Earlier this year I spoke to the CEO of a small but growing technology company doing about $5M in revenue per year. He talked about a disconnect between his current sales leader and two previous marketing leaders.
I asked him about the single greatest area of friction between the two leaders. He said that the marketing leader celebrated a growing list of leads but the sales leader was frustrated by flat pipeline growth.
The disconnect was understandable, but paradoxically, both of the leaders were "right." As it turned out, the marketing team was counting form fills as leads, while the sales team was looking at deals and new sales dollars. Importantly, both teams had incentives tied to those specific metrics, and the goals were not being set together.
The reality of the pipeline gap was stark. Both teams were working hard, but their leaders had never agreed on what happened between the point of a form fill and a closed sale, so each team was setting its own rules while overall company performance struggled.
I call this the two-scoreboard problem. When marketing and sales teams keep score differently, every meeting turns into a debate about whose numbers are real, and disconnects between departments turn into critical problems for their companies.
So how do you align sales and marketing teams like a top technology company? Give both teams one revenue goal, a written definition of a qualified lead, a handoff agreement, a weekly pipeline meeting, a feedback loop from the sales team to the marketing team, and incentives tied to the same revenue number.
Below, I'll walk through why the two teams drift apart, then each of these six steps.
Why sales and marketing teams fall out of alignment in small and mid-market companies
In most small and mid-market businesses, even with strong individual contributors on their marketing and sales teams, departmental misalignment is common.
Sales teams are usually longer-tenured, having grown up around a founder or a few strong relationship sellers. The marketing team often comes later and operates in a silo (particularly if it is in an agency model). Each side builds its own habits, its own practices, and its own definitions of success.
More often than not, no leader from either department has sat down and drawn the path a buyer takes from first touch to signed contract, so nobody owns the handoffs along that path.
The result is familiar. The marketing team produces activity the sales team ignores. Salespeople chase deals the marketing team never hears about. And the CEO ends up refereeing disputes between two teams that should be working on the same problem.
The fix here is simple: Sales and marketing teams need to plan, work, and be measured in common ways. The best technology companies have mastered this process.
What top technology companies do differently
Before I started Four Cross Advisory, I spent years leading marketing in business-to-business (B2B) software, including as the first VP of Marketing at a company that grew its revenue 3.5x over five years. It's within B2B technology that so much great thinking and execution in sales and marketing has happened over the last two decades.
Technology companies aren't smarter than similar companies in manufacturing or industrial services. They just learned early, usually under investor pressure, that a disconnected revenue team is expensive. So they built a few simple disciplines that any company can borrow.
1. One revenue goal, owned by both teams
In a well-run software company, the marketing team doesn't have a "leads" goal and the sales team a "bookings" goal that live in separate worlds. Both teams work backward from the same revenue number. The marketing team knows how much pipeline it needs to create for the sales team to hit its target, and the sales team knows how much it has to close from what the marketing team delivers.
What you can do: Take your 2027 revenue target and work backward to the pipeline you need, as I described in How to Build a 2027 Marketing Plan for Your Small or Mid-Market Business. Then put that pipeline number on both teams' scorecards.
2. A written definition of a qualified lead
A qualified lead usually has three parts: the company fits your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), the contact has a real role in the buying decision, and there is a clear sign of intent to buy, such as asking for pricing or a meeting.
What you can do: Get your sales and marketing leaders together to agree on the criteria. If you haven't defined your ICP yet, start there.
3. A handoff agreement
Software companies call this a service level agreement (SLA). The marketing team commits to a process to deliver qualified leads (such as through a website form fill). The sales team commits to following up on each lead within a set time, often within one business day or less, and to recording what happened.
In smaller companies I often find good leads sitting untouched for a week because nobody knew whose job the follow-up was. Unfortunately, every day a buyer is left waiting makes a deal less likely.
What you can do: Pick a follow-up window your team can actually meet, and hold responsible members of the sales (or marketing) team to that agreement.
4. A weekly pipeline meeting both teams attend
Once a week, the marketing and sales teams should look at the same pipeline report: what came in, what moved forward, what stalled, and why. It can take as little as 30 minutes, and it replaces a lot of ad hoc frustration.
What you can do: Start with a simple shared list or a dashboard in the customer relationship management (CRM) system you already have. High-priced software isn't necessarily required, but agreement on the numbers is.
5. A feedback loop from the sales team back to the marketing team
Sales calls are the richest and most frequent way to gather feedback from your ideal customers. The sales team hears every objection, every competitor name, and every reason a deal was won or lost. In good technology companies, that information flows back to the marketing team and shapes the next round of messaging and content. But in most SMBs, it stays in the salesperson's head.
What you can do: Add one standing question to the weekly meeting: "What did buyers say this week that the marketing team should know?" Over a quarter, that question will tell you more about your positioning than most surveys. It also feeds directly into mapping your customer journey.
6. Common incentives for sales and marketing teams, tying back to revenue
Even with one revenue goal, many companies still pay their teams on separate metrics. The marketing team earns a bonus on leads. The sales team earns commission on closed deals. On paper that looks fair, but in practice it sets up a fight over credit.
Most deals have more than one cause. A buyer might find you at a tradeshow, read three of your articles, and then take a call from a salesperson after going cold for a few months. Who "created" that sale? Both teams did, but many companies don't believe in shared credit.
Sales and marketing teams should never be playing a zero-sum game. The two functions make each other better. Good marketing gives the sales team warmer conversations and shorter sales cycles. Good sales feedback gives the marketing team sharper messaging and better targeting. Your incentive plan should reward that.
In the best technology companies I've worked with, every member of the revenue team has part of their incentive tied to the same revenue number. Individual goals still matter, such as pipeline created for the marketing team or deals closed for the sales team. But those goals sit underneath revenue, and shared credit is allowed. If both teams helped win a deal, both teams get paid on it.
What you can do: Review how the people on your sales and marketing teams are paid today. If any part of either plan rewards one team for taking credit from the other, change it. Tie a meaningful share of both teams' incentives to the same revenue number, and let both count a deal they both touched.
Where alignment usually breaks first
If you only fix one thing, fix the handoff. Most of the companies I work with are generating more interest than they think. They're losing it in the gap between "someone raised a hand" and "a salesperson had a real conversation."
This connects to a point I made in Demand Generation Has Two Parts. Demand creation and demand capture only work as a system when the people running each half talk to each other. Pouring more leads into a broken handoff is like adding cars to a highway with a closed exit ramp.
Alignment starts with a few agreements
In my previous role at a technology company, we followed these steps to a T. Along with my sales counterpart (I led the marketing team), we agreed on a lead definition, set a one-day follow-up rule, and started a 30-minute Monday pipeline review. Within two quarters, the debate about whose numbers were real had mostly stopped, and the conversation shifted to which accounts to pursue next.
We also made sure every team member had a financial incentive to keep our system running well. If our marketing team generated a lead via inbound or a live event, a sales development rep set a meeting later on, and an account executive closed the deal, everyone would get paid on that deal based on our incentive structure.
Sales and marketing alignment is Step 8 of the marketing-led revenue system I use with clients, because a strategy only pays off when the whole revenue team runs it together.
FAQ
What does sales and marketing alignment mean?
Sales and marketing alignment means both teams work toward the same revenue goal, use the same definition of a qualified lead, and review the same pipeline numbers on a regular schedule.
How long does it take to align sales and marketing?
The core agreements can be set in a few weeks. Most companies see the habits stick, and the pipeline conversation change, within one or two quarters.
Do I need a CRM to align sales and marketing?
It helps, but it isn't the starting point. A shared spreadsheet and a weekly meeting can work if you are a smaller company. At some point, it is good practice to bring on a CRM.
Who should own sales and marketing alignment in a small business?
The CEO should sponsor it, because both teams usually report there. Day to day, the marketing and sales leaders own the agreements together.
What is a sales and marketing SLA?
A service level agreement is a written commitment between the two teams. The marketing team promises a volume of qualified leads, and the sales team promises to follow up on each one within a set time.
How should you pay sales and marketing teams so they work together?
Tie a meaningful share of both teams' incentives to the same revenue number, and let both teams get credit for a deal they both helped win. Individual goals, like pipeline created or deals closed, still matter, but they should sit underneath revenue. That keeps the two teams from competing for credit.
Getting your revenue team on the same scoreboard
At Four Cross Advisory, we help CEOs of small and mid-market businesses build a marketing-led revenue system where marketing, sales, customer service, and operations work from one plan. You can see how we work on our services page. If your sales and marketing teams are keeping different scoreboards and you want help getting them on the same one, we'd welcome the conversation. Schedule a call here, or take the free Marketing Assessment to see where your revenue system stands today.