The One Document Fixing Your Leaky B2B Pipeline

In conversations with CEOs of B2B service companies, I hear the same story: you hit a revenue ceiling, the board wants growth, and yet your pipeline still feels like a slot machine. Some months marketing floods the CRM with leads your reps swear are junk. Other months sales blames marketing for "no air cover" while you watch paid acquisition eat margin. All this while you know you should not have to referee every argument about lead quality.

In my experience, that constant friction is usually a symptom of one missing asset: a clear, written sales and marketing SLA. Not a fluffy slide in a quarterly plan, but an actual agreement that says who owns what, by when, and how success shows up in pipeline and revenue.

When a sales and marketing SLA is done well, finger-pointing gets replaced by data. Marketing knows exactly what a "good" lead is and how many they owe the business. Sales knows exactly how fast they must respond and what follow-up cadence they commit to. The result is simple but powerful: higher conversion, faster sales cycles, and customer acquisition costs that stop creeping up every quarter.

How a sales and marketing SLA drives revenue growth

For B2B service companies I work with, a sales and marketing SLA is one of the cleanest ways to turn a marketing budget from "nice to have" into a predictable engine, and to finally create meaningful sales and marketing alignment across the funnel. Instead of arguing about whether a campaign "worked," both teams anchor around shared numbers: revenue, pipeline created, and conversion between stages.

I think of the SLA as the bridge between two different mindsets. Marketing tends to think in impressions, clicks, and leads. Sales lives in opportunities, pipeline, and closed revenue. The SLA translates those into a shared language: "To hit 300K a month from inbound, marketing will deliver a defined number of qualified leads, and sales will respond within a specific time and attempt a clear number of touches across email, phone, and social."

For a CEO staring at rising CAC and a leaky funnel, that kind of clarity changes the game. Instead of hiring more reps or pouring more cash into ads, the first move becomes tightening the system that already exists. If you want to analyze where that system is leaking today, start with an audit of your sales pipeline for marketing bottlenecks so the SLA is grounded in real data, not guesses.

When I see a strong SLA in place, a few patterns show up. Speed-to-lead improves because hot inbound prospects actually speak to a human while they still care. MQL to SQL conversion climbs because "qualified" is defined, not guessed. Forecasts become more accurate as lead, pipeline, and revenue numbers connect in one shared model. Customer acquisition cost drops as leak points are fixed instead of simply buying more traffic. And sales cycles shorten because follow-up is consistent, structured, and tracked. When marketing and sales spend more time reviewing dashboards than arguing anecdotal cases, the SLA is doing its job.

What is a sales and marketing service level agreement?

A sales and marketing service level agreement is a written contract inside your company that explains how sales and marketing will bring in and close revenue together. It is not a customer support SLA about response time to tickets. It is a simple document that spells out:

Shared revenue and lead targets
Clear definitions of lead stages
Who does what, when, once a lead raises their hand
Timelines for handoffs and follow-up
How performance will be reported and reviewed

For B2B service firms with longer, consultative sales cycles, this matters even more. One lead can represent a 50K project or a six-figure yearly retainer. You cannot afford fuzzy handoffs or "we'll get to it tomorrow."

I find it helpful to distinguish this from other SLA types. Customer SLAs set expectations between your company and a client, such as response-time commitments for support tickets. Internal SLAs are agreements between departments; your sales and marketing SLA sits here. Multilevel SLAs coordinate several internal groups under one shared goal. In a B2B service funnel, that might mean linking marketing, SDRs, and AEs around inbound leads from your website.

In a simple real-world example, marketing might commit to generating a specific number of MQLs per month that match the ideal client profile, come from target industries, and show clear buying intent such as a demo request or repeated pricing-page visits. Sales, in turn, might commit to responding to all demo requests within a defined number of minutes during business hours, making a minimum number of outreach attempts across multiple channels within a set number of days, and moving every qualified conversation to SQL or recycling it with a clear reason code. I write that down in one shared document, store it where everyone can see it, and half the usual confusion disappears.

Purpose and benefits of a sales and marketing SLA

The purpose of a sales and marketing SLA is not "better collaboration" as a vague idea. It is much more practical than that. A good SLA for a B2B service business ties both teams to the same revenue number, defines in plain language what a "good lead" looks like, ensures every qualified lead gets fast and consistent follow-up, and gives the CEO a clear way to hold both sides accountable without daily supervision.

Once those goals are explicit, the benefits show up quickly. Both teams start working from the same revenue and pipeline targets instead of competing agendas and separate dashboards. Terminology becomes consistent, so everyone uses the same definitions for lead, MQL, SQL, opportunity, and ideal client profile; "I thought this was qualified" stops being an excuse. Marketing ROI improves because conversion at every stage is visible, allowing low-intent campaigns to be cut and high-performing channels to be expanded based on the deals sales actually closes. That might mean doubling down on channels like thought leadership that brings qualified B2B pipeline or on events and webinars that reliably bring in high-intent leads.

Resource allocation also gets smarter. Headcount and budget can be planned based on expected MQL and SQL volumes instead of gut feel. Close rates climb and sales cycles compress because speed-to-lead improves; a well-known Harvard Business Review study found companies that responded to online leads within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to qualify that lead than those that waited longer. If you want to go deeper on this, we unpack practical lead response time benchmarks and tradeoffs in more detail elsewhere.

As organic and referral leads move through a cleaner system, reliance on "always-on" paid campaigns to hit the number decreases. With clear definitions, timelines, and metrics, the CEO's role shifts from firefighter to strategist reviewing a small, focused set of reports. Without a sales and marketing SLA, most of these outcomes are left to personality and habit; with one, they become predictable.

Key components of an effective SLA

Every effective SLA covers the same foundations: goals, definitions, responsibilities, metrics, and how the agreement will be reviewed. For a B2B service company, those pieces should map cleanly to the revenue funnel: visitor → lead → MQL → SQL → opportunity → client.

A good sales and marketing SLA wraps rules and numbers around each big step in that journey.

Shared revenue and lead generation goals

I always start with revenue, not leads. A common mistake is to ask marketing for "more leads" without tying that request to closed business. The SLA should begin with a clear revenue target and then work backward.

Imagine the goal is 300K in new monthly recurring revenue from inbound within 12 months. A simple worked example might look like this:

Revenue goal: 300K per month from inbound customers.
Average deal size: 25K in first-year revenue, which means roughly 12 new clients per month.
Win rate from opportunity to closed-won: 30 percent, so around 40 opportunities per month are needed.
Conversion from SQL to opportunity: 50 percent, so you need about 80 SQLs per month.
Conversion from MQL to SQL: 25 percent, which implies a need for roughly 320 MQLs per month.

With that math in place, the SLA can say something precise: marketing commits to generate around 320 MQLs per month that match the ideal client profile and agreed intent signals, while sales commits to convert at least 25 percent of those MQLs to SQLs and 30 percent of SQLs to closed-won opportunities. You can tune those numbers for your own funnel, but the logic stays the same: start from revenue and translate it into MQL, SQL, and opportunity targets that both teams sign.

For B2B service firms, I also like to define targets by type, for example the number of new retainers above a certain monthly minimum, the number of project engagements above a size threshold, and the share of revenue from strategic verticals. Those details remind everyone that not all deals are equal and encourage both marketing and sales to focus on clients that truly move margins, not just any logo.

MQL and SQL definitions in the SLA

Next, the sales and marketing SLA must explain exactly what counts as an MQL and what becomes an SQL. This is where many companies quietly lose the most money.

A practical way I design these definitions is by mixing fit and intent. Fit is about whether the company and contact match the ideal client profile: things like being in a target industry, having a company size in the right range for your service model, being located in markets you can serve, having a job title with buying power (for example VP, Director, or Founder), and using a tech stack that is compatible with what you deliver.

Intent is about how ready they seem to buy based on their behavior. I look for signals such as requesting a consultation or demo, visiting pricing or case study pages multiple times, attending a webinar about a core pain point, or replying to a nurture email asking for a conversation.

I often separate this into a simple scoring model with two dimensions. Each fit attribute met adds points to a fit score, and each intent behavior adds points to an engagement score. In practice, a contact might become an MQL when the fit score passes a threshold and the engagement score passes another, or automatically when they submit a high-intent form such as a demo request. An SQL is then an MQL that a sales rep has spoken with and confirmed budget, need, and a realistic timeline, for example within three to six months. If you want to go deeper on models and weights, a structured sales lead scoring methodology can be a helpful reference.

Some teams like to add intermediate stages such as "sales-accepted lead." That can help in complex environments, but I usually keep the first version simple and get everyone fluent in MQL and SQL before adding extra layers.

Responsibilities in the sales and marketing SLA

Definitions and goals only matter if someone owns the actions around them. The sales and marketing SLA should spell out what each side is responsible for, from first touch to closed deal.

On the marketing side, I typically assign responsibility for generating an agreed monthly volume of MQLs that meet the fit and intent criteria, focusing channels such as SEO, content, paid search, and events toward the ideal client profile, and making sure forms capture key fields like company size, role, industry, and project timeframe. Marketing should also enrich leads where possible so sales does not have to research from scratch, hand off each MQL through a clear process with routing logic, ownership, and notifications, and maintain nurture tracks for leads that are not ready yet or for recycled opportunities. If you do not yet have documented sales lead management processes, that is often the first operational gap to close.

On the sales side, I expect a commitment to respond to inbound demo or consultation requests within a clearly defined window (for example 15 or 30 minutes during working hours), follow a structured outreach cadence over a set number of business days across email, phone, and social, and log outcomes in the CRM for every touch so conversion and speed-to-lead can be measured. Sales should mark leads as SQL, recycled, or disqualified based on the agreed criteria, with a reason code, return stalled leads to marketing for nurture instead of letting them sit in personal spreadsheets, and provide structured feedback on lead quality in a regular meeting or shared document.

Accountability should also be part of the SLA. I like to agree in advance what happens when the numbers show a gap. For example, if marketing misses MQL volume or quality targets for two consecutive quarters, they might commit to adjusting channel mix or messaging and presenting a short plan. If sales consistently fails to meet response-time or follow-up commitments, leads may be reassigned and team leaders can review process or resourcing. This is not about punishment; it is about removing improvisation from difficult conversations.

SLA metrics, reporting, and technology

You cannot improve what you cannot see. A strong sales and marketing SLA always includes a short list of metrics and the systems that will track them.

For B2B services, I usually track MQL volume by source and campaign, MQL-to-SQL conversion rate, speed-to-lead for inbound form fills and other key triggers, meeting-set rate from MQLs, pipeline created from SLA-covered leads, close rate from SQL to closed-won, and the revenue generated from SLA-sourced clients. I also watch SLA adherence numbers, such as the share of leads contacted within the promised window.

Most modern CRM and marketing platforms can handle this, as long as they are set up correctly. Marketing activity needs to be tracked from first touch, leads should be passed into the CRM with the right fields populated, and sales must update stages and outcomes inside that same system instead of keeping parallel spreadsheets. Clean data is non-negotiable here; if CRM reports are unreliable, it is worth fixing the basics with a focused pass on CRM data hygiene for owner-level reporting before you lock in SLA targets.

From a CEO perspective, there is no need to swim in raw data. I prefer one or two dashboards that show end-to-end funnel conversion from visitor to client, performance against MQL, SQL, pipeline, and revenue targets, and basic SLA compliance numbers for response time and follow-up. A simple review rhythm helps: a light monthly check-in for marketing and sales leaders to review results, causes, and quick fixes, plus a deeper quarterly review where definitions, goals, or responsibilities can be adjusted based on new data. When everyone sees the same numbers, "I feel like" arguments fade and the focus shifts back to decisions.

Practical process to create your SLA

Building a sales and marketing SLA does not have to drag on for months. Many B2B service companies can create a solid first version in one or two focused workshops with both teams in the room and someone from finance nearby.

I tend to follow a straightforward sequence. First, align on revenue targets and the ideal client profile. Set the inbound revenue goal you care about for the next 12 to 24 months and restate who your best clients are by size, industry, and deal type.

Second, map your current revenue funnel and conversion rates. Look at recent data from the CRM: visitor to lead, lead to MQL, MQL to SQL, SQL to opportunity, and opportunity to closed-won. Even rough numbers are better than guesses.

Third, define lead stages and MQL/SQL criteria. With marketing and sales in the same room, agree on the fit and intent signals a contact needs to hit MQL, then what must be confirmed to count as SQL. Write the definitions in plain language.

Next, agree on marketing and sales responsibilities and timelines. Decide who owns which stages, how fast handoffs happen, what outreach cadence sales commits to, and how recycled or disqualified leads are handled. This is also a good time to clarify which programs routinely deliver high-intent demand, such as events and webinars that generate real leads or specific campaigns where sales-enablement content is key.

Then, document the SLA in a shared, accessible format. Turn the main decisions into a short written document, ideally no longer than a few pages. Store it in your knowledge base or shared drive and make sure new hires see it during onboarding.

After that, set up dashboards and reporting. Work with whoever administers your CRM or revenue operations to build the core reports that track MQLs, SQLs, pipeline, revenue, and SLA compliance, and link those dashboards in the SLA document.

Finally, establish a review and improvement cadence. Decide when you will revisit the SLA; a light monthly check-in plus a deeper quarterly review is a common pattern. At those points you can adjust goals, criteria, or responsibilities based on performance.

From my perspective, the CEO's role is to set the targets, insist the agreement exists, and sit in on the early sessions so both teams feel the weight of the change. The detailed wording can be drafted and maintained by marketing, sales, and revenue operations leaders.

Simple SLA template for B2B lead management

Once the moving parts are clear, turning them into a reusable SLA template is straightforward. For a B2B service business, a practical sales and marketing SLA template will usually include sections such as:

Parties and scope: who is covered by this SLA and what part of the funnel it applies to, for example inbound marketing leads passed to the sales team.
Term and review cadence: when the SLA starts, how long it is expected to run, and when it will be formally reviewed or updated.
Shared revenue and lead goals: the agreed revenue, pipeline, opportunity, SQL, and MQL targets, ideally broken down by quarter or month.
Definitions: clear, simple definitions for visitor, lead, MQL, SQL, opportunity, client, and ideal client profile.
Marketing commitments: volume and quality targets for MQLs, channels in scope, required form fields, how quickly leads are passed to sales, and how nurture programs operate.
Sales commitments: response-time standards, outreach cadence, qualification expectations, CRM hygiene, and rules for recycling or disqualifying leads.
Lead handoff process: how leads move from marketing to sales, including routing logic, assignment rules, notifications, and what constitutes an accepted lead.
Metrics and dashboards: the core SLA metrics, how they are calculated, and the dashboards or reports that show them.
Feedback loops and governance: when and how marketing and sales share feedback, who owns the SLA document, and how disputes are escalated if they arise.
Non-performance and remediation actions: pre-agreed responses if either side consistently misses its commitments, such as revisiting targets, adjusting resourcing, or changing tactics.
Conditions for SLA change or cancellation: triggers that might cause a full rewrite, such as a major shift in target market, pricing model, or go-to-market strategy.

Turning this outline into a working document gives the company a simple but powerful asset. Marketing knows exactly what kind of demand to generate. Sales knows exactly how to treat those leads. And you move closer to what you probably wanted when you first started thinking about SEO, campaigns, and funnel design in the first place: a predictable inbound pipeline, healthier CAC, and the freedom to focus on strategy instead of daily firefights between teams. If you want to broaden your toolkit beyond SLAs, it can help to pair this work with best-practice lead routing processes and a broader library of lead management best practices.