Lead Stages in B2B Tech Sales

Understanding how potential customers move through the buying journey is crucial for building an efficient sales process. GTM teams view the buying journey through lead stages. The stages represent how the lead is nurtured and qualified before it becomes an opportunity for sales.

This article introduces commonly used lead stages. By the end of this article, you'll have an understanding of:

• The different lead stages in modern B2B tech sales.
• When marketing, sales development, and sales teams switch lead ownership.
• Example activities for each stage.

What Are Lead Stages?

Lead Stages represent how leads flow through the company’s GTM teams, from marketing to sales, and how ready the lead is to engage in purchasing discussion.

Lead Stages represent how ready the lead is to engage in purchasing discussion.

GTM Club has recently discussed qualification criteria and frameworks like BANT and NEAT. Typically, these are relevant during the later SAL and SQL stages. Before reaching these later stages, the focus is on learning more about leads via marketing methods and comparing the learned information against the company’s ideal customer profile (ICP). Additionally, marketing automation and advertising nurture leads by educating them on the company's offering. In the background, leads are measured against expected and hoped behaviour by lead scoring. All these tools and methods help GTM teams to standardise their evaluation process and focus on leads most likely to convert.

The most successful B2B tech companies clearly define each lead stage and ensure smooth team handoffs. Regular communication between all the GTM teams is crucial for maintaining an efficient pipeline and lead flow.

While connected, lead stage and lead status are not the same. Lead status tells how reaching out is progressing (New, In Progress, Attempted to Contact…). Also, pipeline stages (Needs Analysed, Proposal Sent, Negotiation….) are different things as they represent how opportunity progressed through the purchasing discussion later in the sales process.

Lead stages overlap with contact lifecycle stages, which continue after the opportunity stage to represent customers and even evangelists alike. The terms lifecycle stage and lead stage are sometimes used interchangeably.

Most Common Lead Stages in Tech Sales

Let’s examine the most common lead stages in sales-led tech companies. Remember that some companies use more lead stages, while others have a simplified approach. The criteria and actions described here are indicative as companies define them to suit their GTM motion.

Contact and Subscriber

Contact

A contact in your CRM represents someone you've identified within your target accounts or they have interacted with your company. However, being a contact in CRM does not yet mean they are relevant from a commercial point of view, as a contact might, for example, be a user reaching out for support.

Key activities at the contact stage:

• Contact role identification
• Contact data enrichment and validation
• Communication history tracking

Subscriber

A subscriber has opted to receive communications from your company, typically through email newsletters. While they've shown interest in your content, they may not yet be ready or qualified for sales engagement.

Key activities:

• Email list management
• Newsletter content curation
• Engagement tracking

Lead vs Prospect - What Is The Difference?

Lead

When a contact shows interest in your solution beyond a newsletter subscription, they become a lead. This could be downloading content, participating in a webinar, or engaging with your social media posts. Marketing owns this stage, focusing on nurturing these early interactions.

Key activities:

• Lead capture and enrichment
• Content distribution via marketing automation
• Lead nurturing campaigns

Prospect

A prospect could become your customer based on your ICP. At this stage, they might not even know your company exists. Marketing and sales development teams work together to identify and reach out to prospects through various channels.

Key activities at this stage:

• ICP validation
• Account and contact research
• Initial outreach

Leads' Journey from Marketing to Sales

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

MQLs are leads that have met specific marketing criteria. They've shown enough interest and fit your ICP well enough to warrant more attention. They are more likely to be receptive to deeper conversations than unqualified leads. Marketing still owns them, but they're getting ready to hand it over to sales after more lead nurturing.

Key activities:

• Lead scoring
• Initial qualification against ICP
• Lead nurturing campaigns and follow-up sequences

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

A sales qualified lead is an MQL further evaluated and handed to the sales development team as a good fit for sales engagement. The lead has indicated both need and fit for the offering. Now, sales development starts to pursue the lead to initiate discussions. The first step for SDRs is to qualify the lead better and start on the discovery before connecting them with an account executive. Once sales development completes their task, it is time for sales to take action.

Key activities:

• Direct Outreach via phone, email, and LinkedIn
• Additional qualification (usually against qualification framework)
• Hand-over to Sales Executives

Sales Accepted Lead (SAL)

Some organisations have an additional stage between MQL and SQL, sales accepted lead. SAL acts as a formal checkpoint, ensuring both teams remain aligned on lead quality and readiness before sales invest in a more profound effort.

Marketing submits the lead to sales for approval, and sales review the details before deciding whether to accept it. Sales should check, research, or even do outreach before accepting the lead as SAL. After the lead is accepted, outreach efforts properly start. If the lead is not accepted, it is returned to marketing for nurturing.

Here Comes the Opportunity!

The Opportunity stage represents a critical transition in the sales process during which qualified leads transform into potential revenue. This occurs when an SQL demonstrates concrete buying intent and engages in purchasing discussions. At this point, the sales team takes ownership and can usually estimate factors like the potential deal size and expected timeline to closing. An opportunity or a deal is created depending on the CRM in use.

Sales teams typically progress opportunities through technical validation, commercial discussions, and contract negotiations, each with activities and success criteria. For more about opportunities, check our GTM Club's guide to sales pipeline reviews.