Do you know if your sales team is actually reaching out to the leads that come across their desk? I see this a lot with traditional content syndication. Sales gets the list and either the contact doesn’t remember downloading the asset, or the rep looks at the company and says it isn’t relevant and they won’t buy. The rep doesn’t work the lead. There are many reasons reps skip leads.

This gap is almost never a people problem. Reps learn fast which leads turn into deals and they spend their time there. The rule lives in their heads. Meanwhile marketing keeps generating and reporting on the full number. Alignment for sales and marketing means digging in and creating a real feedback loop.

Both sides need to look at what was delivered. Mark the leads that got a real sales touch, meaning a call or a personal email, separately from those that for the automation sequence. Then look at what the worked leads have in common that the ignored ones don’t. Company size, title, source, timing. The pattern will point out where the gaps in sales’ attention to the leads exists.

Then sit down with two of your best reps and rewrite the lead definition together. It’s different for everyone and a lot of the time organizations define a lead as any contact with relevant data that matches their ICP. Does this make sense for you? What components of the “lead” make it worthwhile to work or pass off? The entire sales team needs to be on the same page, and marketing needs to know what numbers to report on. Marketing spend only becomes pipeline when someone on the sales side decides it’s worth their time. Find out what they decided and why and put it into an actionable process.

Reply and tell me roughly what share of your leads get worked and what surprised you about the reps’ preferences. I’m interested to see how it differs, or is maybe similar, across different teams. Contact Launch Marketing today.