Automated Lead Generation & Qualification Using GPT-4o, Google Workspace, and Smart Follow-Up Workflows

very sales team knows the pain. A lead form submission comes in, someone has to manually research the company, figure out if they're worth pursuing, send the right follow-up email, and maybe schedule a demo. Multiply this by dozens of leads per week, and you've got a bottleneck that's costing you real revenue.

What if you could automate the entire process? What if AI could enrich every lead, classify them by quality, and trigger the perfect follow-up sequence without a single manual step?

That's exactly what this n8n workflow does. It's an end-to-end AI lead qualification machine that handles everything from form submission to demo scheduling, making sure high-intent prospects get immediate attention while nurturing those who need more time.

What You'll Need to Get Started

Before diving into the workflow, let's talk prerequisites. This automation leverages several powerful services working in harmony:

Required Integrations

• OpenAI API: Powers the AI enrichment and classification (you'll need GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini access)
• Google Sheets: Your lead database where all enriched data gets stored
• Gmail: Handles automated email sequences for each lead category
• Google Calendar: Schedules demo meetings automatically with Google Meet integration
• n8n: The automation platform that orchestrates everything (self-hosted or cloud)

Key Components Used

This workflow uses a strategic combination of n8n nodes:

• Form Trigger: Captures lead information from your website
• AI Agent: Enriches company data using web search and AI
• Text Classifier: Categorizes leads into demo-ready, nurture, or drop
• Conditional Logic: Routes leads to appropriate actions
• Wait Nodes: Creates timed nurture sequences
• Code Nodes: Processes and transforms data between steps

Building Your AI Lead Qualification System

Let's walk through how this intelligent workflow operates, step by step.

Step 1: Capture and Log Every Lead

The journey starts with a clean, simple form collecting the essentials: name, email, company, job title, and a message field where prospects describe their needs. This isn't just data collection. That message field is gold because it reveals intent, urgency, and pain points.

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As soon as someone submits the form, the workflow immediately logs everything to Google Sheets. This creates your audit trail and ensures no lead ever disappears into the void, even if something breaks downstream.

Step 2: Let AI Do the Research Heavy Lifting

Here's where the magic happens. Instead of someone manually looking up the company on LinkedIn or their website, an AI agent takes over. It searches the web and enriches the lead with critical qualifying information:

• Number of employees
• Industry vertical
• Geographic location
• Annual revenue estimates
• Technology stack
• Pain points extracted from their message

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The AI agent uses GPT-4o-mini with web search capabilities, which means it's pulling real, current information about each company. No stale data, no guesswork. And because it analyzes the prospect's actual message, it identifies specific challenges they're facing, which becomes invaluable for personalization later.

Step 3: Classify Leads with Intelligent Criteria

Now comes the decision point. The workflow uses a sophisticated AI classifier powered by GPT-4o to evaluate each lead against your Ideal Customer Profile. But this isn't a simple yes or no. It sorts leads into three strategic buckets:

Demo-Ready Leads: These are your hot prospects. Companies with 200+ employees, clear pain points in their message, and urgency signals like "need to automate" or "looking for solution." They meet size requirements and show high intent.

Nurture Leads: These have potential but need more time. Maybe they're a smaller company with growth trajectory, or they're in exploration mode without immediate urgency. The workflow defaults to nurture when there's any doubt, because it's better to warm up a lead than lose them entirely.

Drop Leads: These simply don't fit. Wrong geography, too small with no growth potential, spam submissions, or explicitly stated they're happy with a competitor. Rather than waste cycles, the workflow politely declines and moves on.

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The classifier considers both the enriched company data and the message content, weighing factors like company size, industry fit, and especially the language used in their inquiry. A message saying "urgent need to reduce costs" carries more weight than "just browsing."

Step 4: Route to Customized Action Paths

Based on classification, each lead flows down a different path with tailored actions.

For Demo-Ready Leads: Speed matters. The workflow immediately schedules a Google Calendar meeting for the next business day at noon, complete with a Google Meet link. The calendar invite includes personalized details pulled from their form submission. No back-and-forth scheduling emails, just instant booking. The Sheet updates with their classification and enriched data.

For Nurture Leads: This is where the workflow really shines with a three-touch sequence. Day one sends an educational email with resources relevant to their pain points. Day two invites them to an upcoming webinar. Day three, after they've warmed up, automatically schedules a demo meeting. Each email is personalized with their name, company, and specific message they sent. The timing can be adjusted, but the default uses wait nodes to space these touches appropriately.

For Drop Leads: Even rejected leads get a professional response. A courteous email thanks them for their interest, explains they don't currently meet partnership criteria, and leaves the door open if circumstances change. It's brand-safe and maintains goodwill.

Step 5: Keep Your Data Clean and Updated

Throughout every path, the workflow continuously updates your Google Sheet with enriched information and classification status. This creates a real-time dashboard of your lead pipeline. You can see at a glance how many demo-ready leads came in this week, track nurture sequences in progress, and analyze patterns in dropped leads.

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The Sheet becomes your single source of truth, with columns for employee count, industry, geography, revenue, tech stack, pain points, and classification. Everything is automatically populated and kept current.

Why This Workflow Changes the Game

The real power isn't just in automation, it's in intelligence. This workflow doesn't blindly process leads. It thinks about them. It researches them. It makes nuanced decisions based on multiple factors.

Consider the time savings alone. What used to take 15-20 minutes per lead (research, qualify, compose email, schedule meeting) now happens in seconds. For a team processing 50 leads per week, that's 12-16 hours reclaimed. Hours that can go toward actually closing deals.

But beyond efficiency, there's consistency. Every lead gets researched to the same standard. Every classification follows the same criteria. Every follow-up happens on schedule. No leads slip through cracks because someone was out sick or swamped with other priorities.

The personalization aspect is equally powerful. Because the AI extracts pain points from each message and enriches with company-specific data, every automated email feels relevant and thoughtful. You're not sending generic blasts. You're sending contextual communication that references their actual needs.

Real-World Applications Beyond Sales

While this workflow is built for B2B lead qualification, the pattern applies broadly:

• Recruitment: Screen job applications, enrich candidate profiles, route to appropriate interviewers
• Partnership Inquiries: Evaluate potential partners, classify by strategic fit, trigger custom onboarding
• Customer Support: Triage support requests, enrich with account data, route to specialists
• Event Registration: Qualify attendees, personalize pre-event communication, schedule one-on-ones

The core concept scales: capture information, let AI enrich and classify it, then trigger intelligent, personalized actions based on that classification.

Start Qualifying Smarter, Not Harder

Building this workflow might seem complex, but each component is straightforward when you break it down. The form trigger, the AI enrichment, the classifier, the conditional routing. They're all standard n8n building blocks, just arranged thoughtfully.

The payoff is immediate. From day one, you'll have leads getting qualified, enriched, and followed up with automatically. Your sales team focuses only on demo-ready prospects while nurture leads get warmed up in the background. And you'll have clean, enriched data showing exactly where every lead stands in your pipeline.

In a world where response speed and personalization determine win rates, this workflow gives you both at scale. That's not just automation. That's competitive advantage.