Qualified leads: the most important input for sales
Qualified leads: the most important input for sales
Qualified leads: Leads set the pace for the sales process
Marketing has forwarded the pre-qualified lead to the sales team: Time for the first personal touchpoint! Where does the lead really stand in their customer journey and what problems or uncertainties need to be resolved on the way to closing the deal? The sales team starts the initial meeting with these key questions. Ideally, this results in an in-depth discussion with valuable insights - and the first relationship between the two parties is established. All too often, however, sales staff are caught up in reality during the initial meeting. The lead is not yet ready for direct contact. Knowledge of their own needs? Sufficient interest in buying? Insufficiently qualified leads lack this basis for discussion. The result: the wrong leads clog up the sales pipeline, while mature leads wait too long for sales contact. How to do it better? Consistent lead qualification and structured processes make all the difference.
Not all leads are the same
No two leads are the same! And that is precisely the challenge. Because although every lead has its own individual characteristics, the sales team must follow a structured process with its work - and also define standards.
Leads differ according to the type of source. For example, salespeople can assume that leads from inbound marketing are more involved with the company's own products. They have actively searched for a solution to a problem and contacted the company in the process. There are usually numerous digital touchpoints between the initial interaction and the takeover by sales. The situation is completely different for leads from cold calling. Here, personal contact comes earlier and the phase of engaging with your offer can still follow. It is clear that sales must treat such leads differently. And it is also obvious that this is not the only criterion. Because regardless of the source, there are always more and less qualified leads.
But this is precisely what is crucial: despite all individual differences, the team must be able to reliably separate sufficiently qualified and unqualified leads. Because only those who know what situation the lead is currently in can communicate accordingly. Offer even more personalized content or have the sales team seek direct contact? The more reliably the team can find the right answer to this question, the more consistently qualified leads will move through the funnel.
The lead lifecycle structures the sales processes
In the classic funnel setup, marketing hands over its leads to the sales team. For anyone familiar with sales work in practice, this dispute between the two areas is nothing new: are the leads really sufficiently qualified when the salesies come into play? Or does marketing perhaps need to invest a little more to create the perfect starting position for the sales team? Everything revolves around the distinction between MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) and SQL (Sales Qualified Lead).
MQL: marketing-qualified leads
Becoming a lead yourself is easy! The most common ways: providing contact details to view protected online content or actively asking for a product demo or consultation. However, leads do not become MQLs automatically, but only through the intervention of marketing. The MQL phase begins when the team actively engages and processes the lead. The focus is on preparing the lead more and more for a purchase decision. In lead nurturing, marketing addresses the lead with increasingly specific information in order to support its development.
What could be the right product for me? Does my use case have the right requirements? Based on this knowledge, the lead should get a better and better feel for such questions. At the same time, marketing constantly collects information in the interaction with the lead. Which offer was particularly relevant? Is there a shift in content usage behavior from an orientation phase towards a stronger focus on implementation questions and purchasing? Marketing is aware of this and upgrades the lead accordingly. Only when the lead's interest has become sufficiently concrete does it qualify further for SQL.
SQL: sales-qualified leads
This is where it becomes clear how well the interface between marketing and sales really works. Marketing and sales alignment are put to the test. Is the qualified lead ready for a conversation with a salesie? Only if the answer to this question is a clear yes is it really a sales-qualified lead. This presupposes that the lead has already sufficiently researched the offer. Now they need a personal contact person to clarify their application-specific questions or prepare for implementation. Individualized content is valuable and effective, but sooner or later it reaches its limits with complex products. No problem at all! After all, the salesies take over at the crucial moment. The qualified leads move forward in the sales process with the support of the sales team. In the process, the sales team transforms the interest into an actual intention to buy. In plain language, this means clearing up doubts, underpinning the added value for the specific use case or putting together individual bundles. On the way to closing the deal, the sales team never stops qualifying on the basis of all relevant success factors, because if you want to sell, you have to ask the right questions right to the end.
MQL or SQL: why differentiate between qualified leads?
MQL or SQL, does the discussion add any value at all? After all, in both cases we are talking about more or less qualified leads and each lead is at a very individual point anyway. So the optimal time for handover can never be precisely determined anyway. So are marketing and sales in many companies at loggerheads for nothing when it comes to how well qualified leads really are when they are handed over?
We say no! Of course, every lead is different. But the better the company understands where the interested person currently stands in the sales process, the more targeted it can act. A realistic assessment of the chances of a deal is what makes efficient sales work possible in the first place. The best sales organizations consistently remove under-qualified leads from the process (and route them back to marketing) to focus on those that can become deals in a timely manner. It is therefore imperative that marketing and sales work together. They should jointly define criteria for MQLs and SQLs to minimize their internal friction - and help qualified leads solve their problems quickly. Word has gotten around among marketers that this pays off.
Conclusion: Strengthen focus on qualified leads
Qualification cannot start early enough and it only ends with the closing. Because regardless of whether it's marketing or sales: the more precisely the team understands the lead's situation, the better the interaction works. Marketing then sends the relevant content at the right time and sales gets involved exactly when the lead really needs a personal contact person to concretize the search for a solution. However, marketing and sales in every company have to negotiate for themselves what the right handover point is for qualified leads and define appropriate criteria. By creating the right framework, leaders can reduce internal conflicts and make sales work even more focused.
