When Gertrude Stein penned, "A rose is a rose is a rose," she was commenting on how essence is expressed in naming and how that naming calls up associated meanings.

Let's see how it works for B2B lead generation: a sales lead is a sales lead is a sales lead.

Surely all of us in sales and marketing are on the same page when it comes to the meaning of a "sales lead." If it were only so.

On good days, marketing forwards a lead to sales, and the sales representative finds a well-qualified prospect who meets established criteria and warrants immediate attention.

But, oh, those days of disconnects. Marketing's cover email to sales notes one of its initiatives has delivered a qualified lead. Yet when the sales representative contacts the prospect, he finds qualifying criteria overstated or reported by someone who can't actually make a decision and drive a budget.

Too often, marketing's take on a sales lead reads like this:

A sales lead is a contact is an inquiry is an interested self-educator.

And sales reps waste time on those "leads" when what they need reads like this:

A sales lead is a qualified sales opportunity is a sales-qualified lead is a sales-ready buyer.

Missing is a consensus on what a sales lead is. More specifically, the two groups need to identify and agree on ideal criteria for highly qualified sales opportunities that warrant attention from sales representatives.

An internal or external prospect development resource will address each and every one of the following criteria when delivering qualified prospects to the field:

1. Vertical (SIC or NAICS code)
2. Firmographics (revenue, # of employees or # of locations)
3. Decision makers/influencers and respective roles in the decision-making process
4. Environment (related to each solution—such as "technical environment")
5. Decision maker level of engagement (engaged or referral but in the loop)
6. Business issues/pains uncovered and validated
7. Decision making process documented
8. Budget allocated or process for establishing a budget documented
9. Competitive landscape documented
10. Sense of urgency or compelling event

Note that while it's important to address each of these criteria in the qualifying and nurturing process, not every one may be fully realized at handoff. For example, recent research is showing that many prospect firms become fully engaged in reviewing solutions without a budget in place. Business case strength will drive funding, and the lead is qualified based on engagement with the correct, empowered decision maker and compelling need.

So whether we use qualified sales opportunity, sales-qualified lead or sales-ready buyer, the important thing is that sales and marketing share a clear and concise definition of the criteria that qualify opportunities ready for handoff.

In subsequent installments of this series, these criteria are used to challenge assumptions around the perceived advantages of lower costs-per-lead (Part 2) and higher volumes of leads (Part 3).

And by the way, I would be remiss if I didn't allow Shakespeare to also weigh in on naming and associated meanings:

What's in a name?

That which we call a sales-ready buyer by any other name would smell as sweet.

 
By Dan McDade