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sales-qualified lead (SQL)

Also called: SQL, sales qualified lead

A lead that a seller has checked and accepted as worth active selling time, by a definition marketing and sales agreed on together. Counting leads without this shared definition lets each side report a different funnel.

A lead is any person or company that has shown interest or fits your profile. A sales-qualified lead (SQL) is a lead a seller has checked against written criteria and accepted as worth active selling time. The key word is written: marketing and sales agree on the definition together, so a lead means the same thing in both teams' reports.

Good criteria describe fit and need, not only activity. A typical set: the company fits the ideal customer profile; a named person has described a real need; you know who approves the spend or how to reach them; the timing falls within a window you can serve. Downloads and email opens can be useful signals, but on their own they measure curiosity, not a deal.

The definition works only with a handover rule around it: what the handover note contains, how fast sales responds, and that sales either accepts each lead or returns it with a reason. Returned leads, reviewed once a month, show marketing which channels bring the wrong people. The thresholds in the definition (company size, time window, response time) are the team's own choices, not industry standards, and should be revisited as the data comes in.

Example

Before its first sales hire in May 2027, Klasna for Teams wrote down what a sales-qualified lead is:

  1. A company with 50+ employees whose people work with foreign partners.
  2. A named person who described a training need on a call.
  3. Teams knows who approves training spend, or how to reach them.
  4. They want to start within six months.

Sales contacts each lead within one working day and accepts it or returns it with a reason within five working days. The 50 employees, six months, one day and five days are the team's choices, to revisit monthly.

The autumn 2026 campaign shows why counting raw leads misleads. Events brought 60 leads and 3 opportunities (5%); outbound brought 18 leads and 6 opportunities (6 ÷ 18 = 33.33%); the referral partner brought 6 leads and 3 opportunities (50%). Ranked by leads, events win; ranked by leads that sales accepted as real deals, outbound has twice as many from less than a third of the leads.

Common mistakes

  • Each team keeps its own definition. Marketing reports leads, sales reports deals, and nobody can say where the funnel leaks. Write one definition together.
  • Criteria based only on activity. Opening three emails or downloading a guide shows curiosity; add fit and a stated need.
  • No way to return a lead. Without accept-or-return with a reason, bad leads disappear silently and marketing never learns which channel sent them.
  • Rewarding lead volume. A target on raw leads pushes toward cheap, poorly fitting contacts; track accepted leads and what became of them.
  • Treating your thresholds as a standard. Company size, time window and response times are choices to test, not benchmarks.

Learn it in the course

  • From founder-led selling to the first sales hire · Write down what the founders know, agree shared definitions and a service agreement between marketing and sales, choose and onboard the first salesperson, and use AI tools with human review and care for data.