Sales management should sit down with the folks in marketing and outline clear goals for sales leads. Otherwise, they have no right to complain if the quality or quantity of leads isn’t right.

Specifically, sales management should define what constitutes a “qualified” lead and how many are needed each month (by salesperson, rep, dealer or distributor). The number of qualified leads should be aligned with how many new sales opportunities salespeople can actually handle, and it should be factored by how much new business is needed to meet sales-revenue goals.

Armed with this information, the folks in marketing can do a much better job of supporting the sales organization.