Our marketing and sales departments constantly argue over who is responsible for the lead to opportunity conversion rate. How do we assign single ownership on the scorecard when a metric spans multiple seats?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

In the EOS framework, there is no such thing as shared ownership. If two people own a scorecard number, nobody owns it. When a metric like lead to opportunity conversion rate spans both marketing and sales, you must look at your Accountability Chart to find where the handoff occurs and who has the ultimate authority to fix the process when it breaks.

Typically, marketing is responsible for delivering marketing qualified leads that meet strict, agreed upon criteria. Sales is responsible for accepting those leads and converting them into sales qualified opportunities.

To resolve the ownership dispute on your leadership team scorecard, you must break this compound metric into two distinct weekly numbers. The marketing seat must own the number of marketing qualified leads delivered. The sales seat must own the conversion rate of those accepted leads into active opportunities.

If you must keep a single, high level conversion metric on the leadership scorecard, it must be assigned to the seat with the ultimate authority over the entire funnel, which is usually the sales and marketing director. If your organization separates these roles, the Integrator must hold the single point of accountability. The owner of the number does not have to do all the work, but they are the single person who must stand up in the Level 10 Meeting and own the plan to fix it when the number goes red.