MAL = Marketing Accepted Lead.

A MAL is simply ANY and every lead. Despite quality or qualification if you’ve set up a form on your website and someones filled it, marketing will count this as an MAL.

MQL= Marketing Qualified Lead.

A MQL distills your MAL’s and only includes leads that fit your target customer. For example, if you’ve generated 100 MAL’s but 5 of them are students, and 10 of them don’t have real contact information then you’re only left with 85 working leads. You’ve generated 85 MQL’s.

SAL = Sales Accepted Lead

A Sales Accepted Lead is when an Account Executive speaks to an MQL and “qualifies” it. Qualification is typically done through this method:

BANT

B= Budget - Can they afford what I’m selling?

A= Authority - Am I speaking to someone who has the authority to make a purchase decision.

N= Need - Is there a need for what I’m selling? Has the prospect expressed pain that I can help solve with my solution?

T = Timeline - Will they implement this solution within a reasonable amount of time (rule of thumb is 1 year)

SQL = Sales Qualified Lead

A Sales Qualified Lead is a lead that is now in “pipe.” IE, an Account Executive is actively working the account and is in constant two way communication with the prospect. The Sales rep and the prospect are likely discussing demos, pricing, contracts, and implementation.

Short and sweet! But remember these phrases

BANT

MAL

MQL

SAL

SQL

CRUSH IT!