Why everyone must speak the same ‘lead’ language: turning curiosity into customers, one definition at a time

I still remember a management meeting at a business I had just started working with, when marketing, sales and finance each produced a different pipeline for the same quarter. We were not dealing with faulty maths. We were dealing with faulty definitions. One team counted ‘leads’ from the moment a website form was submitted, another only when a discovery call was booked, and finance waited until a price went on a quote. There was lots of head scratching to start with, on why the pipeline was so different, it was not until we dug deeper that we realised we were talking about various stages of the customer journey but calling it the same word ‘a lead’, so we did the simplest thing: we sat down and agreed what each stage of the customer journey meant.

The problem with fuzzy definitions

When every department uses its own shorthand, you lose the ability to see the real story in your pipeline. Marketing appears wildly successful, sales feels under-resourced, and finance panics because invoices are not arriving when expected. Worse still, customers experience a disjointed hand-off that feels anything but professional.

A shared dictionary

Below is how I encourage clients to frame their definitions. The exact wording is less important than the fact that everyone signs it off.

• Lead
  A person or organisation that has raised a hand by sharing contact details and given permission to be contacted. They have shown initial curiosity but have not yet demonstrated intent.
• Marketing qualified lead (MQL)
  A lead whose profile and behaviour meet pre-agreed fit and engagement thresholds. Think job title, industry, company size and a minimum level of content interaction. They are ready for a human conversation, not just more emails.
• Sales qualified lead (SQL)
  An MQL who has been contacted and has confirmed a need, budget, authority and timeline worth pursuing. Crucially, the salesperson has accepted ownership in the CRM. From here on, the clock is ticking.
• Quote
  A formal price proposal issued, recorded against the opportunity and shared with the prospect. The quote stage only starts once the document is in the prospect’s inbox, not when it is drafted internally.
• Closed order
  A quote that has been accepted, contract signed and the purchase order (or initial payment) logged in finance. Until all three events occur, you have a verbal, not a customer.

The conversion contract

Agreeing definitions is half the battle. The other half is deciding which conversion rates matter. I recommend tracking:

• Lead-to-MQL (marketing effectiveness)
• MQL-to-SQL (handover quality)
• SQL-to-Quote (solution fit and urgency)
• Quote-to-Closed (pricing and negotiation discipline)

Publish the ratios weekly on a shared dashboard so that any dip triggers a joint response rather than departmental blame.

How to make it stick

1. Document it in plain English inside your CRM help files so nobody relies on faded slide decks.
2. Train every new starter during onboarding and re-certify the whole team at least once a year.
3. Automate stage changes where possible (for example, quote issued status pulls directly from your proposal tool).
4. Reward collective success. Bonusing marketing solely on leads and sales solely on deals encourages silo thinking. Shared targets reinforce shared language.

The payoff

In every project where we have nailed the definitions first, we have seen three benefits within the first quarter. Marketing spend is re-allocated to the tactics that create real MQLs, sales forecasts become believable, and finance can model cashflow with confidence. Most importantly, customers feel the focus, moving from first click to first invoice with far less friction.

If your teams are still debating whether today’s pipeline review is good news or bad, start with the basics. Get everyone speaking the same ‘lead’ language and watch the numbers, and the culture, transform.

If you need some support, then please reach out to me.