How to Get Sales and Marketing Working Together
If you’ve ever sat in a room where sales blamed marketing for sending them rubbish leads and marketing blamed sales for not following up on them – congratulations, you’ve experienced one of the most expensive problems in B2B.
The wall between sales and marketing is one of the oldest problems in business. Research from Forrester highlights a striking gap where 82% of leaders think their teams are aligned, but 65% of sales and marketing professionals disagree. That disconnect isn’t just awkward, it’s expensive!
We’ve written before about why this war exists and where it comes from. The short version: it’s not about personality clashes or departmental politics. It’s a structural problem – two teams pointing in different directions with no shared system keeping them honest. The result costs businesses more than $1 trillion a year globally.
But this post isn’t about the problem… It’s about fixing it.
Here’s what genuine sales and marketing alignment actually looks like in practice and how your CRM becomes the thing that holds it all together.
5 Causes of Sales–Marketing Misalignment
Here are the five most common reasons alignment breaks down and what each one costs you.
| Problem | What’s happening | Impact |
| No clear definition of a “good lead” | Teams don’t agree on what counts as a qualified lead | Sales waste time on poor-fit leads |
| Weak handoff between teams | Leads are passed with no context or structure | Leads go cold and get followed up on too late |
| Stalled deals are ignored | No follow-up when deals pause or go quiet | Lost opportunities and higher reacquisition costs |
| Poor segmentation | Everyone gets the same messages | Low engagement and weak sales conversations |
| Wrong things are measured | Focus on activity, not revenue | Money is spent on things that don’t drive results |
Sales and marketing alignment can lead to up to 208% more revenue, so here are our tips on how you can get more money and a happy team.
1) Define MQLs and SQLs Together
Start with a shared definition of a good lead. This sounds obvious, but it almost never happens.
Get both teams in the same room and agree specifically on what a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) looks like and what flips it into a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).
Job title? Company size? Number of touchpoints? Content downloaded? Time on site? Define the criteria, document them, and build them directly into your CRM as lead scoring thresholds and lifecycle stage triggers.
When a lead hits SQL status, sales gets an automated notification. No grey area. No, “I assumed you were handling that.” The handoff is built into the system, not left to goodwill!
✅ What good alignment looks like:
- MQL and SQL criteria are documented and agreed upon by both teams
- Lead scoring thresholds are live in the CRM
- SQL status triggers an automated task and notification for sales
2) Give Sales Everything They Need When a Lead is Passed Over
Define the exact moment a lead becomes a sales responsibility and make it visible!
When a prospect moves from marketing to sales, the sales team should already know what content they’ve engaged with, how long they’ve been in the funnel, what their last touchpoint was, and what problem they’re likely trying to solve. All of that should be visible in the CRM record the moment a sales rep picks it up.
Track it and report on it. When both teams know it’s measured, it gets done.
3) Stop Letting Stalled Deals Disappear
Every opportunity that goes quiet or closes as lost should trigger a marketing nurture sequence. If a deal goes quiet, that investment made in that deal, the meetings, the proposal and all those calls? It just evaporates.
We advise building a safety net (a trigger or a nurture sequence from marketing)
Keep it relevant and well-timed. When that prospect re-engages, they flow back into the pipeline at the same stage they left, not back to square one.
This is one of the highest-ROI activities you can build in a CRM. It’s also one of the most commonly skipped. The safety net will allow the prospect to flow back into the pipeline at the stage they left, and all that work already done still counts.
💡 WeDoCRM Tip: CRM isn’t just about organisation, it directly impacts revenue efficiency.
Strong nurture programmes also deliver 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost than non-nurtured ones. Yet despite these gains, only 29% of brands continue nurturing customers after the first purchase – leaving a major opportunity for repeat sales and upselling untapped! There are so many opportunities for you here!
4) Segment Then Personalise
Treating your entire contact database the same way is one of the fastest routes to disengagement, and it makes both teams look bad.
✅ What good segmentation looks like:
- Lifecycle stage – prospect, MQL, SQL, customer, churned
- Behaviour – active, dormant, re-engaged
- Persona or industry – so messaging actually resonates
When marketing knows exactly who they’re talking to, the content lands differently. When sales can see the full behavioural history of a contact, the conversation starts stronger.
5) Connect Your Reporting to Revenue
Stop celebrating metrics that don’t matter. Build dashboards that track:
- MQL-to-SQL conversion rate
- Lead source to closed-won revenue
- Pipeline contribution by campaign
- Stalled deal recovery rate
This also removes one of the most common friction points between the teams. When sales can see that a particular campaign is generating genuinely qualified leads, the relationship changes. When marketers can see their work in the pipeline, they care more about what happens to it.
6) Run a Monthly Alignment Review
Alignment isn’t a one-time project. It’s a habit, so grab the treats and the coffee, sit down and go through everything together. Like we said, getting aligned once isn’t the goal. Staying aligned is!
Schedule a monthly session between both teams to review what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change. Which campaigns drove SQLs? Where are deals stalling? What content is actually helping sales close? Use the answers to iterate, improve, and keep both teams genuinely working toward the same goal.
This doesn’t need to be a long meeting. It needs to be a regular one.
📖 Further reading: If you want to understand the structural causes behind this misalignment before you start building the fix, our piece on the secret war between sales and marketing is a good place to start.
Ready to Stop Losing Revenue to a Broken Process?
Sales and marketing alignment isn’t a culture initiative. It’s an operational one. The teams don’t need to like each other more, they need a shared system, shared definitions, and shared accountability. Your CRM platform, set up properly, is what makes that possible.
If your sales and marketing teams are still working from different playbooks, the gap between them is costing you more than you realise. We help B2B businesses like yours.
Book a free discovery call with WeDoCRM, and we’ll show you exactly where the gaps are and how to close them. We look forward to hearing from you!
👉 Book your discovery call | Explore our CRM services
Frequently Asked Questions – Sales and Marketing Alignment
What is sales and marketing alignment?
Sales and marketing alignment means both teams are working toward the same revenue goals, using shared definitions, shared data, and shared processes, rather than operating as separate functions with conflicting priorities.
Why do sales and marketing teams struggle to align?
The most common causes are unclear MQL/SQL definitions, unstructured lead handoffs, poor CRM setup, and reporting that measures activity rather than revenue. It’s a process problem, not a personality one!
What is an MQL and an SQL?
An MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) is a contact that marketing has identified as showing genuine interest and meeting basic criteria. An SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) has been further qualified by sales as having real potential to convert. Agreeing on both definitions is the foundation of alignment.
How does a CRM platform help align sales and marketing?
A well-configured CRM platform automates lead scoring, manages lifecycle stage transitions, structures the handoff between teams, tracks follow-up SLAs, and provides shared reporting tied to revenue – removing the ambiguity that causes misalignment.
What happens to leads that don’t convert immediately?
They shouldn’t just disappear. Leads that aren’t ready to buy should be enrolled into a marketing nurture sequence and returned to the sales pipeline when they show renewed intent. This protects your existing investment and reduces reacquisition costs.
What metrics should sales and marketing share?
The most important shared metrics are MQL-to-SQL conversion rate, lead source to closed-won revenue, pipeline contribution by campaign, and stalled deal recovery rate. These connect marketing activities directly to commercial outcomes.
Do we need new technology to align sales and marketing?
Usually not. Most businesses already have everything they need in their CRM platform – it just isn’t configured to support alignment. The fix is process and strategy, not a platform change.
Want more of our insights? Check out:
- Make Your CRM Budget Work Harder This Financial Year – Tips from our CEO
- Why Businesses Are Exploring Alternative CRM Platforms – What CRM Platform is best for you?
- Email Marketing Trends – Find out about the latest trends
