Anything But an MQL: Why Lead Stage Discipline Matters​

By

Rachel Daggett

I’ve had the unique opportunity to work inside dozens of demand generation organizations. Almost without exception, I’ve seen the same pattern:
  • No consistent definitions for lead stages
  • Sales and marketing operating from different assumptions
  • “Contact info” passed off as marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
  • Marketing captured leads (MCLs) reported as MQLs (without the qualification!)
The root issue is almost always the same—a lack of defined process. This leads to a breakdown between lead management systems and in trust between sales and marketing.
Let’s get clear.

Before It’s a Lead, It’s a Suspect or a Prospect

Not every name in your database is a lead. And certainly not a qualified one.

Suspect: Anyone who fits your Total Addressable Market (TAM) or Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), but hasn’t yet engaged. You may have them from a list or enrichment tool,a previous tradeshow or event, or some other legacy contact in your CRM, but they yet haven’t “raised their hand.”

Prospect: A suspect you’ve decided to reach out to—via outbound, ads, or ABM—but no action from their side yet.

Neither suspects nor prospects belong in your sales funnel/pipeline. They’re important, but they’re not yet even leads!

“Lead” Is the Most Abused Word in the Funnel

The term lead is used everywhere—but rarely with a shared definition. It often means a name from a list, a webinar attendee, a demo request, or someone actively in conversation with sales. The entire range of possible pre-pipeline stages.

Without shared definitions, and process everyone builds their own version of the truth. And those versions of the truth create chaos. Suspects get reported as MCLs. MCLs get routed as MQLs. And “leads” end up meaning everything and nothing at the same time.

To restore sanity, we need to break the term “lead” apart. Define the stages before and after a lead capture event. Separate early-stage visibility from true qualification.

Defining the Real Entry Point: MCL

Marketing Captured Lead (MCL) is the first true stage of lead entry. It means:

  • You have captured contact info
  • You’ve tracked a signal—a form fill, a webinar registration, a content download.
  • This signal is marketing’s attribution and important context for the sales person who will ultimately receive the lead if it becomes qualified.
But MCLs are not qualified. They have raised their hand, but not “told you” they have the budget, authority, need, and timing to buy. They belong in nurture, not yet in a sales pipeline.

What Makes a Lead “Qualified”?

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) should mean:

  • This “lead” (contact/person) is not just interested, but is part of your TAM/ICP. e.g. Not a student doing research for a paper.
  • You’ve confirmed at least part of BANT:
    • Budget: There’s a capacity to buy
    • Authority: They can make the decision to buy
    • Need: There’s a real problem to solveYou’ve confirmed at least part of BANT:
    • Timing: The timeframe is planned to address the need

Form fills typically don’t check these boxes. In some cases, organizations will decide that a demo request is enough to constitute an MQL. They have decided they have enough sales resources available to follow up with every demo request. That’s fine every business has unique sales cycles and sales team bandwidth. Typically, a best practice involves a BDR or SDR following up with form fills for manual verification.

Without BDR/SDR resources, automated lead scoring can serve as a proxy for BANT. In other words, if the lead engages with a certain number of webpages or pieces of content they can be implicitly considered to be qualified. It’s not ideal, but it is often the best option available.

Regarding BANT, some organizations require that BDRs confirm 3 of 4 criteria, and others accept 2 of 4, we’d argue that compelling need is the most important qualifier. Without a real problem to solve, there’s no reason to engage—regardless of budget, title, or timing.

Why This Clarity Matters

Confusing MCLs for MQLs doesn’t just frustrate sales—it damages operational integrity:
  • Systems get noisy with unqualified names
  • SDRs waste cycles on contacts who aren’t ready
  • Forecasting and pipeline metrics lose credibility
  • Nurture paths get skipped, delaying actual qualification
Worse, it erodes trust. Sales stops believing in what marketing sends. Marketing stops hearing what sales needs. And reporting becomes performance theater.

Fix the Flow

The goal is to eliminate ambiguity, align definitions, and create a process both teams trust.
That often requires a few structural changes:
  • Define your stages clearly: Suspect, Prospect, MCL, MQL—no ambiguity.
  • Separate lead capture from qualification: Not all inbound is ready for follow-up.
  • Use BANT or lead scoring before calling anything an MQL.
  • Report MCLs and MQLs distinctly: They serve different purposes.
  • Build nurture that respects where a contact is in the journey.
A disciplined framework isn’t just operational hygiene. It is the foundation of credibility and alignment. Not every contact is a lead. Not every lead is qualified. And that’s not a problem—if we treat them accordingly. When you are ready to go further, the next step is mapping the handoff to Sales Accepted Leads (SALs) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), so that the same rigor extends all the way through the pipeline.

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