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Hot take: MQLs cause the most misalignment between sales and marketing. Here’s a (slightly dark) analogy to explain: A few years ago, researchers fed an artificial sweetener to hungry lab rats. The rats’ smell and taste systems were fooled by the saccharin, so they ate it. But, the rats’ satiety systems, which detect nutrition and signal back to the brain to stop eating, weren’t fooled. The rats binged, to their peril. (We said this got dark. Sorry!) The lesson: MQLs are the saccharin of B2B. Marketing serves up its quota of mostly-miss MQLs, while sales is starved for real selling opportunities. Marketing’s sensory systems are fooled by saccharin MQLs. The satiety systems of sales are not. They never get their fill of real selling opportunities to work. But, absent alternatives, sales keeps asking for more. The solution: ABM. Marketing should look for buying groups that demonstrate the overall interest of an account instead of individuals who show personal or professional interest.

The problem may also lie in terminology abuse. It's not the "MQL" per se, it's the marketing team's failure to define what's "Marketing-Qualified" and truly abide by it. An MQL is just a word to convey what should be an "ICP-fit" individual at a "market-fit" account with a "serious" inquiry. Everything else is an earlier stage Lead or Prospect... again, terminology and definitions matter. We agree ABM strategy and tactics can help you generate more true MQLs. However, we disagree that our sales colleagues are rats. 🤣 Just kidding - point taken that when marketing team puffs up their MQL stats by playing loose with the definition, you burn out, irritate (or both) your sales team.

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Kevin McMahon

VP Marketing | Strategist, Market Disrupter, AI Innovator, Creator, Building Revenue Better; Balancing the Art & Science of Marketing.

3w

Great analogy. The real world demand gen version is pretty dark too, so no worries!

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