Table of Contents

1. What is a Lead?
2. What is an MQL?
   1. Lead Scoring
3. What is an SQL?
4. What is a Deal?
5. What is a Customer?

The Sales Funnel

The sales funnel is a term that’s used to explain how a company handles the steps which take someone from Lead to Customer. This is an extremely important process in B2B Sales because it directly affects our revenue. When we understand the sales funnel, we can clean up the processes that surround it. We do this to ensure that we reach out to the right people and don’t let them slips through the cracks.

What Are The Steps in The Sales Funnel?

The steps can vary from company to company. However, a funnel largey depends on how an organization’s departments are set up and the resources they have. For this article, we assume a company that has the following teams:

1. Marketing  – Main purpose is to get people interested in their company’s products or services.
2. Account Development – Primary goal is to connect with, and screen, Leads in order to move them through the sales funnel.
3. Sales – Objective is to sell their company’s products or services.

The basic funnel this type of company can follow is:

1. Lead
2. MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)
3. SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
4. Deal
5. Customer

1. What is a Lead?

A Lead is a new person that comes into your Marketing Automation System or CRM. Once in the system, the idea is to move them onto the next steps via marketing efforts, account development, or direct sales outreach. 

2. What is an MQL?

A Marketing Qualified Lead is an individual that has interacted with your marketing material in a significant way. It can be that this person requested a demo on your website, attended a tradeshow, or participated in one of your webinars. Part of how we decide on who is an MQL can be done via Lead Scoring.

Lead Scoring

This is a process that marketing employs, often with the input of sales, to rank leads based on their potential to purchase. In Lead Scoring, we assign a numerical point value for certain actions or key attributes. 

Actions may be:

1. Email opens
2. Email clicks
3. Website visits
4. Tradeshow visits
5. Webinars attended

Key Attributes may be:

1. Job title
2. Industry
3. Company Revenue
4. Location
5. Number of employees

How to Score

For the actual score, let’s say that at 100 points, a Lead becomes an MQL. Once we decide how valuable each of the aforementioned are, we assign scores. For example, 1 email open likely doesn’t qualify someone as an MQL, so maybe it’s worth 10 or 20 points. However, if someone fills out a demo request form on your website, that person should immediately become an MQL because they meet the exact criteria of what we want: someone who interacts with marketing material and shows potential to purchase. Accordingly, we would want to give that person at least 100 points.

Please note that you may also want to have a negative score for certain Actions or Attributes that you deem unfavorable such as the wrong industry (i.e. someone who will never purchase from you).

MQL Continued

Once someone is rated as an MQL, Account Development screens them to see if they are ready to speak with a sales representative about a potential purchase. Some Marketing Qualified Leads may not be ready to speak with sales for numerous reasons: maybe the MQL just wants information or perhaps it’s a student in the midst of research. However, if the MQL shows a genuine interest, then Account Development can move them to SQL.

3. What is an SQL?

A Sales Qualified Lead is someone that Account Development has deemed a potential candidate to purchase their company’s products or services. These individuals are then passed along to Sales.

4. What is a Deal?

In our previous article, How to Know What’s a Deal in B2B Sales, we stated that “We only have a deal after our prospect has expressed interest after our initial meeting and we have preliminarily qualified them as a viable opportunity. It’s important to remember that it’s not just the buyer who needs to express interest in our solution, but our sales team that must decide if we have the right offering based on the buyer’s needs.” Accordingly, if the aforementioned criteria fits, then we can move our SQL to a Deal.

For more information on Deals and Deal Stages, check out our previous post, 4 Powerful Ways to Supercharge Your B2B CRM Deal Stages.

5. What is a Customer?

Once a company signs an agreement to purchase your products or services, your Deal is now a Customer.

The Sales Funnel Summarized

A new person comes into your system, which we call a Lead. They engage with enough marketing materials to become an MQL. Account Development reaches out and notes them an an SQL. Then, Sales meets with them and decides if a Deal is warranted. Once the Deal goes through all of the necessary stages, they become a customer.

Wrap Up – Sales Funnel

Think about the departments in your organization and how they set up the Sales Funnel. Are Leads, MQLs, and SQLs converted properly? Do you find that the team gets the wrong leads in front of sales? Are some Leads lost in the fray, who might otherwise be potential customers? If any of this sounds familiar, talk with your team and discuss how you can revamp the Lead to Customer conversion process and Lead Scoring.