We’ve spent a decade trying to align marketing and sales. What if the very metric we created to bridge the gap—the MQL—is actually the thing that’s perpetuating the rivalry between them? Agility requires a willingness to challenge the foundational metrics we’ve built our go-to-market strategies on. It demands that we replace gut feelings and legacy processes with a ruthless focus on what actually generates revenue, even if it means admitting what we’ve been doing is wrong.
Today, we’re going to talk about one of the most persistent and costly problems in B2B: the handoff from marketing to sales. We’ll explore why the traditional MQL model often fails, creating friction and wasting budget, and how a more intelligent, data-driven approach to lead qualification can not only fix the sales pipeline but also prove marketing’s direct contribution to the bottom line.
To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome, Gabe Lullo, CEO at Alleyoop and host of the “Do Hard Things” podcast.
About Gabe Lullo
Gabe Lullo is the CEO of Alleyoop, a sales development agency working with industry giants such as ZoomInfo, Salesloft, and Adobe.
He has trained over 8,000 salespeople across diverse businesses and, during his tenure in Alleyoop, he has personally hired and managed more than 1,500 SDRs.
With over two decades of experience in sales, marketing, and executive recruitment, his strategies have significantly driven Alleyoop’s growth and shaped its corporate culture.
Beyond his career accomplishments, Gabe graduated from the Barney School of Business at the University of Hartford and his leadership ethos is rooted in cultivating environments that prioritize both professional development and individual success.
Gabe Lullo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lullo/
Resources
Alleyoop: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lullo/
Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Palm Springs, Feb 23-26 in Palm Springs, CA. Go here for more details: https://etailwest.wbresearch.com/ Keep up with the latest B2B Marketing insights by following the B2B Agility Podcast: https://www.b2bagility.com
Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom
Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com
Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom (00:34)
We’ve spent a decade trying to align marketing and sales. What if the very metric we created to bridge the gap, the MQL, is actually the thing that’s perpetuating the rivalry between them? Agility requires a willingness to challenge the foundational metrics we’ve built our go-to-market strategies on. It demands that we replace gut feelings and legacy processes with a ruthless focus on what actually generates revenue, even if it means admitting what we’ve been doing is wrong.
Today we’re going to talk about one of the most persistent and costly problems in B2B, the handoff from marketing to sales. We’re going to explore why the traditional MQL model often fails, creating friction and wasting budget and how a more intelligent data-driven approach to lead qualification can not only fix the sales pipeline, but also prove marketing’s direct contribution to the bottom line. Tell me, discuss this topic. I’d like to welcome Gabe Lullo, CEO of Alleyoop and host of the Do Hard Things podcast. Gabe, welcome to the show.
Gabe (01:32)
Greg, well, thanks so much for inviting me on the show. huge fans of yours and what you do for the industry. So thank you for being a beacon for us. And thanks so much for inviting. Yeah, this is going to be really fun.
Greg Kihlstrom (01:42)
Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. And I know I know you do you do podcasting all the time. So we’ll, we’re, I guess, I guess you could say two pros. So at least one of us is but yeah, you are but
Gabe (01:55)
Yeah, we’re going to have fun, man. I do these
a lot. I love it. It’s a great way to learn. It’s a great way to, you know, obviously think of great ideas and meet great people like yourself. So I’m excited about this.
Greg Kihlstrom (02:04)
Yeah, yeah, well, and for those a little less familiar with your show and Ali Oop, why don’t you give a little background on yourself as well as Ali Oop?
Gabe (02:13)
Yeah. So I’m the CEO of a company called Alieube. I’m not the founder though. And I say that admittedly, because I actually was a sales rep on the sales floor at this company many, many, many years ago. So I grew up within the company and you know, I believe in sales development is really that sweet spot. were just, you know, in your intro there between the marketing and sales teams. And we do that exclusively. So we are a sales development firm. I know there’s a lot of them out there, but we’re very, large in the space. And we do it fully remotely for many, many companies.
helped over 1600 companies over the last…
10 plus years of build out, run, develop, augment, fix their sales development engine for them and that’s what we do. And then I have a podcast where we’ve been able to feature some really great entrepreneurs who have started off from humble beginnings to get to a very successful status in their career by doing the hard things, hence the name. And they do it to talk about their origin story. We dive really deep in there.
personal life to figure out what makes them tick to get to where they become.
Greg Kihlstrom (03:16)
Nice. Love it. so yeah, let’s, let’s dive in here and want to start with, know, how the show was teed up and, you know, deconstructing this, this MQL marketing qualified lead. So as you mentioned, you know, you’ve worked with a lot of top tier sales orgs, places like zoom info, sales loft, others in your view, what are the most overrated, you know, qualification signals that marketing teams still kind of cling to and
Gabe (03:35)
Yeah.
Greg Kihlstrom (03:43)
What critical or often overlooked signals should they be focusing on instead?
Gabe (03:49)
Well, there’s a buzzword that’s been going on the last few years, the acronym ICP, right? And, know, many years ago when sales development teams were just really starting in the SaaS and tech space, because it wasn’t a role itself, right? It was full cycle sales getting leads for marketing and 80 % of the sales reps were doing prospecting themselves. And then this new role started coming out where, you know, call it appointment setting for sure. It’s a little bit more of a transactional approach to that role. It’s more strategic now.
But long story short to your point, MQL is really understanding the ICP and really understanding who your actual buyer is, is really where marketing and sales needs to be aligned. And I think companies are catching up to understanding what ICP really means and why it’s so important. And this spray and pray mentality of just mass marketing or mass cold calling or mass emailing is now
thing in the past. Unfortunately, some companies still do and they come to us and we say, Hey, well, we got to fix this right away. But yeah, I think understanding who your buyer is right now and then all the intense signals, especially with AI is available to marketing teams right now. Like I’ve never before that can actually understand that timing piece really, you know, timing is everything in business. hear that all the time and but sales teams really have to uncover what that true timing looks like.
And marketing now has a lot more insights, I believe, than ever before with technology to know what that timing qualification starts to look like. And that’s what we’re excited about.
Greg Kihlstrom (05:26)
Yeah. Well, and you know, I’ve heard the phrase often enough and I’ve, I will confess, I’ve said it often enough, you know, sales is a numbers game. And, you know, I think marketing is also played that same way as well. And so, you know, with, with CMOs measured on MQL volume, you know, again, if you, if you optimize some for a metric, you’re, if you’re good, you’re going to achieve that. But to your point, it’s kind of,
We have high volumes. It’s the spray and pray kind of thing of like, let’s just get a bunch of MQLs. You know, how do you have the difficult conversation of, Hey, yeah, we got a bunch of MQLs. They weren’t our ICP. We’re just going to use acronyms all day long here, but you know, they, weren’t really the, the right MQLs or whatever the case may be. You know, how do you, how do you start that conversation? Like, Hey, we may have even lower numbers perhaps, but better numbers, you know, what
Where does that start? how do you how do you start? I guess start that conversation.
Gabe (06:32)
Yeah, mean, going back to again, ideal client profile for the actual acronym to be defined for the audience. You know, we want to understand who the buyer is. And, you know, there is of course, persona based marketing that it moved into more ABM account based marketing. Now it’s going, I think, back to persona based marketing again. And it’s really understanding again, who do we want to talk to? Multi-threading is another term that’s being used. And it is a big piece to this as well.
you know, going after buying groups as opposed to maybe just the decision maker. You have to go after who reports to them and who they report to. And it’s really threading multiple people. But the basics and fundamentals is truly understanding your total addressable market. Again, TAM for a lot of acronyms out there and understanding, okay, who do we want to go after within this market? Is that what’s the size of the company?
who is the actual specific person within that company that is gonna be ultimately influencing this decision and making that decision? Are we just gonna be going after them via email or are we gonna be actually multi-channel approach? Are we gonna be cold calling them? Are we gonna be sending them LinkedIn content? Is doing podcasts like ⁓ me being on this show important for the company to create a brand? Yeah, the answer is yes on many of those and you do, like you said, you wanna do a big broad net.
but you want to test every single one of those channels. And if one is tripling, five X-ing what the other ones are, you want to figure that out quickly so you can pour gasoline on the fire where the fire actually is versus just, you know, putting gasoline on on wood without any, you know, match. So that’s, that’s how we approach it for sure.
Greg Kihlstrom (08:08)
Right.
Yeah. And so let’s let’s talk a little bit about the the actual handoff too, because I think there’s again, it’s it’s a cliche, but sometimes there’s reasons why it the friction between marketing and sales and even some of the disconnects between them, even if there isn’t friction. Moving to to this approach that you’re describing.
⁓ Definitely require some changes as we talked about but you know, what does it look like to use technology to help with this this handoff between marketing and sales?
Gabe (08:41)
Yeah, think, you know, companies are moving and SaaS was really the first one to really figure this out is realizing, you know, the assembly line of sales, right? Marketing and then sales usually is the two step approach. But now sales development or business development, we believe is not a marketing function. We also believe it’s not a sales function. Now there’s controversy on both. We feel it’s so important that it’s its own function.
So it’s its own step in the assembly line. Right. And so when, marketing is creating MQLs and then just passing direct to sales and they get mad at sales because sales isn’t closing those leads and then marketing again is, or sorry, sales is going back to marketing and saying your leads suck and these aren’t good leads to close that dichotomy, which is what creates this turbulence is the problem. So we feel putting a sales development function as that go between really the
Greg Kihlstrom (09:09)
Yeah.
Gabe (09:36)
marriage counselor, if you will, between the two departments is really the answer to your problem. Now we can qualify those MQLs and warm them up and pre-sell them and get them excited and bubble them up so that sales can then take the handoff and run with it. Because ultimately all they care about is closing deals and that’s okay, that’s what we pay them to do. But at the end of the day, if they’re not getting input, garbage in, garbage out type of scenario. So we believe sales development, business development,
is so important that it should become its own function and should be operating just as independently, but also synergistically with both marketing and sales.
Greg Kihlstrom (10:12)
Yeah. Yeah. And so let’s, let’s assume then that those, the sales teams are getting the right leads. You know, you’ve, you’ve trained thousands of reps and many organizations. say they have the right things. you know, how does, you know, how do you go about making sure that even, you know, cause even with the right leads, people can still, not be successful. Right. So how does,
How do you work with sales teams on, you know, changing? don’t know. it behavior? Is it all those things just to make sure that they are able to capitalize on better, better quality leads?
Gabe (10:49)
Yeah. So what we’ve seen over the last decade, right? We’ve seen companies grow at all costs. Silicon Valley getting just funded with a ton of money, free money, right? PE firms is backing companies and again, no revenue even generating yet. And it’s just, you know, getting growth at all costs. And we’ve seen a lot of sales teams start to expand. then now this turbulence of, Hey, money isn’t free anymore. Bootstrapping is the way to go. And of course, you know, things with AI are getting more and more automated.
So with that big shift, right? What has happened is this, sales teams have been promoted very quickly. You you get an SDR job in 90 days, you’re an account executive, and now you’re selling, you know, enterprise technology or software services. And they’re not as trained and they’re not as prepared and they don’t understand really what to do with the leads that are being given to them. And this happens a lot with the clients that we bring in, right? And it’s funny because sales is actually the one that makes
their problem exposed. Because here’s the scenario. Everyone’s asking, hey, sales team, why are you not closing leads? And they say, well, we don’t have good enough leads, or we don’t have enough leads. It’s an old adage of sales, right? And then they hire us. And then we come in, and we drive a ton of leads to the sales team. And then all of a sudden, we realize they’re still not closing deals. And what is the problem? Well, it’s not a lead problem anymore. We fixed that problem.
Greg Kihlstrom (11:48)
Yeah.
Alright.
Gabe (12:13)
It’s still a training problem or understanding of how to ⁓ actually sell problem. So to your point, we bring in advisors. We actually have a playbook for a ease to teach them exactly. How do you handle a lead that we give them? You know, how do you remind them to show up? How do you connect with them on LinkedIn? How do you send them a note to personalize and get them fired up? What type of homework are you doing before? Like it’s literally, we had to go as far as you know, giving our
clients, sales team, training knowledge, and then introducing the even more high level of training individuals to get them prepared for the leads that we give them. And that does get exposed pretty quickly.
Greg Kihlstrom (12:54)
Well, and, in my experience, there there’s obviously there’s a technology component to this. There’s a data component. I think so many times people think that, well, when we implement this platform or this this, you know, this software, you know, it’s the silver bullet thing, right? Like once that’s in place, then all our problems are going to be solved. But, you know, so many times it’s not the it’s not the platform. It’s the people in the process that
are ultimately sometimes the hindrance, but ultimately the you what what makes it successful. Do you agree you know in your experiences? Do you does that does that resonate and you know what what? What needs to happen first? I mean, does does does one thing need to fall first before the others or do they all happen at once? Like what’s your what’s your experience there?
Gabe (13:45)
Yeah, on our website, we actually have those three pillars. It’s people, process, technology. And what’s interesting is I say it not just to say it, I say it actually in order of the priority to your point that I think is valuable. know, having the right people in place, I think is the most important part. It’s also the hardest part to get right. And it’s also the hardest part to scale, but that’s your baseline. So getting great people in place first at a small level is what you need to get right.
Then it’s a process before you start adding in platforms and tools and technology. I call it a Jenga stack of technology instead of a tech stack. It’s a Jenga stack because sometimes people just buy technology and it’s sitting on a shelf and you’re paying for it it’s not being used. So if you don’t have the processes in place, right, there’s no point to have technology to enhance it. So again, it’s like starting that fire, right? Your people is the Tinder, right? Then you start putting on a few more logs, which is that process.
Greg Kihlstrom (14:23)
Right?
Gabe (14:42)
And then you could literally put an accelerator and put some fire on it, which is that technology. And that’s where scalability starts to come in. So that’s how we build it. That’s how we’ve always built every single sales division that we’ve built for our clients. ⁓ And that’s how we approach the market.
Greg Kihlstrom (14:57)
So I want to talk shop a little bit here. You know, we’re also both podcasters here, you know, so you host the, do hard things podcast, as you mentioned earlier. So as a, know, you CEO of, of Alup, also a content creator, certainly, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen it. I’m sure you have as well. Podcasting has gone from and B2B podcasting has gone from a pretty niche.
channel to, you know, I, can scroll now through the, list of, of business podcasts, so on and so forth. So, you know, what, what separates some of those that are, you know, and should probably shouldn’t say this, but, know, taking up space in the, in the feed or whatever versus one that’s like truly building authority and, audience trust that really helps in, you know, build it, building not only audience, but building leads and, and, and authority.
Gabe (15:52)
Yeah, I mean, I think you have to look at podcasting and creating content just no different than you’re creating a product, right? You if you’re just winging a product or putting some code together and just trying to call it a great product, it’s not gonna sell in the marketplace and the marketplace is gonna reject it. And if you just create a podcast just to create a podcast and you don’t treat it just as seriously as you would treat a product you bring to market, it’s not gonna fly and it’s not gonna be successful and it’s not gonna be worthy.
Content is a product of ours. We take it extraordinarily seriously and we feel that we have to treat it no differently than Zoom Info treats their data or Gong treats their AI tools. And that’s how we bring it to market. And I think that’s where it is. But to your point, it’s the B2C world of the TikTok Instagram generation that’s going on in the B2C world is now coming into the B2B world.
Greg Kihlstrom (16:46)
and
Gabe (16:47)
And
LinkedIn has recognized it in a big way. They’re doubling down on video. I have a full-time videographer that has been working with us for four years. All she does is create videos just for our brand. It’s not a typical approach to maybe our industry and what we do. We never thought that would be something we would never need to do, but it was one of the best investments we’ve ever made. 40 % of our business comes from content creation.
And 60 % of it comes from our own outbound efforts. So we actually are product of the product. So we drink our own Kool-Aid, right? We’re sending out great content and we’re making cold calls. And ironically, that’s actually what we do for our clients as well. that’s, you know, has to be best in class because it’s literally our product that we sell. So ours has to be, hey, if you’re SD, this is the best thing we ever hear on a demo when we first do one is that if you’re SDR, they’re cold called me to get to this meeting.
is half as good as the one you’re gonna help me with and give me in my offering, then we’re ready to go. So again, we have to be best in class because it’s exact product of the product.
Greg Kihlstrom (17:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that podcasts create a different kind of lead? You know, there, I think every, every medium and every channel has a different kind of, you could say relationship with, with its audience. I mean, short form content or email, you know, certainly you have, have very unique ways of, of engaging versus a podcast where someone might listen regularly and maybe feel like they get to know the host.
Gabe (18:04)
Yeah.
Greg Kihlstrom (18:22)
you know, over over time, you know, what what what do you see as far as like leads that come in through a channel like podcasting?
Gabe (18:29)
Yeah, in the beginning stages, because if people are starting to do this themselves, the beginning stages don’t track leads, don’t even track revenue. When we first started track, because if do that, you’re gonna start really being upset because you’re not gonna see the results and you’re gonna just quit on it. And if you don’t see results, you quit, right? So the first thing we wanted to start tracking is just recognition. anytime, and what we call just third party credibility or trust. So if I can get on a demo as a second.
So I have a sales team, right? They’re doing their demos. If it’s a second call, we do usually three calls before we close business because we’re a long sales cycle. And I get on a second call. And if that person has says anything to me at all about seeing me, watching me, hearing the show, checking out my content, saw this or saw that, I count that as a big win. Because now I don’t have to sell us. I just have to sell what we can do for them.
And think about it in sales, especially when you’re doing demos off of a cold call or an outbound prospecting call, usually first half of that demo is to talk about what your company does and the credibility and the story and case studies. All of that is gone now. When I get on a call, I don’t have to do any of that anymore. My sales team doesn’t have to do that anymore. The credibility is there because they’ve seen and know, like and trust us. And now we just talk about actionable items and how we can help.
So I think that is the big powerful thing that we first started to track. Now, we’ll lead to come in for sure, but it’s not the first step in results is how I look at it.
Greg Kihlstrom (19:59)
Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Well, Gabe, thanks so much for joining today. I really appreciate the conversation here. One last question for you. What do you do to stay agile in your role? And how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Gabe (20:13)
Like personally or professionally, how do you mean? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it’s like this being in in the rooms where other people like yourself who know and talking the same things. That’s where that these ideas come out. I mean, this to us could have easily been, you know, a boardroom meeting or just a collaboration of sorts. It’s just that we’re recording it right now so other people can see us talking about ideas and things that we we believe in and you may believe in. So
Greg Kihlstrom (20:16)
Professionally.
Gabe (20:42)
Being in those rooms and just learning from others humbly is what I’m always doing. Now, yes, does it create content and yes, does it help bring in business? Of course, but it’s not only intentionally to do that. It’s also to stay ahead of what’s happening in the market so we can go ahead and be ⁓ a front of line of it. So that’s how we approach it.
