What is a sales accepted lead (SAL)?

Definition

A sales accepted lead (SAL) is a lead that marketing has passed to sales and that sales has reviewed and agreed to work. It sits between a marketing qualified lead and a sales qualified lead. Its job is to make the hand-off explicit, so leads do not vanish between the two teams.

Also called SAL · 3 min read

Why it matters when you sell B2B

Without an accept step, marketing counts the leads it handed over and sales counts the leads it believed in. Neither number means much, and the gap between them is where leads are lost.

The step also creates the most useful feedback in the funnel: the reasons sales gives for rejecting a marketing qualified lead.

A worked example

Say marketing passes 500 leads to sales in a month.

One month of hand-offsExample

500marketing qualified
Passed to sales.
300sales accepted
Reviewed and accepted within two working days.
90sales qualified
Became real opportunities after a first call.

An invented example. The numbers show the shape, not a real result.

The 200 rejected leads matter as much as the 300 accepted. Say 120 were the wrong size, 50 were students or job seekers and 30 were existing customers. Those three reasons tell marketing exactly what to fix.

The next step after acceptance is the first call, which decides whether the lead becomes a sales qualified lead.

The formula

Acceptance rate = sales accepted leads ÷ marketing qualified leads

In the example, 300 ÷ 500 = 60%.

Common mistakes

1No reasons on rejection. A rejected lead without a reason teaches nobody anything. Use a short list of reasons.
2No time limit. Leads that wait a week for review go cold. Agree a deadline.
3Accepting everything. If sales accepts every lead, the step is not doing its job.
4Measuring marketing on volume. If marketing is rewarded for passing leads, not for accepted ones, quality falls.
5Never reviewing the rejects. The monthly pattern of rejections is the cheapest targeting fix available.

Set up the accept step

Agree the acceptance rules with both teams.
Set a review deadline, such as two working days.
Require a rejection reason from a short list.
Review the rejection reasons every month.
Change targeting based on what they show.