By Win Salyards, Marketing Coordinator at Heinz Marketing

It’s easy to talk a lot about sales and marketing alignment basics, covering them multiple times over without any deep dive. So, rather than that, this will be a deep dive into lead qualification and how it relates to sales and marketing alignment. Let’s dig into it.

A large part of the conflicts that occur between sales and marketing teams happens during lead hand-off. The most common sales complaint about their marketing counterparts is that the quality of leads coming from marketing is subpar. So how do we solve this issue? Aligned lead qualification and well-defined SLAs. Here are 3 lead qualification alignment strategies for you to support your SMA strategy. 

Align your KPIs

Without aligned data definitions, how can leads become qualified in the first place? Ensure your marketing and sales teams work from the same road map by starting with lead and account KPI alignment. This will give you the foundation to work from going forward.

Talk it out

Sales and marketing leaders need to meet regularly to discuss issues with leads coming down the pipeline. Early on, and then periodically in the future, dig into the issues sales reps are having with leads they’re receiving from marketing, and then discuss how to address them. What could make a lead more qualified? 

Implement your findings with an SLA

Service level agreements are essential for successful lead qualification hand-offs. They ensure the alignment of the teams and make sure that people are held accountable through codification. Implementing findings from sales and marketing leadership discussions using an SLA will save everyone involved pain later. 

The technical details of lead qualification can be complicated, so make sure that it’s not complicated further because of team misalignment and miscommunication. Take the time to build a solid foundation for developing your lead qualification implementation and save your teams a headache later.