In 1974, Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda emerged from the Philippine jungle, nearly 30 years after World War II had ended. He had refused to believe the war was over, dismissing the leaflets and news broadcasts announcing Japan’s surrender as enemy propaganda.
Onoda wasn’t mentally incapacitated when he emerged from the jungle. In fact, he was able to integrate into society (although disillusioned by the Japan he returned to), marry, and live a long life (40 more years) after emerging from the jungle. There had been nothing wrong with him that kept him fighting a war that had long-since ended. He was operating from within a paradigm established by a deeply ingrained training program that had once served him well.
The world had changed. The battlefield was gone. The mission was no longer relevant. But he had identified so completely with that mission, that he did not accept any of the rather obvious signs that it was over.
If you’ve worked in B2B marketing or sales for any length of time, you have been deeply embedded in what I call the MQL-Industrial Complex (MIC) – the web or processes, tools, measurements, and mental models that make production and conversion of MQLs the central mission of B2B marketing teams.
Chances are good that much of the way your ‘demand gen’ or ‘demand creation’ teams operate today is firmly entrenched in the MIC. You’re stuck with old goals and measurements against which we can never make consistent progress.
That’s because you are fighting a war that’s long since ended – not because you’re stubborn or unaware. Rather, there’s a vast ecosystem – the MQL-Industrial Complex, which was built to keep you there.
The Old Tactics: The MQL-Industrial Complex
Much of modern B2B marketing is built on the idea of generating leads — capturing contact information through gated content, scoring those leads based on what are, in essence, random behaviors, and routing them to BDR/SDRs for follow-up.
This approach seemed to make sense. But we know now that it doesn’t. The principal reason they don’t make sense is that most B2B buying is done by groups (average = 11 members). The behavior of one individual simply doesn’t represent a group most of the time.
Not only that, but buyers say very clearly that they do not respond to your BDRs (just as you don’t, btw). Most of the people who do fill in forms are not currently in market. If they are, they are early in the process and do not want to be pitched. They file those emails away and when/if they become ready, they get in touch.
It has been that way for years – probably more than a decade. Our collective lead conversion rates have been atrocious for at least that long. But that approach became codified and deeply embedded in processes, dashboards, automation tools, and team structures.
Lead gen, rather than buyer enablement became the mission. The MQL became the unit of success.
And the “demand generation” that was really just capturing demand that already existed was mistaken for activity that was causing demand.
Buyers Long Ago Left the Jungle
Today’s buyers don’t need to be captured. They need to be enabled. They’re doing their own research, relying on peers, third-party sites, and trusted sources well before they ever raise a hand. At 6sense, our research has shown that buying journeys are already 70% complete before a buyer reaches out to engage with sellers, and that they’ve established a consensus favorite vendor by that time.
They visit your site. They compare reviews on G2 and TrustRadius, read content on TechTarget. They join Slack communities and LinkedIn groups. They may even read your whitepaper – but not via a form fill. And they do most of that anonymously.
By the time they show up in your CRM, the are not in a sales process with you, you are in their process of validating a choice they’ve already made.
The Evidence of Disconnect
Despite this shift, many revenue teams still cling to lead gen as the core strategy. The symptoms of the disconnect are everywhere:
- Terrible lead-conversion rates – ~1% lead to revenue
- Forms avoidance – ~20% of visitors from identifiable accounts fill in a form
- Pitch avoidance – If they don’t know you already, buyers won’t talk to you until they’ve picked a consensus winner more than two-thirds through their journeys
The message is clear: buyers want to be left alone until they’re ready — and when they are, they want help, not a sales cadence.
Why We’re Still Fighting: The MQL-Industrial Complex
So why are so many revenue teams still in the jungle, running campaigns and cadences designed for a world that no longer exists?
Because we’ve been trapped in the MQL-Industrial Complex (MIC).
The MIC comprises:
- Marketing automation platforms built to score, segment, and trigger nurture flows.
- CRM dashboards that track lead volume and conversion as top-level KPIs.
- A marketplace of cookie-cutter “demand gen” campaigns.
- Leaders and board members who rose through the ranks mastering these motions — and now manage to the same metrics.
Escaping the MIC Jungle: What It Takes
The way out isn’t just to criticize the old model – it’s to replace it with something better.
That starts with abandoning lead gen as the central objective and shifting toward buying group centric practices and a focus on buyer enablement. In practice, this means:
- Prioritizing buying groups: The primary difference between the old and the new is the shift from leads to buying groups.
- Understand the buyer’s journey: The buying journey and the sales funnel are two entirely different things. Realizing that sales processes are just one-third of the buying process on average is key to understanding buyers.
- Creating real value upfront: Make content accessible. Eliminate the friction. Help buyers solve problems before they become customers.
- Rethinking measurement: Move away from lead counts and toward metrics that recognize buying group
- Investing in Brand Gravity: Buyers put 4 of the 5 vendors they will evaluate on the short list on day one of their journeys. So, we need our brands to attract and continually engage the buyers we want to sell to prior to when they do into market.
This isn’t easy. Escaping the jungle requires courage… and time. But staying in it is far worse.
A New Kind of Loyalty
Hiroo Onoda was loyal – to his command, his training, and his country. But his loyalty kept him fighting a war that no longer existed.
In B2B marketing, we need a new kind of loyalty. Not to the MQL-Industrial Complex. Not to vanity metrics. But to processes and practices that are aligned to our buyers – to their needs as buyers, and – to creating actual pipeline, to making buying easier, to driving meaningful growth.
The MQL war is over. MQLs lost.
But the battle for buyers is still on. The teams that thrive will be those who stop trying to rack up leads, and instead focus on identifying and enabling buyers.
Time to come out of the jungle.
