Why “Gold Medal” Marketing Has Nothing to Do With MQLs

It's no secret that Marketers love metrics. From click-through rates to conversion percentages, we track everything; but tracking doesn't necessarily equal measuring what MATTERS.

In many organizations, the gold standard of marketing performance is still the Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). But what does that even mean? That marketing qualified the lead...but how? By what means? Does that actually make a lead qualified?

In the eyes of the Sales Team? Rarely.

Let’s be honest: chasing MQLs has nothing to do with being prepared for Gold Medal Moments; you know, the kind that define a brand legacy, shift market momentum, or build long-term trust with your ideal customers.

Today, we'll be taking a look at the training that goes into creating a Gold Medal Moment, courtesy of Olympic athletes, to better understand why a focus on MQL's is distracting you from what really matters in marketing; PERFORMANCE.

Let's go.

Training is Related to Peak Performance

When you think about the Gold Medal Moments you've witnessed, there's no doubt that TONS of training went into that. Hours and hours, days, months, YEARS. So yes, we need to put in the TIME.

But competitive athletes don’t define their performance by how many hours they spent in the gym. At the end of the day, you can spend a lfietime training at NOT reach this level of competition. So, what's the different?

They design their training around Peak Performance moments, which include races, matches, or routines that matter most.

If we extrapolate that into Marketing, what are our Peak Performance moments?

It's probably not as well defined as a race, a match or a routine. Which is why Marketers often get stuck in measuring VOLUME. How many MQL's did we produce this month?

But counting MQL's (or posts, or emails, or any of the other volume related things Marketers love to track) is like counting how many times Andre DeGrasse tied his shoes. It has nothing to do with how FAST he ran. Or how fast he ran compared to his competitors. Or how fast he ran against his competitors in the Olympic qualifiers. Or how fast he ran against his competitors in the Olympic Gold Medal race.

Sure, perhaps tied laces contribute to the race being POSSIBLE. But JUST lacing up your shoes has nothing to do with how well you run the race. So, let's make sure we understand the difference💡

🥇Gold Medal Marketing Lesson: If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times; success needs to be linked to by meaningful OUTCOMES (brand trust, conversion to revenue, client experience), not just marketing OUTPUT.

Training is Periodized

Yeah, I didn't know what that meant either, so let me break it down.

Periodization is a strategy Olympians use that alternates high-intensity training with rest and skill development to ensure growth and sustainability.

Yes, the strategy INCLUDES rest...not just a continual sprint.

Now, most Marketers, especially when it comes to MQL's have either weekly, monthly or quarterly goals assocaited with that statistic.

It's the sprint that NEVER ends.

Because we can NEVER have enough MQL's right? We always want more, more, MORE.

But as an athlete? That would burn you out SO fast, you'd never even EXPECT to make it to any Gold Medal Moments.

So, what could that look like from a Marketing perspective?

Identifying the PACE that will get you to Peak Performance.

Yes, this is a JOURNEY. A journey that includes analysis, recalibration, learning, growing, changing, evolving; dare I say, pivoting? That includes your systems AND skills.

🥇Gold Medal Marketing Lesson: Elite performance requires intentional pacing, recovery, and upskilling—not just non-stop “go-time.” So, make sure your efforts include that too; oh, and not just ONCE, but in a recurring way.

Training is Focused on Fundamentals

If I asked you what the fundamentals are in providing your market solution, you would probably know what they are right? And how often do they come down to the smallest details?

On the daily?

That's where Olympic champions stand out too. They master the smallest details (form, mindset, recovery, nutrition) and practice the basics until they’re automatic.

Extrapolate that to your Marketing...do you know what skills need to be honed to that level?

This goes beyond even Marketing Strategy, my friends. Because strategy is focused on achieving a specific goal. And all those shiny tech tools and new platforms? More distractions that are NOT related to the fundamentals.

Sure, we could talk about "branding", but even that often gets tied to activity.

Where the fundamentals TRULY lie in Marketing is in your customer understanding and how you communicate it.

And sure, perhaps that communication happens on a trendy new platform. But only because you have a deep understanding of WHY that customer wants to have that conversation on that platform 😉

🥇Gold Medal Marketing Lesson: Excellence comes from mastery of fundamentals. Mastery comes through practice. And using tools just to use tools, or measuring MQL's just to have something to report on, never led to mastery.

Training is a Team Event

Now, even though a lot of athletes end up performing as individuals, their training is almost ALWAYS done in Teams. If you're competing in an individual sport - like sprinting - you're often training with other sprinters; never mind the huge support team of coaches, therapists and strategists.

The individual athlete may shine, but it's the SYSTEM that delivers the result.

And even if you do have a Marketing Team, if the SYSTEM isn't delivering, then none of the individual athletes can shine.

It's at this part of the exploration where I'd like to bring the concept of ownership into the conversation. Because any time we're talking about a performance goal, the likelihood of achieving it without a hard commitment to the goal is slim to none.

Now, if our performance goal is only focused on MQL's, generally we quit at measuring the number (especially if it "meets" the target). But what if our ownership was rooted in something a little more relevant? Say Revenue? Or Reputation? Or a combination of the two?

We would need to look at how the SYSTEM delivers that.

Marketing. Sales. Customer Service. Delivery. Operations. Accounting.

Yup. The whole shebang.

Why?

Because Marketing isn't a silo.

And by acting like a silo, all we end up doing is breaking the system. And then if we end up automating a broken system.

🥇Gold Medal Marketing Lesson: Great marketing is a team sport. When we can make success about more than just passing leads, we create the opportunity to achieve more meaningful outcomes.

Training is Measured

Ah, here you go data-driven marketers 🤣 Something you can measure that matters.

I remember a friend of mine - a performance coach - who shared a story about a swimmer he was training that was doing a specific strength training routine that wasn't at all related to his competitive stroke. When asked about it, he said that it was just "part of the training program" and had never really questioned it.

In Marketing we do that. A lot of things that are part of someone else's "training program", but don't really have anything to do with what we need to do for us.

Again, an athlete doesn't win just by "training". They need very SPECIFIC training THAT DELIVERS.

Marketing needs that too. And vanity metrics like MQL's are not👆THAT👆

But if we haven't defined OUR race, then it's really difficult to understand what needs to go into OUR training routine.

After all, if you're swimming the 100m butterfly, training for the 800m breast stroke probably isn't going to get you YOUR win.

🥇Gold Medal Marketing Lesson: We've know for YEARS that most of these marketing metics are superficial, so let's trade them in for meaningful ones. That might look like pipeline velocity, brand sentiment, lifetime value, or marketing-driven revenue; or something else entirely that makes sense for YOUR journey.

Bringing It All Together

Let me be bold and just say this: if Olympic athletes trained like most Marketing Teams measure success, they’d never make it to the podium.

Not even if they got lucky (which some Marketing Teams do, which keeps them stuck in this vicious cycle).

Gold Medal Marketing doesn't manifest just because you got MORE leads. Even if those leads are indeed qualified (which most MQL's are not).

It takes a specific Training Program to get to that level.

One that includes an understanding of Peak Performance. One that builds in rest and recovery. One that builds on fundamentals. One that treats the team like a full system. And one that measures what matters.

Most Marketing Teams DON'T have that today.

But just like a runner can decide TODAY to start training for a marathon, so can you decide today that your Marketing Team deserves to be elite.

If you want your business to hang around for the long run, you need to know how your sprints are contributing (or not). And if you want some help figuring that out, let's chat ✨