Slide 1 of 4
Eligibility is a standing condition
Accounts become eligible as they match, so a play keeps picking up new accounts after it goes live. You are not choosing a list; you are writing a rule.
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ReadLesson 7 of 12Define eligibility
Segment, lifecycle stage, and signal conditions
Express who a play is for as conditions over account properties, and understand that eligibility is continuous rather than a one-off selection.
6 minIntermediate
Part 1 of 5
A rule, not a list
Step 3 of the builder is Eligibility. You build conditions over your account properties (segment fields, lifecycle stage, signals, anything the account model carries) and the play enrolls the accounts that match.
The property to internalize before writing anything is that matching is continuous. Accounts become eligible as they come to match, so the play keeps picking up new accounts for as long as it is active, without anyone rebuilding a list. This is the consequence people miss on a first play, and everything else in this lesson follows from it.
It changes how the conditions should be written. You are not selecting the accounts you want in the play this month; you are describing the accounts that should always be in this motion whenever they meet the description. A condition tuned to today's pipeline, whether a hardcoded list of names or a single quarter, looks correct at activation and stops being correct almost immediately.
Part 2 of 5
Three layers, applied in order
Useful eligibility reads in three layers, and it is worth writing them in this order. A re-engagement motion aimed at closed-lost accounts and one aimed at post-pilot accounts are different plays even when the outreach rhymes, and it is the middle layer that separates them.
The order matters because the failure modes are asymmetric. Segment and stage without a signal enrols your entire mid-market book on day one and generates more actions than anyone can work. A signal without segment and stage fires on accounts you have no motion for: technically eligible, practically noise.
- Segment — who the motion is structurally for: size, region, industry, tier
- Lifecycle stage — where in the relationship it applies, which is what separates a post-pilot play from a generic win-back
- Signal — what makes now the moment: intent, an engagement drop, a stakeholder change, a usage threshold
Part 3 of 5
Exclusions are part of the definition
Defining who a play is for is only half the work. The other half is who it is emphatically not for: accounts in an active renewal negotiation, accounts in a support escalation, accounts already enrolled in a play competing for the same attention. All are usually wrong to enrol, and all are exactly what slips through a definition written purely in the positive.
The cost of missing them is not abstract. An account receiving a re-engagement sequence in the middle of an escalation is the kind of error people remember, and it is the sort of thing that turns a team against agentic execution generally. Write the exclusions at the same time as the inclusions, while the motion is fresh in your head.
Part 4 of 5
A worked example: who enters the post-pilot play
Written out in the three layers, the post-pilot motion looks like this. Segment: mid-market and enterprise accounts in the regions your team actually covers, because a play that enrolls accounts nobody is staffed to work generates actions that expire. Lifecycle stage: accounts that completed a pilot and did not convert, which is a much smaller and more specific population than "closed lost" and is the difference between a play about pilots and a generic win-back.
Signal: the pilot ended between thirty and one hundred and twenty days ago. Both ends of that range matter. Below thirty days the account has not gone quiet yet. It is simply still deciding, and approaching it as dormant reads as impatience. Above a hundred and twenty days the pilot is stale enough that the outcome no longer feels current to them, and the motion is really a fresh sales cycle wearing a re-engagement label.
Then the exclusions, which is where most of the damage is prevented: no accounts with an open support escalation, none in an active renewal or commercial negotiation, and none already enrolled in another outbound play. Each of those describes an account for which a cheerful re-engagement message is actively harmful, and none of them would be caught by any of the positive conditions above.
Part 5 of 5
Conditions that look right and are not
Two patterns pass review and fail in production, and both are worth recognizing before you write anything.
The first is a condition built on a field nobody maintains. It reads perfectly: filter on the account tier, or the industry, or a custom property that exists in the schema. What it does in practice depends entirely on whether anyone has populated that field since the last migration. A condition on a stale field does not error. It matches nothing, or matches a strange subset, and the play looks like it simply is not finding anybody. Before you filter on a property, open a handful of accounts and confirm the field has current values.
The second is a condition that encodes a moment rather than a state. "Accounts that attended the September webinar" is a fact about the past that will never again become true for anyone new, so the play enrolls its cohort and then goes permanently quiet. That may be what you want, but it is a one-off campaign rather than a standing motion, and it is worth knowing which of the two you have built. A standing play needs a condition that new accounts can come to satisfy.
Key questions
You should be able to answer each of these from memory before opening it. Recalling the answer is what makes it stick; recognizing it when you read it does not.
Why is eligibility a rule rather than a list?
Accounts become eligible as they match, so the play keeps picking up new accounts after it goes live. A condition tuned to this quarter's pipeline looks right at activation and stops being right almost immediately.
What happens with segment and stage conditions but no signal? And with a signal but no segment or stage?
The first enrolls your whole book on day one and generates more actions than anyone can work. The second fires on accounts you have no motion for: technically eligible, practically noise.
Which accounts most often slip through a definition written only in the positive?
Accounts in an active renewal negotiation, in a support escalation, or already enrolled in a competing play. Write the exclusions at the same time as the inclusions.
What to take away
- Eligibility is a standing rule, not a list. Accounts keep entering for as long as the play is active.
- Segment and stage without a signal floods the play. A signal without them fires on accounts you have no motion for.
- Write the exclusions in the same sitting as the inclusions. Live renewals and open escalations are what slip through.
- A condition on a moment ("attended the September webinar") enrols one cohort and goes quiet forever. A standing play needs a condition new accounts can come to satisfy.
Teach this lesson
The argument in 4 slides, for presenting it to your team
Slide 2 of 4
Three layers, in order
- Segment — who this motion is structurally for
- Lifecycle stage — where in the relationship it applies
- Signal — what makes now the right moment
Slide 3 of 4
Signals without a segment flood the play
Intent data on its own will enroll accounts you have no motion for. The segment and stage conditions are what make the signal actionable.
Slide 4 of 4
Write the exclusions too
Accounts in an active renewal, in escalation, or already enrolled in a competing play usually should not enter. Excluding them is part of defining who it is for.
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