Marketing hit its target, but sales missed quota. Here's why.

Good Morning {{first_name}}!

It’s Monday - and that means it’s time for your CRM Dispatch - an issue where we skip the small talk about the weather and dive right into the painpoints of marketers who work with CRMs.

Last week, I had multiple conversations about the feedback loop between marketing and sales. And it’s not a new conversation. While sales should absolutely provide feedback to marketing, marketing should also provide sales with quality leads.

Today, we’re talking about MQL inflation. This happens when teams compete rather than work together. And this also happens when marketing gets measured in volume.

Let’s dive in.

When marketing is measured in volume, the goal becomes - well, volume. Quality tends to take a backseat. As long as leads are coming through, marketing wins. However, when sales tries to close those leads, cracks start to surface.

Here’s the reality: the average MQL-to-SQL conversion rate across all industries sits around 13%.

That means roughly 87% of your "qualified" leads never become sales opportunities. And this is inbound. Outbound is about 2%.

If marketing is celebrating volume while sales is calling the leads garbage, both teams are right.

The solution is to speak the same language.

When marketing is measured on MQL volume, the incentive changes.

What can be done to pump MQLs into the CRM to make it look like marketing is doing the job? It may not be malicious, but the focus on volume over quality slowly starts to change how the pipeline converts.

For example, webinar attendees become MQLs. Content downloaders become MQLs. The funnel looks like progress, but the space between MQL and SQL turns into a massive gap. Sales starts chasing leads that don’t really remember who you are, and the lifecycle data starts to lean one way.

Whether you are in-house or part of a marketing agency, there must be a shared connection between marketing and sales.

This is not a marketing vs. sales conflict. It is a definition problem that lives in your CRM, because most teams inherit an MQL threshold from a previous regime, a consultant, or a default setting, and nobody ever revisits it against actual closed-won data.

Make sure that marketing’s definition of an MQL vs. SQL is aligned with sales. Work together on that definition.

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Here is the framework worth running:

Pull your last 12 months of closed-won deals and work backwards.

What did those contacts actually do before they converted?

What lifecycle stage were they in, and when?

That behavioural pattern is your real MQL definition.

And get sales’ input here to ensure you get their qualitative perspective.

If this is the conversation you have been putting off, 44fjord works with teams to build the foundation that makes these numbers trustworthy. If you want to talk about what a partnership could look like, reach out to the team using the contact form on 44fjord.com/contact

In case you missed our Q1 Signals Report, you can grab it here.

Lastly, our Lifecycle Audit Checklist is gearing up for release in June! This audit checklist comes with a video guide to walk you through what to look for, how to diagnose it and a good amount of solutions to keep things moving forward in your funnel.

TL;DR

MQL inflation is not a marketing problem. It’s a process issue that is exposed when marketing and sales don’t speak the same language, and your CRM system exposes it.

The system shapes behaviour. If the definition is wrong, everything downstream multiplies the mistake quietly, until someone asks the tough questions and nobody has an answer.