Por Rodolfo Pollini

An article published on the Frost & Sullivan blog put the lens on the controversies between the companies' Marketing and Sales managers when it comes to results, and mentioned that the integration of the two departments is more than necessary and can produce up to a 20% increase in revenue.
Both this integration and communication must be simple and the way to qualify leads must be agreed upon. For Sales to complain because Marketing does not obtain good clients, or for Marketing to complain to Sales for not working properly on leads, the following should be taken into account:

• The conversion criteria from a lead qualified by Marketing to one qualified by Sales.

• The number of times Sales will follow up with each of your well-qualified leads.

• The guidelines for evaluating results and the obligation to measure them permanently.

One recommendation is that marketers attend at least one sales call per week, to understand the process and the buyer and provide their experience to sellers.
The measurement of the entire process is the contribution that Marketing can make to the company's income, beyond the quantity of leads obtained: taking income as a value of quality over the value of quantity.

The lead, that elusive

MQL, the acronym for Marketing Qualified Lead, defines a potential customer well qualified as such by the marketing specialist. SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) is the same, but qualified by Sales.
What parameters do both departments take to arrive at their qualification? How do you go from the primary state (when there is only one contact information such as the email address) to having a candidate for the sale?
In Hubspot, Roberto Madero described four states from which you can know when a stage has been passed and you can move on to the next. Starting from an MQL client, he analyzed these variants:

• Lead suitable for the company and very interested: He is ready to move to the SQL state. Sales should not allow their interest to drop.

• Lead suitable for the company, but not very interested: Lacks maturity. A good policy is to follow up while still offering valuable content to increase interest.

• Lead very interested, but not suitable for the company: He does not have the characteristics of an ideal client, due to budget or his inability to decide. A recommended policy is to establish the relationship equally.

• Lead not very interested and not suitable for the company: It is advisable to remove him from the contact list.

As in everything, there are always batteries of resources but they all involve a lot of work. An adequate marketing strategy requires patience, constant communication with the Sales area, and measuring, measuring, measuring. Measure all the time.

It is worth noting a statement by Cristina De Martini, VP Director of Research at Forrester, who recently wrote that most organizations measure the value of marketing by the amount of revenue they earn, but this metric has been shown to underrepresent the value of marketing and this underrepresentation almost always leads to a misinterpretation of the data, suggesting a reduction in the marketing budget. Worse, he added, sourcing metrics create competition between sales and marketing when there should be a partnership.

If Marketing and Sales pursue the same result, the only logical path, and in sight, is to reconcile. And the best way to achieve this is to understand that there is a higher interest in both areas: the brand, its authority in the market and the natural consequence of a good integration process: more demand with better customers and more income, of course.