A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is a prospect that the sales team has accepted as worth pursuing toward a deal, usually after a discovery call confirms fit, need, and a credible buying window. SQLs are downstream of MQLs: marketing surfaces and scores the lead, sales validates and accepts. Healthy B2B teams convert 20-40% of MQLs into SQLs and 15-25% of SQLs into closed-won opportunities, depending on segment, ACV, and motion.
What turns an MQL into an SQL?
The bar is a sales-accepted conversation that confirms three things: the prospect's company fits your ICP, the prospect's situation maps to a problem your product solves, and there's a directional timeline that makes the deal worth working now. Some teams require all four BANT elements before promoting an MQL to SQL. Others use a lighter bar (Need plus Timeline) and let the AE confirm Authority and Budget mid-cycle. The right standard depends on deal size: enterprise teams need tighter gates because cycle time is expensive; SMB teams need looser gates because volume matters more than precision.
The SQL stage is also where most pipeline goes to die. A common failure mode is sales accepting SQLs they wouldn't have prospected on outbound, just because marketing handed them in. The fix is a 24-hour disposition rule: every MQL is accepted, rejected, or recycled within one business day, with reason codes that feed back to marketing.
How does SQL differ from "opportunity"?
An SQL is a qualified prospect. An opportunity is a qualified deal. The two are separated by a stage gate, usually "discovery completed," that requires the AE to have confirmed economic buyer access, the customer's decision criteria, and a stated next step. Some teams collapse SQL and opportunity into one stage; most modern B2B teams keep them separate so they can measure SQL-to-opportunity conversion (a sales-team metric) independently from opportunity-to-closed-won (an AE-skill metric). ReachIQ's ICP scoring pre-filters before SQL stage so the discovery call is only ever scheduled with prospects who've already passed the fit gate.
Related questions
Who decides if an MQL becomes an SQL?
The receiving AE or SDR, within an agreed SLA (usually 24 hours). Acceptance is logged with a reason: "accepted, working," "rejected, wrong ICP," "recycled, not ready, nurture for 60 days." Without disposition reason codes, the MQL-to-SQL conversion number is unauditable and the marketing team will optimize toward the wrong leads.
Is an SQL the same as an SAL (Sales Accepted Lead)?
Close, but not identical. SAL means the lead has been picked up by sales for evaluation; SQL means sales has evaluated and confirmed it's worth working. Some teams use SAL as a halfway stage between MQL and SQL. Others skip SAL and go MQL to SQL directly. Either model works as long as the definitions are documented.
How fast should sales follow up on an SQL?
Within 5 minutes of MQL conversion, where possible. Response-time studies consistently show that the odds of reaching a prospect drop by an order of magnitude after the first hour. Most enterprise teams aim for 15-minute first-touch SLA; transactional teams aim for 5 minutes or auto-routing.