Leads worked and returned
SDR and seller hours on MQLs that were never going to buy, and the spend per lead that produced them. Both teams carry it.
Marketing
Marketing hits its number, and the pipeline still falls short.
Marketing and sales alignment is reported in MQLs and judged in pipeline contribution. Between the two sit a definition the teams never agreed and a handoff nobody owns.
From the seat
Two dashboards, two versions of the quarter.
In a company like this, the QBR opens with two slides. Marketing shows the MQLs it delivered, above target. Sales shows the SQLs it accepted and the pipeline they became, below target. The next hour goes on whose number is right, and next quarter's budget is set on whichever slide was shown last.
Both numbers are true. They count different things, and nobody owns the step between them. Every hour spent on a lead the two teams never agreed was worth working is the leak.
The levers
What a lead is worth is decided in five settings.
None of these is a campaign, and all of them decide what a campaign returns. Where one is unsettled, the work is counted as done and paid for twice.
- 01
What an MQL is, and when it becomes an SQL
A qualified lead is a contract between marketing and sales: what marketing hands over as an MQL, what sales accepts and works as an SQL, and how fast. Where the two teams hold different definitions, every lead on the border is worked by one, returned by the other and counted as a win by both. The budget is then set on a number that means two things to the people who spend it.
What we check: the written definition on each side, the share of accepted leads worked within a week, and how many came back.
- 02
The ICP, and how its buying group decides
The ICP says who to reach; positioning says what they should hear. A profile written at launch drifts from the one that signs and renews, and a message written for one buyer lands in a buying group that decides by other criteria, as it does in most enterprise accounts. Spend aimed at the wrong room is approved every quarter and traced back in none.
What we check: the profile on paper against last year's closed and renewed accounts, and which roles the won deals went through.
- 03
The handover and its rules
Between an MQL's acceptance and first contact there is a queue, and the queue has rules whether anyone wrote them or not: who takes it, within how many hours, and what happens when nobody does. Where the SLA is unwritten, leads cool in the gap and each team blames the other for the conversion rate. The spend that produced the lead is gone by then.
What we check: time from acceptance to first contact by source, and who owns a lead that goes untouched.
- 04
Budget against pipeline contribution, not volume
A budget argued on MQL volume rewards volume; one argued on pipeline contribution and CAC rewards fit. The first is easier to report and the second is what the company pays for. Where the review runs on volume, the money follows the channel that looks busiest rather than the one that sells.
What we check: spend by channel against the pipeline and revenue that came through it, and how far back the records allow that read.
- 05
Content that deals use
Marketing builds content for campaigns; sellers need content for the conversation they are in on Thursday. Where the two do not meet, the sales team writes its own at a seller's cost per hour, and the library goes unopened. Both are paid for.
What we check: which assets appeared in the last twenty won deals, and what sellers made themselves instead.
What it costs
What the gap between two definitions costs.
Each sign above has a cost that can be read from the budget and the CRM. Marketing pays it first, and the team that works the lead pays it again.
Campaigns that miss the buyer
Spend aimed outside the ICP: CAC that rises in the budget and is rarely traced back to the profile.
Meetings about the numbers
Senior hours spent arguing two reports into one. Lost productivity, at the most expensive rates in the building.
The market not reached
Segments nobody had the time, or the definition, to pursue: pipeline that was never opened, so it never shows as lost.
The evidence
What other companies count on leads, budgets and buyers.
Four published figures, with the source and sample under each. What the same gap costs inside your company is what the Diagnosis counts.
- 01
49%
Of chief sales officers "report their sales organization's definition of a qualified lead differs greatly from marketing's definition."
Gartner press release, survey of 243 CSOs and senior sales leaders, November to December 2024, 21 May 2025
- 02
8% of ARR
The median marketing spend of private B2B SaaS companies, unchanged from the year before: the line most often argued on lead volume.
SaaS Capital, Spending Benchmarks for Private B2B SaaS Companies, 1,000+ companies, 10 June 2026
- 03
13 and 9
The room a message has to reach: "The typical buying decision now includes 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers".
Forrester, The State of Business Buying 2026, press release 21 January 2026 (sample not stated)
- 04
94%
The share of buying groups that had ranked their preferred vendors before the first contact with any seller: "94% of buying groups ranked preferred vendors before first contact." By the time a seller calls, most of the decision is already made.
6sense, 2025 Buyer Experience Report, more than 4,000 buyers in North America, EMEA and APAC, vendor survey, 12 November 2025
As the company grows
The definition drifts a little further at every stage.
The gap between marketing's number and the pipeline opens at a different point in each stage. Narrowest where the two teams are one person, widest where they are two departments.
Where to start
The Diagnosis: one definition of a good lead, read from both sides.
Diagnosis
€15,000 flat · two months from the day we get access
What an MQL and an SQL mean to each team, read from interviews with the people who generate, qualify and receive demand, and from your CRM, campaign spend and lead acceptance records. You leave with where pipeline contribution is lost, what it costs in your own budget and payroll figures, and which definition to settle first. If you go on into Operation, marketing and sales make the fixes together: €50,000 more within 30 days of the Diagnosis briefing, or €65,000 with the Diagnosis included.
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FAQ
Before you change the attribution model.
Is this an attribution problem?
Attribution decides who gets credit for the pipeline. The gap is earlier, in what each team calls a qualified lead and how fast it is worked, and no attribution model can settle that.
Will you run campaigns or write content for us?
No. We read where marketing's work is lost on the way to pipeline, price it, and fix the handoff with your team.
Who is interviewed on the marketing side?
The people who generate and qualify demand, the SDRs and sellers who receive it, and the CMO. The names are settled with you before anything is read.
Our MQL volume is fine. Why look at marketing?
Volume is the part that is counted. What those MQLs converted to, what they cost to acquire, and what it cost sales to find out, is rarely on marketing's dashboard.
Get started
Bring last quarter's two slides.
The call walks one quarter's MQLs: how many were accepted as SQLs, how many were worked inside the SLA, how many came back, and why. A handoff that holds is a finding too.