invented service pipeline. Four contacts are not four prospects.

For Q1, a complete draft response is: “I can consider a review of the two named definitions. Please identify the worksheet version, intended use and person authorized to approve the source and scope. I will confirm feasibility and a bounded proposal after that check; the proposed date is not yet accepted.” Replace this constructed wording with the actual appropriate facts before any send. Nothing is sent by the worksheet.

Resolve three qualification mistakes

Q-A — Constructed title inference: the sender is labelled director, but permission to share the source is unknown. Decision: clarify actual authority and access rather than infer both from seniority. Outcome: an open fit decision, not a budget-qualified buyer.

Q-B — Constructed support upsell: a paid reader reports a broken download. Decision: route and resolve the actual support issue through the appropriate owner before considering any separate request. Outcome: a support record, not another attributed purchase or a satisfied customer claim.

Q-C — Constructed impossible promise: the request requires unavailable private data. Decision: decline that method and explain a genuinely supportable alternative only if relevant. Outcome: no invented access, recovery guarantee or acceptance of the proposed deadline.

Choose and own the next appropriate response

Use continue only when enough relevant facts support drafting a proposal; use clarify for decisive unknowns, support-route for an existing problem and decline when the requested work is unsupported or inappropriate. These are workflow decisions, not lead scores. State who responds, the permitted channel and whether any further contact was requested. Silence does not make a follow-up sequence authorized.

Recheck an old enquiry before assuming its need still exists. Record actual response state separately from drafted text, and avoid resending when the outcome of a prior send is uncertain. A proposal, accepted scope, delivery and verified payment are later distinct states. Qualification alone passes none of them.

Keep the decision useful and minimal

The private worksheet records request reference/date, actual problem/output, authority/access facts, essential unknowns, constraints, decision/reason, owner, permitted next response and actual state. The complete packet includes Q1–Q4 and the response draft. Its checker verifies the four distinct declared decisions, not actual sales fit, identity, permission, customer satisfaction or payment.

The primary sales page was read on 1 November 2026 in its declared qualification, communication and recordkeeping sections. The examples are original and fictional. No message, contact enrichment, sales campaign, customer qualification or commercial transaction was performed. The Page inbox guide covers native routing; the scope guide covers the next working proposal.

1. Record the task, scope and actual authority.
2. Inspect inputs and evidence state at the actual source.
3. Work through the full proposal with dependencies and unknowns.
4. Record the decision, owner and next permitted step.
5. Verify actual results separately from plans and constructed examples.