What is actually being argued about
Marketing measures whether a lead matched the criteria it was given. Sales measures whether the lead became revenue. Both are correct measurements of different things, and neither team is being unreasonable — the definitions between them were never written down.
Underneath the argument there are usually three real defects: qualification criteria that describe interest rather than fit, a handoff that transfers a name without context, and no closed loop, so marketing optimises on the only signal it can see — volume.
Settle the definitions
A qualified lead is an observable state, agreed by both functions, testable by a third person. Build it from four components and keep each one answerable from evidence:
| Component | Bad version | Workable version |
|---|---|---|
| Fit | Looks like our customer | Industry, size band and geography inside the written target list |
| Need | Interested in what we do | Stated a problem our offer addresses, captured in a field |
| Timing | Wants to move soon | Named a decision window or an event forcing one |
| Access | Seems senior | Contact is the decision-maker, or named who is |
Fix the handoff
A handoff is a contract with six parts: trigger, owner, required input, standard, deadline, escalation. Written like this, most lead-quality disputes become visible as missing input rather than bad leads.
- Trigger
- The record meets the written qualification criteria — automatically detected, not manually judged where possible.
- Owner
- A named sales owner assigned at the moment of transfer, with a fallback.
- Required input
- Source, qualification answers, intent signal, and anything promised to the customer.
- Standard
- What sales does with it: first contact within the response standard, disposition recorded within a set period.
- Deadline
- When the record returns to marketing if untouched, rather than aging silently in a rep's list.
- Escalation
- Who is notified when the standard is breached, and what they do about it.
Close the loop
Make disposition mandatory and structured
Every transferred lead ends in a defined state with a reason from a fixed list. Free-text reasons cannot be counted, and anything that cannot be counted cannot change a campaign.
Report rejection reasons back to marketing weekly
'Not the decision-maker' and 'wrong industry' point at targeting. 'No answer after five attempts' points at response process. Different reasons, different owners, different fixes.
Review the criteria on a fixed cadence
Monthly for the first quarter, then quarterly. The criteria are a living agreement, not a policy document — markets and offers move.
Publish one funnel report
One table, both teams, same numbers: leads, qualified, accepted by sales, opportunities, won. Disagreement about the arithmetic ends when the arithmetic is shared.
What good looks like
- Both teams quote the same qualified-lead number without checking with each other.
- Rejection reasons are structured and reviewed monthly.
- Untouched leads return to marketing automatically rather than aging in a private list.
- Criteria changes are dated, and everyone can see the current version.
Related work
The implementation sequence is in the marketing-to-sales handoff playbook. The definitions belong in the CRM; the vocabulary is in the glossary under MQL and SQL.
Muhammad Sameed Abid
Muhammad Sameed Abid is a business operations, automation and growth systems professional with 9+ years across operations management, workflow and CRM automation, marketing operations and customer success. He is currently Head of Customer Success at GHA Marketing and writes here about the operating layer underneath growth.