Watching a new qualified lead come in is a beautiful thing, because it's a validation of our marketing efforts and our market fit.

After all, you can have the best product or service in the world. But if it doesn't solve a real person's problem, good luck selling to anyone.

So, with my marketing brain on high alert, the first thing I look for in a lead is its source — what did we do that paved that yellow brick road for this individual to flow directly to us.

Was it the webinar we co-produced last week with another organization? The conference we exhibited at? Or any number of educational, provocative blog posts that we wrote and have been shared on LinkedIn and Twitter.

My favorite type of lead are those that come from channel partners. Why? Well, that’s what I wanted to talk about on this episode of SmartBug on Tap.