A B2B marketing funnel framework for Sales and Marketing to run together.
For B2B SaaS portfolio CMOs and CROs who want Sales and Marketing working from one funnel definition and one pipeline number. Adapt the stage names and thresholds to your business; keep the underlying structure.
Portfolio CMOs & CROs
Aligning S&M on one pipeline number
VP Marketing & VP Sales (shared)
A documented, shared funnel definition
01What this is for
What this framework is for.
This framework puts one thing first: getting Sales and Marketing to work from a shared deals goal, on a defined and regular cadence, with an explicit handoff between them. Attribution measurement still matters — it is just a secondary question here.
What the rest of the page builds on
Measurement still matters, and it should be rigorous. The purpose of the funnel framework here is narrower: give two teams a shared language and a shared set of commitments. It is not the place to settle scorekeeping disputes over who gets credit for a deal.
If funnel reviews keep turning into attribution debates, treat that as the signal to bring the discussion back to the shared number and the handoff — no matter how well-built the model is.
A good funnel framework should answer three questions
Where is the buyer in their journey, and what do they need from us right now?
Who owns the next action, and what does the handoff look like?
Are we generating enough of the right activity to hit the shared deals number?
The sections that follow map to these three questions.
02Part 1 — The Buyer's Journey
Awareness, consideration, decision — the three stages of the buyer's journey.
Most B2B funnels map to three stages of buyer psychology, defined from the buyer's point of view rather than the marketing team's. Use them as a check: each stage you define should map cleanly to one of the three. A stage that maps to none of them is usually tracking an internal process rather than a step in the buyer's journey.
Stage 01
Awareness
The buyer recognizes a problem, opportunity, or market shift. They may not yet know your category exists, let alone your company. Their information needs are diagnostic and educational.
What they're asking
Is this a real problem? Is it my problem? How are others thinking about it?
Stage 02
Consideration
The buyer has accepted that the problem is real and worth solving, and is now evaluating how to solve it. They're comparing approaches, categories, and eventually vendors. Their needs shift to comparative and evidentiary.
What they're asking
What are my options? What are the trade-offs? Who has solved this for companies like mine?
Stage 03
Decision
The buyer has narrowed to a short list and is building the internal case to act. Their information needs become specific and risk-oriented.
What they're asking
Will this work in my environment? What's the implementation lift? What's the ROI story I tell my CFO?
03The Funnel — at a glance
Two paths into the funnel, converging at one shared gate.
The behavioral path runs Prospect → Lead → MQL → SAL. The declared-intent path runs Hand-Raiser → SAL with auto-acceptance. Both converge at SAL — and they have different SLAs, talk tracks, and conversion math. Click any stage to see how it works.
The Marketing-to-Sales handoff — the interface most GTM teams under-instrument.
The framework centers on SAL because it's the stage that requires both teams to agree before a lead progresses. Two on-ramps feed it, and each needs different operational treatment.
The two on-ramps to SAL
Path A — Behavioral
Marketing infers intent.
Prospect → Lead → MQL → SAL. Marketing predicts readiness; Sales accepts or rejects the prediction at the gate.
Qualification
Marketing inference from signals
SLA
4–24 hours to first touch
Talk track
Discovery, educate, qualify
Acceptance
60–80% (variable)
The gate
SAL
Both teams agree the lead is real before resources are committed.
Path B — Hand-raiser
Buyer declares intent.
Demo or contact request. Auto-accepted at SAL. Forcing it through MQL adds a stage with zero decision content — you don't decline requested calls.
Qualification
Buyer declaration
SLA
5 minutes to first touch
Talk track
Demo prep, qualify in real time
Acceptance
~100% auto-accept
Comparison
Behavioral MQL → SAL
Hand-Raiser → SAL
Conversion to oppWhat the path actually produces
10–20%Variable by lead quality & nurture
40–60%+Speed-to-lead is the lever
What "rejection" meansWhere the feedback loop closes
At the handoffSales declines to pursue
Post-callDisqualified after discovery
How to reportReporting note — never blend
Acceptance rateReal signal of MQL quality
Volume + DQ rateReal signal of demand-gen + form hygiene
Why SAL matters more than MQL
MQL is Marketing's prediction that a lead is ready. SAL is Sales' acceptance that the prediction is correct and worth their time. The gap between the two is where a lot of GTM friction shows up.
Marketing says
Sales doesn't follow up on the MQLs we send.
Sales says
These MQLs are low quality. They aren't worth our time.
Both teams
Report different numbers to leadership.
Leadership
Concludes the funnel is broken.
Better MQL scoring alone rarely closes this gap. What does is treating the MQL→SAL transition as a shared, observable, instrumented process with explicit acceptance criteria, SLAs, and a feedback loop.
What the handoff requires
Shared definitions
Both teams agree what an MQL is and what makes it acceptable.
Written, versioned, reviewed quarterly.
Service-level agreements
Response time commitments in both directions.
Sales touches every MQL within X hours; Marketing produces Y MQLs/week.
Acceptance criteria
Explicit, observable signals Sales uses to accept or reject.
Fit + intent + timing thresholds, documented.
Rejection feedback loop
Sales tells Marketing why a lead was rejected.
Rejection reasons are a required field, reviewed weekly.
Regular cadence
Recurring forum to review the handoff itself.
Weekly pipeline review with both teams in the room.
Shared deals goal
Both teams measured against the same revenue number.
Comp plans aligned to pipeline + closed-won, not silo'd activity metrics.
In practice
The handoff is a standing relationship between the two teams. It needs regular maintenance, not a one-time setup.
05Part 3 — Stage by Stage
The marketing-owned funnel, stage by stage — with fields to document your own.
Each stage carries a definition, a job description, and a set of fields you can fill in to document your funnel. Type into the boxes — your answers persist locally so you can come back to them. Print or export when you're ready to share with your team.
Working document
The fields below save to this browser as you type. Use the buttons in the header to print a clean copy, or reset to clear all answers. Nothing leaves your device.
Stage 0 · MarketingBuyer Journey: Awareness
Target Accounts / Audiences
People and companies you might engage. They match your ICP but you have no relationship with them yet — they may not even know you exist.
Source: Built from your ICP definition: firmographic filters (industry, size, geography, tech stack), persona filters (titles, functions, seniority), and intent signals (third-party intent data, hiring signals, funding events, technology changes).
Marketing's job: Build the addressable list. Maintain it. Score it for fit and timing. Create the conditions for these accounts to encounter your brand.
KPI: ICP coverage %, account-level intent score distribution
Entry: Matches ICP filters
Exit: At least one contact identified → moves to Prospect
Make it yours
Stage 1 · MarketingBuyer Journey: Awareness
Prospects / Known, not opted-in
Known contacts (you have a name and email) who have not opted in to engagement. They're in your CRM or marketing platform but they have not given you permission to nurture them.
Marketing's job: Run permission-respecting first-touch motions: ABM ads, brand campaigns, sales-led outreach with marketing air cover. Do not put these contacts into nurture programs they didn't opt into.
Exit: Explicit opt-in to engagement → moves to Lead
Make it yours
Stage 2 · MarketingBuyer Journey: Consideration
Leads / Engaged · Opted-In
Contacts who have explicitly agreed to receive engagement — they've subscribed, downloaded gated content, attended a webinar, or otherwise raised their hand for information. They have not requested a sales conversation. They want to learn.
Marketing's job: Nurture. Educate. Earn the right to a deeper conversation through value, not pressure. This is where most B2B marketing actually happens.
Leads who have demonstrated enough intent and fit to warrant sales attention, in Marketing's judgment. It is also the stage teams most often leave loosely defined.
An MQL is defined by three components, and a lead must clear all three:
1. Fit — Do they match your ICP? 2. Intent — Have they exhibited behavioral signals indicating active evaluation? 3. Recency — Are the intent signals fresh enough to act on? (typically 7–30 days)
A common failure mode: defining MQL purely by score (e.g. "lead score > 75"). Score is a useful aggregator, but on its own it lets cold-but-frequent contacts trigger MQL status without any real buying signal.
Make it yours
The three-part test, live
Toggle each component to see when a lead qualifies as an MQL. A score-only definition can satisfy one or two of these on its own, but not all three together.
Not an MQLPick all three to qualify. A lead that misses any one component should not be passed to Sales.
Contacts who have explicitly requested a sales conversation — "Request a Demo," "Contact Sales," "Get Pricing," "Talk to an Expert." They have declared their intent rather than having Marketing infer it.
Why this stage exists separately: a demo request is buyer-declared intent. Forcing it through the MQL→SAL acceptance gate adds a stage with zero decision content — you're not in the business of declining requested calls. HRLs bypass MQL and enter the funnel at SAL with auto-acceptance.
Where the feedback loop lives: instead of rejection at the gate, HRLs generate disqualification reasons after the discovery call (bad fit, no budget, no timeline, wrong persona, student, competitor research). Those feed back to Marketing the same way — to refine targeting, gate forms appropriately, or adjust ad spend on low-quality channels.
Make it yours
Reporting note
Keep behavioral and hand-raiser metrics separate. If you blend them, your "MQL→SAL acceptance rate" stops telling you anything useful, because hand-raisers convert at near 100% and mask behavioral lead quality.
Stage 4 · SharedThe handoff
SAL / Sales Accepted Lead
Leads that Sales has agreed are worth pursuing, arriving via one of two paths: behavioral MQLs that Sales has reviewed and accepted, or hand-raisers auto-accepted on arrival.
Acceptance criteria for behavioral MQLs (negotiated jointly, documented, versioned):
Fit confirmation — matches ICP on review
Intent confirmation — signals appear genuine, not noise
Timing — not a tire-kicker, not a student, not a competitor
Reachability — contact info appears valid, persona appears decision-relevant
Rejection criteria are equally important for behavioral MQLs. When Sales rejects, the reason is captured and routed back to Marketing. Patterns drive scoring updates, content adjustments, and ICP refinement. For HRLs, "rejection" doesn't exist at the handoff — the equivalent feedback is post-call disqualification.
Make it yours
Stage 5 · SalesBuyer Journey: Decision
SQL / Opportunity
SALs that, after a Sales conversation, are confirmed as real buying opportunities — there's a defined need, budget, timeline, and decision process.
Owner: Sales. Marketing's role shifts to air cover — running ABM, retargeting, case study delivery, and other plays that support Sales through the deal cycle.
KPI: SAL→SQL conversion, opp creation rate, pipeline coverage ratio (target: 3–4× quota)
Entry: Qualification framework satisfied
Exit: Closed-won, closed-lost, or returned to nurture
Make it yours
06Part 4 — Make It Yours
The framework above is a skeleton. This section fits it to your own numbers.
Start with the foundation numbers — they back into everything else. The calculator below works the math live so you can see what your funnel actually has to do.
Foundation worksheet · Pipeline math
Enter what you know. We'll back into the volume of behavioral MQLs and hand-raisers your funnel needs to produce. Targets update live.
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$
%
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Targets — what your funnel must produce
Closed-won deals required
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SALs needed (annual)
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Behavioral MQLs needed / year
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Hand-raisers needed / year
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Cadence — how Sales and Marketing actually work together
The framework only works if there's a defined, regular operating rhythm between the two teams. Pick the lightest version that maintains the relationship.
Daily
SDR + Marketing Ops
Lead flow monitoring, SLA exceptions, routing fixes.
Read these at your next pipeline review. Any that sound familiar mark where to focus.
AP-01
Attribution wars
When meetings turn into arguments over who deserves credit, the funnel has stopped doing its job. Bring the discussion back to the shared deals number.
AP-02
MQL inflation
Marketing hits MQL targets while SAL acceptance falls. Track the pair together, not each in isolation.
AP-03
Blending behavioral and hand-raiser metrics
Reporting a single "MQL→SAL conversion rate" that mixes both paths hides what's happening — hand-raisers convert at near 100% and mask behavioral lead quality. Track them separately.
AP-04
Slow speed-to-lead on hand-raisers
Demo-request conversion is highly sensitive to response time. Delays beyond a few minutes cost deals.
AP-05
Silent rejection
Sales rejects MQLs without telling Marketing why. Make rejection reasons mandatory.
AP-06
Stage jumping
Treating prospects as leads — sending nurture emails to non-opted-in contacts — erodes trust and deliverability.
AP-07
Score worship
Using lead score as the only MQL gate. Score is an input to the definition, not the definition itself.
08Closing
What a healthy funnel looks like.
A healthy funnel is one where four things are true — regardless of how many stages it has or how sophisticated its scoring is:
Both teams could draw the same picture on a whiteboard.
Both teams are measured against — and feel ownership of — the same deals number.
The handoff between them is instrumented, observable, and continuously improved.
The funnel is a conversation tool, not a scorecard for internal disputes.
Build toward those four, and keep both teams pointed at the same number.