A sales accepted lead (SAL) is a marketing qualified lead (MQL) that has been reviewed and passed to the sales team for approval.

Why is a sales accepted lead important?                         

It’s important for one to have certain processes in place that allow for everyone to visualize leads moving through the business process.

Identifying someone in the marketing and sales funnel as either a prospect, lead, marketing qualified lead, sales accepted lead, or opportunity, helps to align sales and marketing to make sure that both sides are on the same page with the flow of revenue. It is important to have defined standards for passing leads from one portion of the sales cycle to the next.

A popular process used by marketers to qualify a SAL is the BANT method. This stands for budget, need, authority, and timeframe. These criteria help companies determine if they should use resources to explore a lead, and how to allocate resources to leads in different stages of the sales cycle. As an entity with limited resources, qualifying leads as SALs can save a company a lot of time and money.