Stop me if you have heard this one… Your Marketing team is tasked with generating a specific number of leads, with the understanding that a certain number of those leads will become qualified and then a certain number of leads will convert into opportunities.
However, what really ends up happening is Sales says that your team’s qualified leads are crap. “They were not ready to purchase,”“They were just fishing for information,”“The lead was too small to afford our products.” Sound familiar? The list goes on and on.
“What really ends up happening is Sales says that your team’s qualified leads are crap.”
In turn, your team becomes frustrated because they feel they’ve thoroughly planned their demand gen strategy and have done their due diligence. They’ve spent a significant amount of time meeting with Sales to get their qualification criteria, they’ve gotten executive buy-in, and created SLAs. Now, just a quarter or two later, they are being told what they’re doing isn’t working and is not helpful to sales. So, the Marketing team throws their hands up and focuses more on lead quantity rather than lead quality— just getting leads in the door. If Sales follows up, who knows, but at least the Marketing team can say they hit their lead gen numbers.
Where is the disconnect? Continue reading