What is a sales qualified lead (SQL)?
A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a lead sales has accepted and confirmed as a real potential opportunity. Gartner describes the path: from marketing qualified lead, to sales accepted lead, to a point where the sales team can work on converting the buyer into a customer. The stage names come from lead management models such as the SiriusDecisions Demand Waterfall, now published by Forrester.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
The SQL is the handoff where marketing's work becomes the seller's responsibility. If the bar is too low, sellers waste time and pipeline looks bigger than it is; if it is too high, real buyers wait and go elsewhere. For a revenue leader, the SQL definition is one of the most important agreements between marketing and sales, because it decides what counts as pipeline and therefore what coverage looks like. In commercial services, a known site, scope and decision maker usually say more about a real opportunity than interest alone.
Example
Fictitious numbersAn environmental services firm tightens its SQL definition so that interest alone no longer qualifies a lead. Its SQL count drops by a third the next quarter, while the share of SQLs that become signed work rises from 15% to 28%. Sellers stop carrying opportunities they never believed in, and the forecast gets easier to trust.
"Would our sellers and our marketers give the same definition of an SQL if we asked them separately?"