What this framework is for
This framework puts one thing first: getting Sales and Marketing to work from a shared deals goal, on a defined and regular cadence, with an explicit handoff between them. Attribution measurement still matters; it is just a secondary question here.
What the rest of the page builds onMeasurement still matters, and it should be rigorous. The purpose of the funnel framework here is narrower: give two teams a shared language and a shared set of commitments. It is not the place to settle scorekeeping disputes over who gets credit for a deal.
If funnel reviews keep turning into attribution debates, treat that as the signal to bring the discussion back to the shared number and the handoff, no matter how well-built the model is.
A good funnel framework should answer three questions
Where is the buyer in their journey, and what do they need from us right now?
Who owns the next action, and what does the handoff look like?
Are we generating enough of the right activity to hit the shared deals number?
The sections that follow map to these three questions.
Awareness, consideration, decision: the three stages of the buyer’s journey
Most B2B funnels map to three stages of buyer psychology, defined from the buyer’s point of view rather than the marketing team’s. Use them as a check: each stage you define should map cleanly to one of the three. A stage that maps to none of them is usually tracking an internal process rather than a step in the buyer’s journey.
Awareness
The buyer recognizes a problem, opportunity, or market shift. They may not yet know your category exists, let alone your company. Their information needs are diagnostic and educational.
What they’re asking: Is this a real problem? Is it my problem? How are others thinking about it?Consideration
The buyer has accepted that the problem is real and worth solving, and is now evaluating how to solve it. They’re comparing approaches, categories, and eventually vendors. Their needs shift to comparative and evidentiary.
What they’re asking: What are my options? What are the trade-offs? Who has solved this for companies like mine?Decision
The buyer has narrowed to a short list and is building the internal case to act. Their information needs become specific and risk-oriented.
What they’re asking: Will this work in my environment? What’s the implementation lift? What’s the ROI story I tell my CFO?Two paths into the funnel, converging at one shared gate
The behavioral path runs Prospect → Lead → MQL → SAL. The declared-intent path runs Hand-Raiser → SAL with auto-acceptance. Both converge at SAL, and they have different SLAs, talk tracks, and conversion math. Stages 0–3 are Marketing-owned, SAL is the shared handoff, and SQL onward is Sales-owned; the hand-raiser path bypasses MQL. Read across, the stages move from Awareness (recognizes a problem) through Consideration (evaluating how to solve it) to Decision (building the case to act).
MarketingShared handoffSalesHand-raiser path
Target accounts / audiences
In-ICP, no relationship yet. People and companies you might engage. They match your ICP but you have no relationship with them yet.
The job: Build the addressable list. Maintain it. Score it for fit and timing. Create the conditions for these accounts to encounter your brand.
Entry: Matches ICP filters. Exit: At least one contact identified → Prospect. Key KPIs: ICP coverage %, account-level intent, addressable size.Prospects
Known contacts, not opted in. Known contacts (name + email) who have NOT opted in. They are in your CRM but have not given you permission to nurture them.
The job: Run permission-respecting first-touch motions: ABM ads, brand campaigns, sales-led outreach with marketing air cover.
Entry: Known contact at in-ICP account. Exit: Explicit opt-in → Lead. Key KPIs: Engaged accounts, first-meeting rate, opt-in rate.Leads (engaged / opted-in)
Opted in for information. Contacts who have explicitly agreed to receive engagement. They want to learn; they have NOT requested a sales conversation.
The job: Nurture. Educate. Earn the right to a deeper conversation through value, not pressure.
Entry: Explicit opt-in. Exit: Meets MQL threshold → MQL. Key KPIs: New leads / mo, Lead → MQL %, nurture engagement, source mix.MQL: Marketing Qualified Lead
Fit + intent + recency. Leads who have demonstrated enough intent and fit to warrant sales attention, in Marketing’s judgment.
The job: Pass the three-part test: Fit + Intent + Recency. Package context for the handoff (source, last engagements, intent score, talk track).
Entry: Three-part test passed. Exit: Sales accepts → SAL, or rejects → recycle. Key KPIs: MQLs / week, MQL → SAL %, time to 1st touch.HRL: Hand-Raiser Lead
Demo / contact form. Bypasses MQL → auto-accepted at SAL. Contacts who have explicitly requested a sales conversation through a high-intent form (demo, contact, pricing). Buyer-declared intent.
The job: Speed. Route to sales in minutes; conversion drops sharply after that. Track post-call disqualification reasons separately from MQL rejection.
Owner: Buyer-declared. Entry: High-intent form submission. Exit: Auto-accepted → SAL. Key KPIs: HRL volume by source, speed-to-lead, post-call DQ %.SAL: Sales Accepted Lead
Sales accepted: the handoff. Leads that Sales has agreed are worth pursuing. The only stage that requires both teams to agree before progress.
The job: Negotiate, document, and continuously improve the acceptance criteria. Capture rejection reasons. Hold the weekly review.
Entry: Sales accepts behavioral MQL, or HRL arrives. Exit: Sales conversation confirms opp → SQL, or DQ. Key KPIs: Behavioral acceptance rate (target 70%+), HRL volume + source mix, SLA compliance, rejection reasons.SQL / opportunity
Real opportunity confirmed. SALs that, after a Sales conversation, are confirmed as real buying opportunities: defined need, budget, timeline, decision process.
The job: Sales owns the deal. Marketing’s role shifts to air cover: ABM, retargeting, customer stories, executive intent reports.
Entry: Qualification framework satisfied. Exit: Closed-won, closed-lost, or returned to nurture. Key KPIs: SAL → SQL %, pipeline $, coverage ratio (3–4× quota).Closed won
Revenue. The shared number both teams own.
The job: Hand off to Customer Success cleanly. Feed actuals back into ICP refinement and content investment.
Entry: Contract signed. Exit: Onboarding, customer. Key KPIs: Win rate, ACV, sales cycle, CAC payback.The Marketing-to-Sales handoff: the interface most GTM teams under-instrument
The framework centers on SAL because it’s the stage that requires both teams to agree before a lead progresses. Two on-ramps feed it, and each needs different operational treatment.
The two on-ramps to SAL
Path A, behavioral
Marketing infers intent.
Prospect → Lead → MQL → SAL. Marketing predicts readiness; Sales accepts or rejects the prediction at the gate.
- Qualification
- Marketing inference from signals
- SLA
- 4–24 hours to first touch
- Talk track
- Discovery, educate, qualify
- Acceptance
- 60–80% (variable)
Path B, hand-raiser
The buyer declares intent.
Demo or contact request. Auto-accepted at SAL. Forcing it through MQL adds a stage with zero decision content: you don’t decline requested calls.
- Qualification
- Buyer declaration
- SLA
- 5 minutes to first touch
- Talk track
- Demo prep, qualify in real time
- Acceptance
- ~100% auto-accept
The gate: SAL. Both teams agree the lead is real before resources are committed.
| Comparison | Behavioral MQL → SAL | Hand-raiser → SAL |
|---|---|---|
| Conversion to opp What the path actually produces | 10–20% Variable by lead quality & nurture | 40–60%+ Speed-to-lead is the lever |
| What “rejection” means Where the feedback loop closes | At the handoff Sales declines to pursue | Post-call Disqualified after discovery |
| How to report Reporting note: never blend | Acceptance rate Real signal of MQL quality | Volume + DQ rate Real signal of demand-gen + form hygiene |
Why SAL matters more than MQL
MQL
Marketing’s prediction that a lead is ready.
SAL
Sales’ acceptance that the prediction is correct and worth their time.
The gap between the two is where a lot of GTM friction shows up.
- Marketing says
- Sales doesn’t follow up on the MQLs we send.
- Sales says
- These MQLs are low quality. They aren’t worth our time.
- Both teams
- Report different numbers to leadership.
- Leadership
- Concludes the funnel is broken.
Better MQL scoring alone rarely closes this gap. What does is treating the MQL→SAL transition as a shared, observable, instrumented process with explicit acceptance criteria, SLAs, and a feedback loop.
What the handoff requires
| Requirement, and what it means | In practice |
|---|---|
| Written, versioned, reviewed quarterly. | |
| Sales touches every MQL within X hours; Marketing produces Y MQLs/week. | |
| Fit + intent + timing thresholds, documented. | |
| Rejection reasons are a required field, reviewed weekly. | |
| Weekly pipeline review with both teams in the room. | |
| Comp plans aligned to pipeline + closed-won, not silo’d activity metrics. |
In practice. The handoff is a standing relationship between the two teams. It needs regular maintenance, not a one-time setup.
The marketing-owned funnel, stage by stage, with fields to document your own
Each stage carries a definition, a job description, and a set of fields you can fill in to document your funnel. The examples show the kind of answer each field is looking for. Your answers save in this browser only and nothing is sent anywhere. They are included when you download the page as Markdown or print it, so you can share them with your team.
Target accounts / audiences
Stage 0 · Marketing. Buyer journey: Awareness.
People and companies you might engage. They match your ICP but you have no relationship with them yet; they may not even know you exist.
Source: Built from your ICP definition: firmographic filters (industry, size, geography, tech stack), persona filters (titles, functions, seniority), and intent signals (third-party intent data, hiring signals, funding events, technology changes).
Marketing’s job: Build the addressable list. Maintain it. Score it for fit and timing. Create the conditions for these accounts to encounter your brand.
- KPI: ICP coverage %, account-level intent score distribution
- Entry: Matches ICP filters
- Exit: At least one contact identified → moves to Prospect
Make it yours.
Prospects: known, not opted-in
Stage 1 · Marketing. Buyer journey: Awareness.
Known contacts (you have a name and email) who have not opted in to engagement. They’re in your CRM or marketing platform but they have not given you permission to nurture them.
Source: Outbound prospecting, list enrichment (Clay, ZoomInfo, etc.), event scans, sales-sourced contacts.
Marketing’s job: Run permission-respecting first-touch motions: ABM ads, brand campaigns, sales-led outreach with marketing air cover. Do not put these contacts into nurture programs they didn’t opt into.
- KPI: Engaged accounts (account-level intent), first-meeting rate from cold outbound, opt-in rate
- Entry: Known contact at in-ICP account, no opt-in
- Exit: Explicit opt-in to engagement → moves to Lead
Make it yours.
Leads: engaged, opted-in
Stage 2 · Marketing. Buyer journey: Consideration.
Contacts who have explicitly agreed to receive engagement: they’ve subscribed, downloaded gated content, attended a webinar, or otherwise raised their hand for information. They have not requested a sales conversation. They want to learn.
Source: Content downloads, newsletter subs, webinar registrations, event opt-ins, organic form fills.
Marketing’s job: Nurture. Educate. Earn the right to a deeper conversation through value, not pressure. This is where most B2B marketing actually happens.
- KPI: New leads/month, lead-to-MQL conversion rate, nurture engagement rate, source mix
- Entry: Explicit opt-in
- Exit: Meets MQL threshold (fit + intent + recency)
Make it yours.
MQL: Marketing Qualified Lead
Stage 3 · Marketing. Buyer journey: Consideration.
Leads who have demonstrated enough intent and fit to warrant sales attention, in Marketing’s judgment. It is also the stage teams most often leave loosely defined.
An MQL is defined by three components, and a lead must clear all three:
- Fit: Do they match your ICP?
- Intent: Have they exhibited behavioral signals indicating active evaluation?
- Recency: Are the intent signals fresh enough to act on? (typically 7–30 days)
A common failure mode: defining MQL purely by score (e.g. “lead score > 75”). Score is a useful aggregator, but on its own it lets cold-but-frequent contacts trigger MQL status without any real buying signal.
Make it yours.
The three-part test, live
Tick each component to see when a lead qualifies as an MQL. A score-only definition can satisfy one or two of these on its own, but not all three together.
Not an MQLPick all three to qualify. A lead that misses any one component should not be passed to Sales.
Hand-raiser lead: buyer-declared intent
Stage 3b · Parallel path. Buyer journey: Consideration → Decision.
Contacts who have explicitly requested a sales conversation: “Request a Demo,” “Contact Sales,” “Get Pricing,” “Talk to an Expert.” They have declared their intent rather than having Marketing infer it.
Why this stage exists separately: a demo request is buyer-declared intent. Forcing it through the MQL→SAL acceptance gate adds a stage with zero decision content; you’re not in the business of declining requested calls. HRLs bypass MQL and enter the funnel at SAL with auto-acceptance.
Where the feedback loop lives: instead of rejection at the gate, HRLs generate disqualification reasons after the discovery call (bad fit, no budget, no timeline, wrong persona, student, competitor research). Those feed back to Marketing the same way: to refine targeting, gate forms appropriately, or adjust ad spend on low-quality channels.
Make it yours.
Reporting note. Keep behavioral and hand-raiser metrics separate. If you blend them, your “MQL→SAL acceptance rate” stops telling you anything useful, because hand-raisers convert at near 100% and mask behavioral lead quality.
SAL: Sales Accepted Lead
Stage 4 · Shared. The handoff.
Leads that Sales has agreed are worth pursuing, arriving via one of two paths: behavioral MQLs that Sales has reviewed and accepted, or hand-raisers auto-accepted on arrival.
Acceptance criteria for behavioral MQLs (negotiated jointly, documented, versioned):
- Fit confirmation: matches ICP on review
- Intent confirmation: signals appear genuine, not noise
- Timing: not a tire-kicker, not a student, not a competitor
- Reachability: contact info appears valid, persona appears decision-relevant
Rejection criteria are equally important for behavioral MQLs. When Sales rejects, the reason is captured and routed back to Marketing. Patterns drive scoring updates, content adjustments, and ICP refinement. For HRLs, “rejection” doesn’t exist at the handoff; the equivalent feedback is post-call disqualification.
Make it yours.
SQL / opportunity
Stage 5 · Sales. Buyer journey: Decision.
SALs that, after a Sales conversation, are confirmed as real buying opportunities: there’s a defined need, budget, timeline, and decision process.
Owner: Sales. Marketing’s role shifts to air cover: running ABM, retargeting, case study delivery, and other plays that support Sales through the deal cycle.
- KPI: SAL→SQL conversion, opp creation rate, pipeline coverage ratio (target: 3–4× quota)
- Entry: Qualification framework satisfied
- Exit: Closed-won, closed-lost, or returned to nurture
Make it yours.
The framework above is a skeleton. This section fits it to your own numbers
Start with the foundation numbers: they back into everything else. The worksheet below works the math so you can see what your funnel actually has to do.
Foundation worksheet: pipeline math
Start from what you know and back into the volume of behavioral MQLs and hand-raisers your funnel needs to produce. The sample values are illustrative; replace them with yours and the targets update as you type.
| Input | Value | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Annual new ARR targetShared deals goal across Sales and Marketing | $ | |
| Average deal size (ACV)Blended across segments | $ | |
| SAL to closed-won rateBlended close rate from accepted lead | % | |
| Hand-raiser share of SALThe rest comes from behavioral MQLs | % | |
| Behavioral MQL to SAL acceptanceTarget 70%+; cuts MQL volume need | % | |
| HRL to SAL auto-acceptUsually near 100%; adjust if yours differs | % |
Targets: what your funnel must produce.
At $60K ACV for $12M new ARR
545 from behavioral MQLs, 364 from hand-raisers
15 a week at 70% acceptance
30 a month at 100% auto-accept
How the math works.
- Closed-won deals = new ARR target ÷ ACV.
- SALs needed = deals ÷ SAL → closed-won rate.
- SALs split by hand-raiser share: the hand-raiser share comes from HRLs, the rest from behavioral MQLs.
- Behavioral MQLs needed = behavioral SALs ÷ MQL → SAL acceptance.
- Hand-raisers needed = hand-raiser SALs ÷ HRL → SAL auto-accept rate.
Cadence: how Sales and Marketing actually work together
The framework only works if there’s a defined, regular operating rhythm between the two teams. Pick the lightest version that maintains the relationship.
SDR + Marketing Ops
Lead flow monitoring, SLA exceptions, routing fixes.
VP Marketing + VP Sales + RevOps
Pipeline review, handoff health, MQL rejection patterns.
Full S&M leadership
Funnel metrics, scoring & criteria adjustments, content gaps.
CRO + CMO + CEO
Goal recalibration, ICP refinement, comp / incentive review.
Common ways a funnel goes wrong
Read these at your next pipeline review. Any that sound familiar mark where to focus.
Attribution wars
When meetings turn into arguments over who deserves credit, the funnel has stopped doing its job. Bring the discussion back to the shared deals number.
MQL inflation
Marketing hits MQL targets while SAL acceptance falls. Track the pair together, not each in isolation.
Blending behavioral and hand-raiser metrics
Reporting a single “MQL→SAL conversion rate” that mixes both paths hides what’s happening: hand-raisers convert at near 100% and mask behavioral lead quality. Track them separately.
Slow speed-to-lead on hand-raisers
Demo-request conversion is highly sensitive to response time. Delays beyond a few minutes cost deals.
Silent rejection
Sales rejects MQLs without telling Marketing why. Make rejection reasons mandatory.
Stage jumping
Treating prospects as leads (sending nurture emails to non-opted-in contacts) erodes trust and deliverability.
Score worship
Using lead score as the only MQL gate. Score is an input to the definition, not the definition itself.
What a healthy funnel looks like
A healthy funnel is one where four things are true, regardless of how many stages it has or how sophisticated its scoring is:
- Both teams could draw the same picture on a whiteboard.
- Both teams are measured against (and feel ownership of) the same deals number.
- The handoff between them is instrumented, observable, and continuously improved.
- The funnel is a conversation tool, not a scorecard for internal disputes.
Build toward those four, and keep both teams pointed at the same number.
Glossary
- Target account
- Marketing. A company that matches your ICP and that you intend to engage, regardless of whether anyone there knows you exist yet. Sourced from firmographic + persona + intent filters.
- Prospect
- Marketing. A named contact at an in-ICP account who has not yet opted in to engagement. Permission-respecting outreach only: no nurture programs.
- Lead
- Marketing. A contact who has explicitly agreed to receive engagement (subscribe, gated content, webinar). They want information, not a sales call.
- MQL
- Marketing. Marketing Qualified Lead. Defined by the three-part test: Fit + Intent + Recency. Score alone is not a definition.
- HRL
- Hand-raiser. Hand-Raiser Lead. A contact who has declared intent through a high-intent form (demo, contact, pricing). Bypasses MQL → auto-accepted at SAL.
- SAL
- Handoff. Sales Accepted Lead. The handoff. The only stage that requires both teams to agree. Behavioral MQLs require explicit acceptance; HRLs are auto-accepted on arrival.
- SQL / opportunity
- Sales. A SAL that, after a sales conversation, is confirmed as a real buying opportunity with defined need, budget, timeline, and decision process.
- Three-part test
- The MQL definition: Fit (ICP match) + Intent (defined behavioral signal) + Recency (within a 7–30 day window). All three must clear, not just one.
- ICP
- Ideal Customer Profile. The firmographic + persona + behavioral definition of who you sell to. Refined quarterly with closed-won + closed-lost data.
- Speed-to-lead
- Hand-raiser. Time from hand-raiser submission to first sales touch. Hyper-sensitive to delay: conversion drops sharply after a few minutes.
- Acceptance rate
- Handoff. % of behavioral MQLs that Sales accepts at the handoff. Target 70%+. Track separately from HRL acceptance; never blend.
- Post-call disqualification
- Hand-raiser. The HRL equivalent of MQL rejection. Reasons captured after the discovery meeting (wrong persona, no budget, no timeline, student, competitor) and fed back to Marketing.
- Air cover
- Marketing. Marketing’s role once an opportunity exists: ABM, retargeting, customer stories, executive briefings, intent reports, supporting Sales through the deal cycle.
- Pipeline coverage
- Sales. Ratio of open pipeline $ to remaining quota. Target 3–4× by start of quarter. Below 3× is a forecasting problem; far above 4× is a quality problem.
- Shared deals goal
- A single revenue number both Marketing and Sales are measured against and feel ownership of. The framework is built around this number.