Sales says your leads suck.

And they’re probably right.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most marketing teams are optimizing for volume when they should be optimizing for signal. The MQL as traditionally defined (someone who downloaded a whitepaper and fits a demographic profile) isn’t a qualified lead. It’s a hand-raiser who might become qualified eventually.

Let’s fix that.

First Principles: What Is a Lead, Actually?

Strip away the scoring algorithms, the funnel stages, the martech complexity. A lead is any prospect you are willing to invest sales manpower and bandwidth to chase down.

That’s it. That’s the definition that matters.

The question then becomes: what threshold makes someone worth pursuing? And here’s where most teams get it wrong: they set this threshold based on marketing convenience rather than sales reality.

If your sales team is burning cycles on leads that never convert, your threshold is too low. If your pipeline is bone dry, maybe it’s too high. But the solution isn’t to fiddle with score weights. The solution is to understand what actually predicts a deal.

The Opportunity Forensics Exercise

One of our favorite exercises we do for clients every month is an opportunity forensics deep dive. Here’s how it works:

Take a sampling of your previous period’s sales opportunities, both won and lost. Now trace back every interaction they had with your marketing ecosystem:

  • What was their first touch?
  • What content did they engage with?
  • What was the last thing they did before sales contact?
  • What can you learn about them from LinkedIn?
  • How long was the journey from first touch to opportunity?
  • What patterns emerge in the deals that closed?

You’ll start seeing things. Maybe demo requests from organic search convert 3x better than form fills from paid campaigns. Maybe people who read three or more blog posts close at higher rates. Maybe your “high intent” webinar attendees actually never buy.

The data tells you what your scoring model should look like. Not the other way around.

The LinkedIn Deep Dive Technique

Here’s a tactic that sounds obvious but almost nobody does systematically: before passing a lead to sales, spend three minutes on their LinkedIn.

Look for:

  • Recent job changes (new role = new budget, new initiatives)
  • Company announcements (funding, expansion, new leadership)
  • Content they’re posting or engaging with
  • Mutual connections who could provide context
  • Signs they’re actually a decision maker vs. a researcher

This isn’t creepy. This is doing your job. Sales will thank you for leads that come with context instead of just contact info.

Intent Signals Over Volume

The shift every marketing team needs to make: stop celebrating lead volume. Start celebrating intent signals.

Intent signals include:

  • Pricing page visits
  • Demo or consultation requests
  • Return visits within a short timeframe
  • Specific feature research
  • Competitor comparison content
  • Late-stage content consumption

Non-intent signals (but often scored highly):

  • Whitepaper downloads
  • Newsletter signups
  • Webinar registrations
  • Social follows
  • Generic “learn more” form fills

The first list should weight heavily in your scoring. The second list shouldn’t disqualify someone, but it shouldn’t qualify them either.

Aligning Marketing and Sales Definitions

The root cause of “our leads suck” is usually a definition mismatch. Marketing says they delivered 500 MQLs. Sales says they received 500 time-wasters. Both are technically correct.

Here’s how to fix it:

Create a shared definition document. Write down exactly what makes someone qualified. Not scoring rules, but actual human-readable criteria. “They work at a company with 50+ employees in our target industries, have expressed interest in a specific use case, and have the budget authority or clear path to it.”

Review it quarterly. The market changes. Your product changes. Your ICP changes. The definition should evolve.

Implement a feedback loop. Sales should be able to flag bad leads with a reason, and marketing should review those reasons weekly. Not to argue, but to learn.

Share win/loss data. Marketing should know which of their leads became customers and which didn’t. This isn’t a gotcha. It’s the only way to improve.

The Quality Flywheel

When you nail lead quality, something magical happens:

  1. Sales spends more time on qualified prospects
  2. Conversion rates go up
  3. Sales starts trusting marketing leads
  4. They actually follow up promptly
  5. Prospects get a better experience
  6. Close rates improve further
  7. Marketing gets better data on what works
  8. Lead quality improves again

This is the flywheel you’re trying to build. It doesn’t start with more leads. It starts with better leads.

What To Do Monday Morning

This week: Pull your last quarter’s closed-won deals. Trace their journey. What do they have in common?

Next week: Compare to closed-lost. What’s different?

Week three: Have an honest conversation with sales about what a “good lead” looks like to them. Listen more than you talk.

Week four: Revise your scoring model based on what you learned. Test it for a month.

The MQL isn’t dead. It’s just been poorly defined for too long. A well-defined MQL, one that predicts actual revenue and not just activity, is more valuable than ever.

Want help implementing an opportunity forensics program? Let’s talk. We do this for clients every month and we’re happy to show you what we’ve learned.