Marketing says it sends good leads. Sales says the leads are weak or arrive without context. Both can be right, because nobody has written down what "good" means or what has to travel with the lead. The handover becomes a place where interest quietly disappears.
This article is for heads of sales and marketing in smaller companies. It describes a single sheet, one page that both teams agree on, with three parts: the definition of a qualified lead, the response time and the fields that must not be lost. It is about the moment of handover, not about choosing a CRM. If your problem is a tool that people use as a spreadsheet, see the CRM is a glorified spreadsheet; for scoring leads in depth, see lead qualification system design.
Why the handover is where leads are lost
Before the handover, a lead belongs to marketing. After it, the lead belongs to sales. In between, there is often a gap: an email nobody opened, a form entry in a shared inbox, a list exported once a week. Each team assumes the other is handling it.
Three things usually go wrong:
- No common definition. Marketing counts a download as a lead. Sales counts only a person who wants to talk about a purchase.
- No agreed speed. A lead who asked for contact on Monday is called on Thursday, when the interest has cooled.
- Missing context. Sales receives a name and an email address, but not what the person read, what they asked or which campaign brought them.
The sheet below answers each of these in plain words.
Part 1: What is a qualified lead
Write the definition as a short list of conditions that must be true before marketing hands the lead over. Keep it observable, so that anyone can check it from the data.
A starting example, to be adapted to your business:
- The person works in a role and company type you actually serve.
- The person took an action that signals intent, for example asked for contact, requested a demo or answered a question about timing or need.
- There is a way to reach them: a working email address or phone number.
Also write what is not a qualified lead, for example a newsletter signup or a one-time download. These people are not worthless; they stay in marketing's nurture until they do something more. Sales and marketing sign the definition together, and review it after a quarter, when you see which handed-over leads became conversations.
Part 2: How fast sales responds
Agree on one response time and write it on the sheet. Choose a number you can keep, such as "the same working day" or "within one working day", not the fastest number you can imagine. A promise that is broken every week teaches everyone to ignore it.
Add three details:
- Who responds: a named person or a rota, not "sales".
- What counts as a response: a real attempt to contact the lead, not an automatic confirmation.
- What happens when it is missed: the lead moves to the next person, or the head of sales is notified.
The reverse direction matters too. Sales tells marketing within an agreed time whether it accepted the lead or sent it back, with one reason. That feedback is how the definition improves.
Part 3: Fields that must not be lost
Choose a short list of fields that every handed-over lead carries. Five to eight is usually enough. If the list is long, people fill it in carelessly.
Typical candidates:
- name, role and company
- contact details and preferred channel
- source or campaign that brought the lead
- the action that made the lead qualified, with date
- what the person said they need, in their words
- consent to be contacted, where your rules require it
- owner on the sales side and status
Mark which fields are required and which are optional. A lead without the required fields stays with marketing until they are complete. This feels strict at first, but it is faster than sales chasing missing facts by phone.
A short example
Imagine a company that sells services to manufacturers. Marketing used to send sales a weekly list of everyone who had filled in any form. Sales ignored half of it.
They write the sheet in one meeting. A qualified lead is a person from a manufacturing company who asked for contact or a demo. Sales responds the same working day, and the owner is the person on the rota. The required fields are role, company, source, what the person asked for and the date of the request. Sales sends back "accepted" or "returned, reason" within two working days.
None of this needs new software. It can start as a shared table, and the numbers it produces, such as how many leads were accepted and how long the response took, show where the real problem is.
Check that it works
After a month, look at three things: how many handed-over leads were accepted, how often the response time was kept, and how often a required field was missing. Do not judge individual people; judge the sheet. If many leads are returned for the same reason, change the definition. If the response time is often missed, the promise was too ambitious or the rota is wrong.
What to do this week
Book one hour with the heads of marketing and sales. Bring a blank page with the three headings: definition, response time, required fields. Fill it in together, then ask both teams to use it for the next two weeks. If you also need to see how work moves between your teams more generally, find the three slowest handoffs is a good next step.
Sources
- Our related articles linked above.
- The three-part sheet is a general working approach, not a standard; adapt it to your company. The example is illustrative and does not describe a real client. No figures or client results are claimed in this article.
