Ending the Sales vs Marketing War: One Revenue Team

In many B2B organizations, there is a Cold War being fought every single day. The combatants are sitting just a few desks away from each other (or in adjacent Slack channels). They are the Sales team and the Marketing team.

The War manifests in subtle ways. It is the rolling of eyes when Marketing presents a new "campaign idea" that Sales knows will never work. It is the bitter complaints in the Sales Zoom chat about how the "leads are weak." It is Marketing venting that the Sales reps are "lazy" and "don't know how to follow up."

They have weekly "Alignment Meetings." They smile. They agree on "synergy." Then they go back to their desks and continue the war.

This friction is not a personality problem. It is not because salespeople are from Mars and marketers are from Venus. It is a structural problem. We have designed these two functions with opposing incentives, different languages, and conflicting scorecards. We have set them up to fail.

Why do traditional metrics fail?

The root of the evil is the MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead).

For the last decade, Marketing has been measured on MQL volume. "We need 5,000 MQLs this quarter," says the VP of Marketing.

So what does the marketing team do? They optimize for volume. They gate an ebook. They run a contest to win an iPad. They buy cheap lists. They generate 5,000 names. They hit their number. They get their bonus. They throw a party.

The Sales team receives these 5,000 names. They start calling.

"Hi, I saw you downloaded our ebook..." "Who is this? I just wanted the iPad. Stop calling me."

The Sales reps burn out. They stop calling the leads. They miss their quota. The VP of Sales is furious. They go to the CEO and say, "Marketing is giving us garbage."

Marketing retorts, "We gave you 5,000 leads! You just didn't close them!"

This is the MQL Trap. Marketing is playing a game of "Activity." Sales is playing a game of "Revenue." You cannot win a football game if half the team is trying to score touchdowns and the other half is trying to get the most generated yards.

What is the solution to misalignment?

The solution is radical but necessary. You must kill the MQL as a primary metric.

If Marketing generates 10,000 leads and zero dollars in revenue, the Marketing team has failed. If Marketing generates 10 leads and 1 million dollars in revenue, the Marketing team has succeeded.

You must move to a "One Revenue Team" model.

Shared Accountability

In a unified revenue team, there is no "Marketing Number" and "Sales Number." There is just "The Number."

Both the VP of Marketing and the VP of Sales should report to a single Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Their bonuses should be tied to the same metric: Closed Won Revenue.

This changes behavior instantly.

When a marketer is paid on revenue, they stop caring about cheap clicks. They stop running iPad contests. They start asking, "What kind of leads actually close?"

They realize that a demo request from a VP at a Fortune 500 company is worth 100 times more than a generic email download. They shift their budget to target those high-value accounts. They start working with Sales to define "Quality" rather than "Quantity."

How does a unified revenue team operate?

Alignment is not a monthly meeting. It is a daily feedback loop.

The Feedback Loop

In most companies, information flows one way: Marketing -> Sales. "Here are the leads, go close them."

In a winning organization, information flows upstream: Sales -> Marketing.

Your sales reps are on the front lines. They hear the actual objections. They know that competitors are underpricing you by 20%. They know that customers are confused by your new feature naming.

Marketers need to listen to sales calls. Not once a quarter. Weekly.

I recommend a "Content Committee" that includes top sales reps. Ask them: w"What questions are you getting that you can't answer? What slide makes prospects confused? what competitor are we losing to?"

Then, Marketing builds content to solve those specific problems.

"Hey Sales Team, you said you were losing deals to Competitor X because of their pricing. We wrote a detailed 'Total Cost of Ownership' comparison guide that shows why we are actually cheaper in the long run. Send this to your prospects."

Now Marketing is not just tossing leads over the wall. They are providing air cover. They are arming the soldiers.

ABM (Account-Based Marketing)

The ultimate expression of this unity is Account-Based Marketing.

Instead of casting a wide net, Sales and Marketing sit down and agree on a list of 50 dream accounts. "We want to close Coca-Cola, Nike, and Ford."

Marketing runs hyper-targeted ads to those specific buildings. They send direct mail to those specific executives. They host a dinner for those specific decision-makers.

Sales works those same accounts with personalized outreach. "I saw you attended our dinner..."

They are surrounding the target together. They are hunting as a pack.

When you achieve this state, the friction disappears. There is no "us vs them." There is just "us vs the market." And that is a war you can win.