Is this a tragic tale of a clueless marketing team throwing away 💰 to engage with completely unqualified people? That would be the logical conclusion. But as with any data, the story could be more complex.

Here are some questions you might consider to explain the huge gap between marketing successes and opened opportunities:

• Is there a targeting issue? Are marketing and sales working off the same ICP definition and the same target lists?
• Is there a qualification issue? How tight is the alignment for determining when to pass a prospect over to sales and how many people from a single organization must be qualified before an opportunity is created?
• Is there a visibility issue? Can the sales team get access to the data they need to see who from their accounts is engaged?
• Is this a process issue? When are opportunities created? Is it when a meeting is booked or only when there’s significant confidence in a potential deal? Has it changed recently? Or, does each rep have their own trigger for opening an opportunity?
• Is there a resource issue? Is the sales team understaffed or onboarding new reps?
• Is there a messaging issue? Is marketing able to grab people with a message but there’s a disconnect as the prospect moves down funnel?
• Is there a nurturing issue? What’s the strategy to keep someone engaged once they’re qualified but before they become an opportunity?

Sure, I have been known to look at a graph and jump to the conclusion that fits the story I want to tell (or pocket a slide I was afraid might be misconstrued). But I missed the opportunity to have conversations with my sales, ops, and marketing teams which might have uncovered significant issues that if addressed, could have led to improved alignment, efficiency, and credibility across the revenue org.

Talk about missed opportunities! 🤭