Glossary

Explore Meshline

Products Pricing Blog Support Log In

Ready to map the first workflow?

Book a Demo

Glossary / Evaluation and implementation guide

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is a contact that sales has reviewed and accepted as worth active pursuit, usually after confirming need, authority or influence, timeline, and fit.

The SQL stage sits after MQL in most B2B lifecycle models and marks the point where ownership moves from marketing to sales, with agreed criteria determining who qualifies.

Explore this category

A practical example

Example: an MQL books a discovery call; after the call, the rep confirms budget authority and a two-quarter timeline, converts the record to SQL, and the account enters the active pipeline.

What to evaluate before investing

  • Confirm the platform records who accepted or rejected each lead and why, so disputes over qualification can be audited later.
  • Check whether rejected SQLs can be recycled automatically into nurture workflows with a reason code attached.
  • Verify that stage timestamps sync to your CRM, since MQL-to-SQL conversion time is a metric both teams will argue about.

Limitations and tradeoffs

SQL criteria are contractual between teams, not technical: software can enforce the workflow, but it cannot fix a handoff agreement the two sides never actually made.

Plan your next step with MeshLine

Connect this decision to your automation, organic marketing and customer lifecycle management. In a MeshLine demo, discuss your existing tools, the scope you need and how to measure the result.

Explore MeshLine solutionsEvaluate pricing and scopeBook a demo