Lead
A contact who has shown some interest in what the business sells and left a way to be reached — not yet qualified by profile or buying moment.
Also known as: lead · leads · what is a lead · lead in sales · lead generation · lead capture
Try CRPRO free for 7 daysA lead is a contact who has shown some interest in what the business sells and left a way to be reached — phone, email, WhatsApp. Both conditions matter: interest with no contact info is not a lead, and contact info with no interest is a cold list.
Lead, contact, prospect and opportunity
The four terms are often used as synonyms, and that gets in the way of measurement:
- Contact — is in your database. May never have shown interest.
- Lead — has shown interest and can be reached.
- Prospect — has been qualified: has the problem, the profile and the ability to buy.
- Opportunity — an active deal exists, with a value and a projection.
Each step has its own conversion rate. Calling everything a "lead" makes the team report a big number and small revenue.
MQL and SQL
- MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) — marketing considers it ready for outreach, usually based on behavior: downloaded content, visited the pricing page, replied to a campaign.
- SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) — the sales team confirmed it makes sense: has the profile, the pain point and the timing.
The classic fight between marketing and sales lives on that boundary. It only gets resolved with a written definition of what MQL and SQL mean at that company — not with an argument about volume.
The most common mistake on WhatsApp
Treating every message received as a lead. A large share is support, billing, wrong numbers or curiosity. Without qualification, the pipeline swells at the first stage and the conversion rate tanks — not because the team got worse, but because the base of the calculation got contaminated.
Frequently asked questions
What is a lead in sales?
It is the contact who has shown interest in what you sell and left a way to be reached. If there is no shown interest, it is a list; if there is no way to contact them, there is nothing to work with.
What is the difference between a lead and a prospect?
A lead has shown interest; a prospect has already been qualified — it has been confirmed that they have the profile, the pain point and the ability to buy. Every prospect was a lead first; not every lead becomes a prospect.
What do MQL and SQL mean?
MQL is the lead marketing considers ready for outreach; SQL is the one sales confirmed is worth working. The gap between the two numbers shows how much marketing and sales agree on what a good contact looks like.
Is anyone who messages on WhatsApp already a lead?
Not necessarily. A lot of messages are support, billing or wrong numbers. Counting everything as a lead inflates the pipeline's first stage and artificially crashes the conversion rate.
How do I generate leads through WhatsApp?
The most direct path is a link straight to the conversation in ads, your bio and your site, with an opening message that already helps qualify. What matters is recording where each contact came from — without a source, there is no way to know what works.
Related pages
Related glossary terms
Qualified lead
A contact who passed objective criteria for profile, problem, decision, and timing, and therefore justifies a salesperson's time.
Sales pipeline
A representation of the stages a contact moves through from first contact to purchase, used to measure where deals stall and to project revenue.
SDR (Sales Development Representative)
A pre-sales professional responsible for qualifying contacts and booking meetings for the closer, without running the negotiation.
Sales CRM
A system that centralizes contacts, history and open deals so the sales team does not depend on memory or loose spreadsheets.
Lead time
Total time between the customer's order and delivery — includes waiting, production and transport, and should not be confused with a sales lead.
Churn
The percentage of customers or revenue lost in a period — the metric that measures how much of the base slips away while the business tries to grow.