Why do marketing and sales always end up in conflict?
"The leads marketing hands over are never usable." "Sales never properly follows up on the leads we pass along."
You hear this all the time in B2B. At the heart of this conflict is that the two teams have different definitions of a 'good lead'. Marketing fills the numbers; sales weighs the quality. The tool that closes this gap is lead scoring.
Lead scoring is a system that assigns points to prospects (leads) against set criteria and passes them to sales once their score reaches a set threshold. Here is a step-by-step guide to designing one, simple enough for beginners to apply right away.
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Step 1. Define the MQL together
The first step in designing lead scoring is for sales and marketing to sit down together and define the MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead). If marketing sets the criteria alone, sales will never buy in.
In a joint workshop, discuss the following questions together.
- What do the customers who have converted to contracts so far have in common?
- When did sales feel, "This lead is different"?
- Conversely, what do the leads that were a complete waste of time have in common?
Record what comes out of this conversation and agree on it as an official document. This becomes the backbone of your scoring.
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Step 2. Split the scoring criteria into two axes
Lead scoring is built on two main axes.
Demographic and company attributes (Fit Score)
This judges whether the lead is a good fit for your product or service.
- Industry: manufacturing +10, distribution +8, retail +3
- Company size: 100+ employees +10, 50–99 employees +6
- Job title: purchasing decision-maker (C-level, director) +15, hands-on contact +5
- Region: Seoul metropolitan area +5, other regions +3
Behavioral data (Engagement Score)
This measures whether the lead is actually showing interest.
- 3+ visits to website product pages: +10
- Webinar or seminar attendance: +15
- Email open: +3 / link click: +7
- Pricing inquiry or demo request: +25
- Content download (white paper, case studies, etc.): +10
- Inactive for 6+ months: -10
Practical checklist example (for SaaS B2B)
- [ ] Company size of 50+ employees confirmed
- [ ] Decision-making role (team lead or above)
- [ ] Returned to the website within the last 30 days
- [ ] 3+ newsletter link clicks on record
- [ ] Demo request or inquiry history
- [ ] Total score of 70+ → classify as MQL
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Step 3. Set Your Threshold
Once your scoring criteria are in place, you need to decide the score at which a lead gets handed to sales. In B2B, leads are typically sorted into three tiers:
| Score range | Category | How to respond | |-----------|------|-----------| | 0–39 | Cold Lead | Marketing nurture (newsletters, content) | | 40–69 | Warm Lead | Deeper marketing nurture + monitoring | | 70 and above | MQL → SQL | Immediate handoff to sales |
Your criteria don’t have to be perfect at first. After three months of operation, review the conversion data and adjust the threshold, then keep refining from there.
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Step 4. Make Sales–Marketing Alignment a Routine
Building a scoring system isn’t the finish line. Without a regular feedback loop, you end up right back where you started.
Here is how to do it.
- Biweekly SLA (Service Level Agreement) meeting: Marketing shares the number and quality of MQLs; sales shares follow-up results and conversion rates.
- Lead feedback cards: After receiving an MQL, sales fills out a short feedback form (good fit / poor fit, with the reason) and shares it with marketing.
- Quarterly review of scoring criteria: Markets and customer behavior change, so your scoring criteria need to evolve with them.
Sample SLA wording
"The marketing team will hand over ○ MQLs (score of 70 or higher) to the sales team each month. The sales team will complete the first contact within 2 business days of handoff and log the result in the CRM. Both teams will review MQL quality and conversion rates together in biweekly meetings."
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Closing thoughts: Scoring is a “conversation,” not a “standard”
The real value of lead scoring isn’t the score itself. It lies in the process of getting sales and marketing to see customers in the same language. It’s fine if it isn’t perfect at first. The key is to start small, build up data, and improve together.
Try asking your sales team this today: “Who was the best lead you had last quarter?” — That answer will be the first ingredient in designing your scoring.