The complaint behind most B2B tension

“Marketing’s leads are rubbish” is one of the most common — and most fixable — complaints in B2B. The instinct is to blame the channels and spend more to find better leads. Usually the channels are fine; the problem is upstream (a loose ICP), midstream (weak qualification), or at the handover (poor alignment). Fixing those often unlocks more pipeline from the leads you already generate than any new spend would.

Diagnose the real cause

Work backwards through the funnel:

• ICP too broad? If you’re targeting “anyone vaguely relevant,” you’ll generate lots of poor-fit leads by design. Tighten to the accounts and roles with the best economics.
• Weak qualification? If a “lead” is anyone who filled a form, of course sales finds them cold. You need scoring on fit, intent and readiness before anything reaches sales.
• No shared definition? If marketing and sales don’t agree what “qualified” means, every handover is a dispute. Agree one definition, in writing.
• Broken handover? Even good leads go cold if sales follows up slowly or without context. Fix the SLA and the information passed across.

The fix, in order

1. Sharpen the ICP so you stop generating poor-fit leads at the source. 2. Define “qualified” jointly with sales — fit, intent, readiness — and score against it. 3. Route by readiness: qualified leads to sales with context; not-yet-ready leads into nurture until they qualify (see lifecycle marketing). 4. Close the loop: sales tells marketing which leads were good, so the engine learns and improves.

Measure quality, not just volume

Shift the headline metric from MQL count to qualified pipeline and conversion from lead to opportunity to closed revenue. When you measure and reward quality, the whole engine reorients around it — and the complaint fades.

Getting a lot of leads sales won’t touch? A Growth Diagnostic finds where the quality is leaking. Request a Growth Diagnostic →