It’s clear that marketers need to make an effort to better understand what happens after the lead has been passed:

• Process and organization trump technology – Once a lead is accepted by sales, a whole new set of qualification actions take place, often based on concerns of territory and account planning not visible to marketing.
• Compensation, configuration and contracts correlate to closing: Sellers, and Sales Operations, use a different lens to determine the quality of an opportunity, driven by considerations of how the seller gets paid, what product configurations help drive compensation, and how contracts are negotiated.