Guide
Industrial funnel dictionary: MQL to contract
Define marketing and sales stages with entry criteria, owners, common mistakes and derived metrics for industrial operations.
Author and reviewer: Roberto Wydra · Reviewed: 2026-10-07
Define stages that can be recorded
Stage names vary by company. Use these definitions as a starting point and approve criteria with marketing and sales before comparing periods. A stage should reflect recorded evidence, not an impression about a contact.
| Stage | Definition and entry criteria | Who records it | Common mistake | Derived metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MQL | A contact that meets agreed profile and interest criteria. It enters when the company’s defined fields and actions are recorded. | Marketing, under a rule approved with sales. | Treating every form or download as qualified. | MQLs per period; share advancing to SAL. |
| SAL | A lead that sales accepts for outreach or triage after checking agreed criteria. | Sales records acceptance or rejection reason in the CRM. | Counting acceptance without an owner or next step. | Acceptance rate: SAL ÷ MQL, with a defined window and cohort. |
| SQL | An opportunity validated in conversation: need, fit, participants and next step documented under internal rules. | Sales, using criteria shared with marketing. | Using SQL as a synonym for a booked meeting or a reply. | SAL-to-SQL conversion; time to qualification. |
| RFQ / request for quote | A request to price or specify a need; it should contain enough information to identify scope or missing details. | Sales or the quoting team records receipt and status. | Counting a generic inquiry as an RFQ or missing quotes received outside a form. | RFQs received and share becoming proposals, by source and context. |
| Proposal | A formal commercial offer sent with scope, terms and validity defined by the company. | The sales owner records sending, version and response. | Counting a draft as sent or failing to track revisions and replacements. | Proposals sent; proposal-to-contract conversion for an eligible cohort. |
| Contract | A formal agreement accepted under the company’s legal and commercial process. | Sales or commercial operations records confirmation and value from an approved source. | Marking a verbal statement, pending order or draft as closed contract. | Confirmed contracts by period/cohort; value only when a reliable source exists. |
| Sales cycle | Time between a defined starting milestone and close or disqualification. | Sales operations calculates from CRM dates and validates exceptions. | Mixing start dates or excluding open opportunities without stating the rule. | Median or duration distribution by segment and outcome, when records support it. |
Document the rules in the CRM
Record definitions, required fields, reasons for stage changes, the update owner and review date. Choose a starting milestone for the sales cycle and preserve history when a rule changes. Tie lead generation and B2B lead operations to verifiable criteria; for acquisition content, see B2B content marketing and industrial ABM.
Frequently asked questions
Do MQL, SAL and SQL have universal definitions?
No. They are operating labels. Marketing and sales should record shared criteria and confirm that they reflect the company’s sales process.
When does a sales cycle start?
Choose and document an observable milestone, such as qualified opportunity creation or RFQ receipt. Do not mix starting points in the same comparison.