Your CRM's lead rejection data is a goldmine, but only if you scrutinize it. Vague reasons like "not a fit" often conceal systemic GTM flaws. Interviewing SDRs to understand what this label actually means can reveal critical disconnects between marketing's targeting and sales's enablement.
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Contrary to the 'always be closing' mindset, the goal of early-stage qualification should be disqualification. Advancing deals based on mere 'interest' rather than true 'intent' leads to bloated pipelines and low win rates. Getting to 'no' quickly is more efficient than chasing unqualified leads.
Traditional funnels jump from a marketing signal (like an MQL) to an opportunity, creating a blind spot. They miss the 'Engagement' period of initial interaction and the 'Prospecting' phase of active sales pursuit. Ignoring these stages makes it impossible to diagnose performance issues or identify improvement levers.
Most go-to-market challenges, from low conversion rates to departmental friction, can be traced to the handoff process between marketing and sales. Start your diagnosis here to find the root cause of issues like low-quality leads or poor pipeline velocity, not just the symptoms.
Focusing on successful conversions misses the much larger story. Digging into the reasons for the 85% of rejected leads uncovers systemic issues in targeting, messaging, sales process, and data hygiene, offering a far greater opportunity for funnel improvement than simply optimizing wins.
Encourage sales and BDR teams to disqualify leads and close-loss deals quickly. This 'fail fast' approach cleans the pipeline, focuses effort on viable opportunities, and provides a rapid, clear feedback loop to marketing on lead quality and campaign effectiveness.
Citing LinkedIn research, the speaker highlights a mere 16% overlap in target audiences between sales and marketing teams. This massive disconnect means 84% of marketing efforts and budget are wasted on prospects sales will never pursue, fundamentally undermining GTM efficiency.
Many salespeople fill pipelines with leads showing mere interest. Elite performers differentiate this from true buyer intent—the willingness to buy now. They actively disqualify prospects who lack intent, allowing them to focus on fewer, more qualified opportunities and avoid wasting time on conversations that won't convert.
Adding qualification steps to a sales funnel weeds out bad-fit leads. This increases cost-per-lead but lowers overall customer acquisition cost (CAC) and boosts morale by letting salespeople focus only on high-intent, closable deals.
When your sales team is overwhelmed with unqualified leads, the solution is not to generate fewer leads, but to make it harder for bad-fit prospects to book a call. Add qualifying questions to your opt-in form and use the answers to conditionally show your booking calendar only to high-quality leads. This saves countless sales hours.
Businesses often misdiagnose a lead quality problem when the real issue is a slow internal response process. A lead that waits hours or days for a callback has likely already found another provider. The lead wasn't bad; the company's speed-to-lead process failed, making the opportunity appear worthless.
