This part of the lifecycle mapping is the most flexible and will depend on your sales process and volume of enquiries.
I agree with your approach around lifecyle stages:
- Lead = User who has downloaded content on your website
- MQL = User who has filled in a form with sales intent (demo form)
- SQL = An MQL who the sales team has marked as a good fit. This can be done manually or through a workflow that can look at the company information and automatically mark them as a SQL (company size, industry, location etc)
- Opportunity = User who has an associated deal (this is usually when a discovery call is booked in)
Lots of businesses skip the SQL stage and move from MQL into Opportunity as their pipeline starts at discovery call. If you’d prefer that there is more qualification and feedback on the MQLs before they move into the deal stage, then I’d recommend using SQL + lead status properties to manage this process.