A lead is a person who shows interest in your service and leaves their contact details. In practice, the useful definition is narrower: someone with the problem you solve, the budget to pay for it, and the authority to decide.
Lead types: MQL, SQL and qualified appointment
Separating marketing-qualified leads, sales-qualified leads and booked appointments ends most reporting arguments. A report that says '400 leads' means nothing; qualified appointments, proposals and closes do.
How to qualify a lead
- Problem: do they actually have it?
- Budget: can they afford the service?
- Authority: are they the decision maker?
- Timing: this month or in six months?
What is lead generation?
Lead generation is the whole system — offer, traffic, conversion and follow-up — not a single ad campaign. For most consultancies Google captures existing demand while Meta creates it.
From lead to appointment
- The ad makes one clear promise
- The landing page has one action
- A CRM record is created on submit
- Sales is notified and calls within 60 seconds
- No-shows get automatic reminders and rebooking
Summary
Don't optimise for cheap leads. Optimise for qualified appointments and customer acquisition cost.
