Time to align—Seriously, what the fork is a lead?

Marketing and sales alignment is, by far, the biggest opportunity for growth in any organization. So where do we start? Easy, first and foremost define what the fork a lead is.

Here is the first trouble spot in the wonderful world of MarSales¹:
A lead is a lead is a lead. WRONG. Time to clarify.

A lead IS NOT ALWAYS a lead.

Lead^(noun)

A person or company we intend to do business with.
Specifically a person or business...

• who I am aware of and have contact information for.
• who knows of me or my org.
• has not done business with us in the past.
• has not been qualified as a contact with Budget, Authority, Need, or Timeframe (B.A.N.T.)

Source: Me, it's my article #wink.

Being a lead is just one part of a lead lifecycle. These folks can be suspects, prospects, leads or contacts. Recently marketing and sales plagforms have begun pooling all these folks together as people or person(s). Each one of these terms can have drastically different meanings from person to person inside and across and organization. Some use these terms interchangeably; others have distinct connotations based on milestones or stages.

Rather than writing an epic on the subtleties nuance of of lead flow, process and transition. Let's simplify and look at this from a systems point of view of two common marketing and sales automation platforms, ie: Marketo and Salesforce. To save time for the both of us, I tossed together a brief deck on the subject. Take 2 minutes to flip through to uncover what the fork a lead really is and how you raise the bar in your organization.

Note this is my perspective based on my personal experience at several organizations. If your view or company's coin things differently, it's absolutely ok, in fact, I would expect it.

Take-away

These terms terms play a crucial role in the day to day operations of our businesses. When we take even a brief moment to align and clarify what we mean, or ask what a colleague means when they say "lead", you'll be one step ahead. If you put that alignment in writing and make it part of your training process for marketing, sales, and your executive staff, you'll skip the step and take one massive leap toward true MarSales alignment.

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Footnotes

¹ MarSales, sometimes referred to as Smarketing, is a term used to identify marketing and sales as a single entity. Think of this as a captain planet moment "with our powers combined" we are virtually invincible (as long as we are speaking the same language of course).