MQLs 🤢 QHMs 😍 Marketing Qualified Leads are universally disparaged for a reason. MQLs are pretty subjective. It's easy to game the system and bolster numbers so Marketing looks good. That's why we use Qualified Held Meetings as our main metric at Chili Piper. They're far more likely to predict future revenue than MQLs. QHMs help Marketing and Sales stay aligned to have a bigger impact on the business. Here's how we define QHMs: 𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝: To be considered qualified, the lead must meet specific criteria set by the sales AND marketing teams together. The criteria will be different for different organizations, but the bottom line is that quality (shared definition) matters more than quantity. 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: The presence of an AE is crucial because it signals a stage in the sales process where discussions are more in-depth and tailored to the prospect's specific needs. 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐝 𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: The meeting must actually take place, indicating active interest – it's not enough for the meeting to be scheduled. This way, no leads slip through the cracks, and everyone is highly motivated to follow up with no-shows. Focusing on QHMs works if you: 👉 Have clearly defined and documented stages and entry/exit criteria 👉 Have clearly defined and documented Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and enforce them (i.e., you hold everyone accountable) 👉 Make QHMs one of marketing’s top 3 KPIs (and ideally, that’s how they’re compensated) What do you think? Would you try tracking QHMs instead of MQLs?
The QHM is the new MQL!
Margo Mulvihill
2mo
Oooh I like this 👌
Mike Johnson
2mo
🗣️ QMH > MQL QMH is where the rubber meets the road in lead gen. MQLs can create a lot of noise in your lead gen, then comes QMH like the sun parting the clouds to shine down on your pipeline.
Arnav Bhatkar
2mo
Yep, MQLs are subjective and usually done by teams who don’t have a clue or a plan, definitely a big 🚩. I struggled with this recently when I was forcing for Meetings and was told to focus on MQLs.
Long live the QHM
Cassie Moreno
2mo
👀
Danielle S.
2mo
Brilliant.
Revenue Operations Leader | GTM Strategy | SMB/Mid-Market to Scale Up |
2moSounds like you just merged 2-3 different KPIs into one that don’t all take place at the same point for the customer throughout their journey and would cause confusion on where your breakpoints and revenue leakage is. IMO - MQL’s should be agreed upon already by sales and marketing. SAL is the point where sales accepts it. In a way, similar to what you define as sales involvement. The last piece of customer showing up the meeting helps highlight customer engagement and also should be tracked throughout the journey regardless.