Expert Mode: Deconstructing the MQL to Finally Align Marketing and Sales
This article was based on the interview with Gabe Lullo, CEO at Alleyoop by Greg Kihlström, AI and Marketing Technology keynote speaker for the B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström podcast. Listen to the original episode here:
For at least a decade, we’ve been on a collective quest to align marketing and sales. We’ve implemented CRMs, held countless inter-departmental meetings, and developed service-level agreements with the solemnity of international treaties. At the heart of this effort has been a single, unifying metric designed to be the bridge between two worlds: the Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). It was meant to be the common language, the objective standard that would end the age-old feud over lead quality. And yet, for many organizations, that feud rages on. The MQL, it turns out, often acts less like a bridge and more like a beautifully constructed wall.
The problem lies not in the intention, but in the execution and the metrics we choose to obsess over. When marketing leaders are measured on the sheer volume of MQLs they can generate, the system incentivizes quantity over quality, turning demand generation into a numbers game of “spray and pray.” Sales teams, in turn, become inundated with leads that are, at best, lukewarm, wasting the valuable time of expensive account executives. This misalignment isn’t just a source of internal friction; it’s a significant drain on budget and a direct impediment to revenue. To move forward, we have to be willing to challenge the very foundations of our go-to-market strategy. This means deconstructing the MQL and building a more intelligent, agile, and revenue-focused engine in its place, as I recently discussed with Gabe Lullo, CEO of Alleyoop.
Redefining Qualification Beyond the Acronym
The core of the MQL problem is a fundamental disconnect from what truly matters: the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). For years, qualification has been based on superficial signals—a whitepaper download, a webinar attendance, a certain number of website visits. While these actions indicate some level of interest, they often say very little about intent, budget, or whether the prospect is even remotely close to being the right fit for the product. The result is a funnel filled with noise. Marketing hits its MQL target, but the sales pipeline remains anemic.
Gabe Lullo argues that the most critical shift is moving from a volume-based mentality to one ruthlessly focused on the ICP. It’s about replacing broad-stroke marketing with a precise, multi-channel approach that targets not just the right accounts, but the right buying groups within those accounts.
“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 a thing in the past.”
For marketing leaders, this is a call to action. It’s time to move beyond the vanity metric of MQL volume and champion a new set of KPIs centered on pipeline contribution and revenue influence. Modern technology and AI-driven intent data give us unprecedented insight into who is actively in-market for a solution like ours. Leveraging these tools allows us to focus our resources on the prospects who are not just “qualified” on paper, but are genuinely ready for a sales conversation. This doesn’t necessarily mean a smaller funnel; it means a more efficient one, where marketing’s efforts are directly and demonstrably tied to what the sales team can actually close.
The Missing Link: The Sales Development “Marriage Counselor”
Even with a perfectly defined ICP and high-quality leads, the handoff from marketing to sales is a notoriously perilous journey. Simply passing a lead from a marketing automation platform to an account executive’s queue is often a recipe for disaster. The context gets lost, the follow-up is inconsistent, and the lead cools off. The classic finger-pointing begins: sales claims the leads are bad, while marketing insists sales isn’t working them properly.
The solution, according to Lullo, is not better software, but better organizational design. The key is inserting a specialized function between marketing and sales: the Sales Development Representative (SDR) or Business Development Representative (BDR). This team’s sole purpose is to act as the intermediary—the human filter and accelerator that ensures a smooth and effective handoff.
“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… sales is going back to marketing and saying your leads suck… So we feel putting a sales development function as that go between—really the marriage counselor, if you will, between the two departments—is really the answer to your problem.”
This “marriage counselor” role is vital. The SDR team takes the qualified interest generated by marketing, engages in meaningful outreach to further qualify intent, warms up the prospect, and sets a concrete appointment for the account executive. This structure allows each team to play to its strengths. Marketing focuses on generating high-potential demand. Sales Development focuses on converting that demand into pipeline-ready opportunities. And Sales focuses on what they do best: closing deals. For marketing leaders, advocating for and supporting a dedicated SDR function is one of the most impactful ways to guarantee the ROI of their demand generation spend, transforming their output from a list of names into a predictable stream of qualified meetings.
People, Process, Technology—In That Exact Order
In the world of MarTech, there’s a constant temptation to believe that the next platform or AI tool will be the silver bullet that solves all of our alignment and revenue challenges. We are inundated with pitches promising to automate, optimize, and revolutionize our go-to-market motion. While technology is a powerful enabler, Lullo cautions that it’s the last piece of the puzzle, not the first. An organization that invests heavily in technology without first establishing a foundation of the right people and a solid process is setting itself up for failure.
He describes a common pitfall as creating a “Jenga stack” of technology—a precarious tower of expensive, underutilized software bought to solve problems that are fundamentally human or process-related. The most effective organizations build their revenue engine on a much more stable foundation.
“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… having the right people in place, I think is the most important part… Then it’s a process before you start adding in platforms and tools and technology… 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.”
This principle is a crucial reminder for leaders navigating the complexities of the modern tech landscape. Before signing the next big software contract, we must ask the hard questions. Do we have the right talent in place to execute our strategy? Is our process for qualifying and handing off leads clearly defined, repeatable, and effective? Only when those foundational elements are secure can technology serve its true purpose as an accelerant. Otherwise, it’s simply pouring gasoline on wood without a match—an expensive exercise with no fire to show for it.
The New Currency of Trust: Content as a Product
Finally, as we rethink the mechanics of the funnel, it’s equally important to rethink how we generate interest in the first place. In a saturated B2B landscape, the most valuable leads don’t come from a form fill for a gated asset; they come from a place of established trust and authority. This is where content, particularly long-form content like podcasts, plays a transformative role. It shifts the dynamic from demand capture to demand creation.
Lullo champions the idea of treating content not as a marketing tactic, but as a core product of the company. When done with intention and quality, it builds an audience and a brand that pre-sells the organization’s credibility long before a salesperson ever enters the picture. The “lead” that comes from this channel is of a completely different caliber.
“When I get on a call… 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.”
This approach fundamentally changes the nature of the first sales call. Instead of spending the first half of the meeting establishing credibility and explaining who you are, the conversation can immediately pivot to solving the customer’s problem. For marketing leaders, this represents a powerful, long-term strategy. By investing in content that genuinely serves the audience, you are not just generating leads; you are cultivating a community of pre-persuaded prospects who arrive at the sales conversation already convinced of your value. It’s the ultimate form of qualification.
Moving Beyond the Bridge to Nowhere
The MQL was born from a noble desire to create order and accountability between marketing and sales. But in its most common implementation—as a volume-based metric divorced from true buyer intent—it has often perpetuated the very rivalry it was meant to resolve. Moving forward requires a fundamental shift in mindset. It demands that we prioritize ICP alignment over lead volume, build a robust human-centric process for qualification, and invest in strategies that build trust before asking for the meeting.
This is not a simple fix. Challenging legacy metrics, redesigning organizational structures, and committing to long-term brand building are some of the “hard things” that define modern marketing leadership. However, the reward for this effort is immense: a truly aligned, efficient, and agile go-to-market engine. It’s an engine where marketing is no longer judged by the quantity of leads it can produce, but by the quality of the revenue it helps to generate. And in the end, that is the only metric that truly matters.
