sales qualified lead

Definition

A prospect who's been vetted by marketing, kicked over to sales, and deemed worthy of actual human attention rather than automated email sequences. Abbreviated as SQL, which confusingly has nothing to do with databases.

Example Usage

We generated 500 MQLs last month, but only 50 became SQLs because apparently 'downloaded a whitepaper' doesn't mean 'ready to buy.'

Origin

B2B marketing terminology from the early 2000s during the rise of marketing automation

Fun Fact

The average MQL-to-SQL conversion rate is around 13%, meaning 87% of 'qualified' leads weren't actually qualified—hence the eternal marketing/sales blame game.

Source: B2B marketing and sales operations terminology

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