[jpastika]

I recently began experiencing and practicing exactly what this post describes. The startup I co-founded began receiving leads and of course not all leads are a good fit for our product. I'm a developer and have never been in a sales role previously, but when you are the only salaried employee and a co-founder, you do what needs to be done. So I've been following up with the leads and in a five minute conversation it becomes clear if our solution is the best solution. When I started, I made the mistake of trying to convince everyone that our product could do everything they wanted. Then I realized this tactic was not only exhausting, but ultimately would lead to dissatisfied, short-term customers. Once I made the switch to using the same techniques the OP describes, not only was the sales process far less stressful, but I found myself enjoying talking to people and just trying to help them. If our solution is a good fit, great, but if it isn't, I'm not going to BS you. I have been thanked over and over for being transparent and honest, something people apparently aren't generally used to when dealing with sales people. At the end of the day I'd much rather be a helpful person than a sales person.

[apinstein]

You should definitely read Porter's "What is Strategy", it should blow your mind: http://hbr.org/product/what-is-strategy/an/96608-PDF-ENG (paywall)

It will help you develop a clear strategy for your company / product; once you have that in place it becomes very easy for you (or anyone using your activity maps) to decide whether something is a good fit or not. It's because of this book that we have a "Strategic Fit" rank which we use in our product management process. The only others are estimated time (cost) and estimated value (revenue).