Many pipeline problems start before the sales team ever sees the lead.
We help B2B companies in Ireland and the UK design the handoff between marketing and sales that produces pipeline discipline rather than friction between teams.
The handoff between marketing and sales is one of the highest-leverage points in a B2B commercial operation and one of the most consistently broken. Marketing generates leads that sales considers unqualified. Sales ignores leads that marketing considers ready. Nobody agrees on what qualified means. Leads that should become pipeline disappear into a CRM that nobody is managing properly.
This is not a people problem. It is a process and systems problem. The fix requires agreeing on definitions, designing the handoff workflow, and making sure the systems that support it are configured to reflect the process rather than working against it.
The Process Layer
A functioning handoff starts with clear definitions: what constitutes a Marketing Qualified Lead, what moves it to Sales Qualified, what triggers the handoff, and what the sales team’s obligation is once a lead arrives. Without those definitions the handoff is informal, inconsistent, and invisible to anyone trying to understand what is happening to pipeline.
Beyond definitions, the handoff needs a service level agreement between the two teams: how quickly sales follows up, what happens if a lead goes cold, who owns re-engagement, and how the outcome of each handoff is recorded. These are not complicated things to put in place. They are almost never in place by default.
The Systems Layer
The handoff between marketing and sales almost always involves at least two systems: a marketing automation platform and a CRM. How those systems exchange data, when a lead record passes from one to the other, and what triggers the handoff are operational decisions that need to be made deliberately. Left to default settings, most marketing automation to CRM integrations produce a cluttered, unreliable lead queue that nobody trusts.
The sequence matters: process design first, systems configuration second. Configuring systems around a broken process produces a broken process that is harder to change.
The RevOps Connection
Handoff design sits at the boundary between GTM strategy and revenue operations. The GTM question is what a qualified lead looks like and who owns it at each stage. The RevOps question is how the systems and processes support that. We work across both, which means clients do not need separate advisors for what is fundamentally one connected problem.
Sales to Marketing Handoff - Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between an MQL and an SQL and why does it matter?
An MQL is a lead that meets the criteria marketing uses to determine readiness to pass to sales. An SQL is one that sales has reviewed and accepted as worth pursuing. The definitions matter because without them the handoff is arbitrary: marketing hands over what it feels like handing over, and sales works what it feels like working. When both teams agree on the criteria the handoff becomes a process rather than a recurring source of friction.
How do I know if our handoff is broken?
If your sales team routinely ignores leads from marketing, that is a signal. If marketing complains that sales does not follow up, that is a signal. If you cannot answer the question of what percentage of MQLs became opportunities last quarter with a reliable number, that is a signal. Most handoff problems become visible the moment you try to measure them.
What systems need to be connected for a proper handoff to work?
At minimum, your marketing automation platform and your CRM. The integration needs to carry the right fields, apply the right lead status, and trigger the right notifications at the point of handoff. Beyond that, the specific configuration depends on how your sales team works and what information they need when a lead arrives.
Who should own lead routing in a small B2B company?
In most companies under fifty people, lead routing ends up owned by nobody, which is how leads get lost. The practical answer is whoever manages the CRM and the marketing automation platform, with rules agreed between the heads of sales and marketing. Automated routing tied to agreed qualification criteria removes most of the manual judgment from the process.
What is a sales SLA and should we have one?
A sales SLA is a commitment from the sales team about how quickly they will follow up on qualified leads and what they will do with them. Yes, every company with a marketing function should have one. The absence of a sales SLA is one of the most common causes of qualified leads being wasted, and one of the easiest things to fix once the handoff process is properly designed.
How does handoff design connect to RevOps?
The handoff is the most visible symptom of a broader revenue operations challenge: the absence of shared process and shared data across marketing, sales, and customer success. Fixing the handoff often surfaces wider issues in how the teams are structured, how the CRM is configured, and how performance is measured.