Your MQL Count Looks Off—And the CRM Might Be to Blame

Growthly is a fast-growing SaaS startup that just closed its Series A. With pressure to scale efficiently, their GTM leaders are laser-focused on pipeline health.

But there’s a problem.

Their MQL count looks way too low.

The VP of Sales is worried: “If we don’t have enough MQLs, how do we hit our targets?” The Lead Gen Manager is confused: “I have plenty of leads with booked calls, but they’re not showing up as MQLs.”

Enter the RevOps Engineer. Unlike sales and marketing, they have full visibility into how data flows across the bowtie. After digging into the CRM, they uncover the issue: Growthly’s definition of an MQL is too rigid. Leads are only counted as MQLs after their first call—ignoring those who already showed buying intent. The result? An artificially weak pipeline.

How RevOps Solves the MQL Puzzle Using SPICED

Let’s Pause for a Minute: What is SPICED?

The SPICED framework provides a structured approach to lead qualification, ensuring that leads are assessed based on:

• Situation → What’s their context? (Company size, industry, tech stack)

• Pain → What’s frustrating them? (Challenges that brought them here)

• Impact → Why does it matter? (Revenue, cost, or experience impact)

• Critical Event → Why now? (Trigger forcing action)

• Decision → How will they choose? (Buying process, decision-makers)

For Growthly, MQLs should meet at least the first two criteria: Situation and Pain.

SPICED helps Growthly refine its lifecycle stages, ensuring that inbound and outbound leads are qualified consistently. By structuring lead data around Situation and Pain, SPICED acts as a framework for better pipeline visibility—essentially serving as one of Growthly’s key sales and marketing alignment tools.

Inbound vs. outbound: same same, but different 

The key difference between inbound and outbound leads? Which SPICED criteria are known at acquisition:

• Inbound leads engage with Growthly (e.g., download content, attend webinars). This suggests they have a Pain (P)—but their Situation (S) is unknown.

• Outbound leads are proactively sourced based on ICP criteria (industry, size, CRM). Their Situation (S) is known, but their Pain (P) is unclear.

To transition to MQL, Growthly must fill in the missing piece for each type of lead.

Bridging the Gap: Manual vs. Automated Lead Qualification

For Small Teams: A Hands-On Approach

When the pipeline is manageable, the GTM team actively fills the gaps:

• Inbound leads → Research firmographics (LinkedIn, Clearbit, lead forms).

• Outbound leads → Use personalized outreach or discovery calls to validate pain.

• Once S & P are identified → Convert to MQL, enroll in nurture, notify sales.

For Scaling Teams: Automating Qualification

As lead volume grows, manual work won’t scale. Larger teams can:

• Enrich inbound leads automatically (Clearbit, Apollo, 6sense, progressive profiling).

• Detect outbound pain signals via intent data, engagement scoring, AI-driven outreach.

• Automate lifecycle transitions in CRM, triggering nurture workflows at MQL.

Whether manual or automated, the goal remains the same: ensure every MQL meets both S & P criteria before moving forward.

Want more granularity? In your CRM, leverage Lead Status to track how leads interact with your activities—whether inbound or outbound. This helps gauge their engagement level and proximity to becoming an MQL, ensuring a more data-driven qualification process.

Wrapping It Up: A Healthier Pipeline

The RevOps Engineer updates the CRM, and sends a quick Slack update follows in #gtm-team:

"Hey team—MQL tracking is now fixed! Inbound leads move forward once we confirm their Situation, outbound leads once we validate their Pain. No more waiting for a call. Your pipeline just got a whole lot more accurate. 🚀"

A collective sigh of relief. The VP of Sales sees a healthier pipeline, the Lead Gen Manager gets credit for their work, and the GTM team breathes easier. But in RevOps, optimization is never truly "done"—as Growthly evolves, so will its lifecycle definitions. A well-structured bowtie isn’t static; it adapts to the company’s reality, ensuring that lead qualification always reflects the business’s growth and strategy.