Sales and marketing are often seen as different things. But they should not be.
A customer does not care whether their experience of your brand is born from a sales function or marketing department. And nor should a business.
What businesses want is growth, and what customers want are problems solved. ‘Sales and ‘Marketing’ are simply activities that lead to this, not sacrosanct departments that do separate things. Growth happens when these functions operate as a single, cohesive unit, ensuring a seamless experience from awareness to decision-making.
5 signs that sales and marketing are not aligned.
- The marketing person sighs when the salesperson asks for last-minute support on a pitch. They should not—this is exactly where their communication and design skills are needed. But not at 10 p.m. the night before. A coordinated approach means marketing is proactively involved in sales enablement, creating materials that anticipate key objections and needs well in advance. For example, if marketing consistently develops customizable pitch decks and sales battle cards, sales teams can adapt them in real time, eliminating last-minute stress and ensuring a polished message.
- The highest-performing salesperson’s LinkedIn profile has a company description quite different from the website. This inconsistency sends mixed signals to prospects. If the messaging that works in the field is not aligned with broader brand positioning, marketing is missing an opportunity to refine and amplify a more compelling, customer-centric story. A notable example is when a SaaS company’s website highlights its ‘enterprise-ready security,’ but sales teams are selling on ‘speed and ease of implementation.’ If these messages are out of sync, customers become skeptical about the true value proposition.
- Marketing is unaware of the exact customer profile sales is targeting. While marketing may define general personas, sales holds real-time insights into shifting customer challenges, objections, and needs. Without collaboration, marketing campaigns miss precision, resulting in wasted resources and irrelevant outreach. For instance, a cybersecurity firm may have personas that list ‘CISOs’ as a key audience, but sales finds that mid-level security engineers are the true decision influencers. Without this feedback, marketing could target the wrong people, decreasing engagement and conversion rates.
- The sales team groans when valuable budget is spent on ‘brand building’ instead of lead gen. They should not. Thought leadership, events, and community engagement create trust, making it easier to close deals in the long run. Instead of seeing brand building as an abstract concept, it should be reframed as a necessary investment in long-term pipeline health. For example, companies like HubSpot built an entire business on inbound marketing, proving that offering valuable, free content pays dividends in customer acquisition and retention.
- Marketing is focused (and KPI’d) on ‘big’ numbers. Metrics like social followers and MQLs do not equate to revenue. Instead, marketing should track how their efforts contribute to sales pipeline velocity, win rates, and customer retention. Businesses thrive on quality over quantity, ensuring the right prospects convert into long-term clients. Consider an IT consulting firm that gets 100K website visits per month but only converts 50 leads. If marketing shifts its strategy to focus on targeted, high-intent visitors rather than vanity metrics, conversion rates—and ultimately revenue—will improve.
A model for growth
Sales and marketing do bring different skills, and that is their strength. But only when they work together can businesses unlock their full potential. Here is how to do it effectively:
- Bonus both teams on growth. A restaurant where the chef (marketing) obsesses over the menu while the waitstaff (sales) focus only on orders will suffer if they do not collaborate. Marketing should be measured not just on brand awareness but on how their efforts translate into revenue-generating opportunities. Likewise, sales should recognize the role marketing plays in deal acceleration. Consider companies that tie marketing compensation to pipeline influence rather than just lead generation—this fosters true collaboration.
- Focus on the numbers that really matter. Traditional marketing metrics are often misleading if they do not correlate to revenue. Instead, organizations should prioritize metrics like lead-to-close conversion rates, pipeline acceleration, and customer lifetime value. By aligning around these key indicators, both teams drive meaningful business outcomes together. A notable example is a B2B software company shifting from MQL-based goals to revenue-sourced targets, leading to improved sales acceptance rates and higher ROI on campaigns.
- Create one story. If sales is pitching one story and marketing is telling another, prospects will sense the inconsistency—confusion leads to lost deals. Messaging should be designed like a well-curated playlist, where every touchpoint builds seamlessly on the last, ensuring prospects remain engaged and confident in their journey. For example, Tesla’s website, ads, and sales teams all reinforce the same message: Sustainable, high-performance electric vehicles.’ This consistency reinforces trust and speeds up purchase decisions.
- Work closely together. Growth strategies should be shared, with real-time feedback loops that allow teams to adjust quickly. Like a relay race, marketing must set the pace, seamlessly passing the baton to sales, who then execute the final lap. If handoffs are not smooth, opportunities are lost. A tight collaboration means fewer surprises and higher win rates. Consider Slack’s growth model—marketing drove awareness through viral product-led content, while sales took over to close enterprise deals, ensuring a seamless handoff between functions.
- Bring both into a single function. Many companies merge marketing into sales, but this only works if leadership respects and invests in marketing’s role in building long-term brand equity. True growth happens when sales and marketing report into a single function that balances short-term revenue goals with sustainable market differentiation. A unified growth function ensures that every activity, whether inbound content or outbound sales efforts, serves the ultimate goal—business expansion. Amazon, for example, treats growth as a cross-functional discipline, where marketing, sales, and product teams collaborate tightly to create a seamless customer journey.
Stepping out together
In today’s hyper-competitive landscape, businesses cannot afford siloed sales and marketing teams. Growth is not about debating ownership over leads—it is about designing a customer experience so seamless that prospects move effortlessly from interest to action. When marketing and sales align, companies don’t just generate revenue; they build a brand that customers trust, remember, and return to.
The businesses that lead their industries will be those that integrate agile, data-driven growth teams, breaking traditional departmental barriers. It is time to stop viewing sales and marketing as separate functions and start treating them as partners in a singular, high-impact growth engine. Consider companies like Salesforce and Adobe, which have blurred the lines between marketing and sales to create frictionless, customer-focused buying experiences, an approach every growth-driven organization should adopt.
