Handing off leads from Marketing to Sales
The experts at Sirius Decisions have names for lead types:
- Suspects
- Marketing Accepted Lead (MAL)
- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
- Sales Accepted Lead (SAL)
- Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
I recommend you use an approach like this for classifying your leads. But as prospects move from Marketing Qualified Lead to Sales Accepted Lead -- there is a handoff to Sales.
Even before we hand it to Sales, the propect first has to pass our Lead Scoring Criteria. So we have an objective, scientific way to determine what is and what is not a prospect.
One of the most important factors in the handoff is ensuring the prospect is ready to talk to a salesperson. Pushing a deal through before a prospect is ready can destroy a carefully-cultivated relationship. This is why a phone call is the perfect qualification criteria.
"Are you ready to speak to a salesperson?"
