Free sales resource · PDF included

Merchant Services Lead Generation Checklist

A practical checklist for building a repeatable merchant-services prospecting program — from defining your ideal customer to measuring contacts, appointments and closed accounts. Print it, fill it in with your team, and turn it into a written playbook your ISO or MSP can actually run against.

Created by LeadsCampus Updated August 13, 2026
What you’ll work through 8 steps
  • Ideal Customer Profile
  • Geography & industries
  • Lead qualification rules
  • Contact-data verification
  • Lead delivery speed
  • Follow-up SLA
  • Contact, appointment & close rates
  • Weekly optimization review
Why use this checklist

More leads don’t automatically mean more merchant accounts

Targeting, qualification, contact speed and follow-up discipline matter as much as lead volume. This checklist puts each of those decisions on paper so your sales floor stops guessing.

1

Define your target

Clarify the businesses, industries, locations, revenue ranges and decision-makers that actually fit your merchant-services offer.

2

Build qualification rules

Separate a merely contactable record from a prospect that actually fits your ICP — and stop your team from burning cycles on the wrong merchants.

3

Measure the funnel

Track contact, appointment and close rates so you can double down on the segments, sources and reps that actually convert.

Checklist preview

Every step in the downloadable worksheet

The PDF includes space for your team to record its targeting and sales-process decisions. Skim it here first; download when you’re ready to fill it in.

1. Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

  • Define the business types you want.
  • Define business size or revenue range.
  • Define payment-processing fit.
  • Define decision-maker roles.

2. Select Geography

  • Target states and regions.
  • Target cities and ZIP codes.
  • Confirm your team’s territory capacity.

3. Select Industries

  • Choose priority industries.
  • Document industries or business models to exclude.

4. Define Lead Qualification

  • Define what makes a lead qualified.
  • Separate “contactable” from “qualified.”
  • Define rejection criteria.

5. Verify Contact Data

  • Verify phone numbers and relevant email addresses.
  • Check for duplicates and stale records.
  • Record a verification date or freshness window.

6–9. Delivery, Follow-Up & Measurement

  • Determine a workable lead-delivery cadence.
  • Establish a first-contact and follow-up SLA.
  • Measure contact rate, appointment rate and close rate.
  • Review results weekly and refine your ICP.

Want the printable version?

Download the complete PDF worksheet and use it with your sales or lead-generation team.

Download PDF
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Quick answers about using the checklist.

It is a practical planning framework for defining an ideal customer profile, choosing target geography and industries, qualifying and verifying leads, setting a follow-up SLA, and measuring sales results.

Start with your ideal customer profile, target geography, priority industries, revenue or business-size range, decision-maker roles, qualification criteria, exclusions, and contact-data requirements.

Useful baseline metrics include contact rate, appointment rate, close rate, and cost per contacted lead, appointment, and closed account. Results can also be segmented by source, industry, geography, and salesperson.

Yes. The printable PDF companion is available from the buttons at the top of this page and can be downloaded for use with your sales team.

Question not listed?

Send us an email and a payments-industry specialist will get back to you the same day.

info@leadscampus.com

Found this useful? Share the checklist.

Send it to your sales team, sub-agents or anyone building a merchant-services lead program from scratch.

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