Hot Takes

Why are Marketing and Sales constantly at odds with each other?

Marketing Sales

Historically there is no company that I’ve seen, been part of, and/or invested in where this hasn’t happened. As far as I can tell, at its core, the situation is the consequence of two foundational issues – first and foremost, marketing and sales teams are measured on metrics that have a fundamentally different nature: quantitative for Marketing Teams and qualitative for Sales Teams.

More is always merrier for Marketing Teams but for Sales Teams, not so much…

Sales Teams want leads that close, fast and at an interesting enough ACV/ARPA. More leads, even if they close, is often bad for sales teams when you take velocity, cost of sale and opportunity cost into account while most likely being awesome for Marketing Teams. 

Now, here’s the counterintuitive hot take: most companies will find ways to try and resolve this, with various levels of success (or, in most cases, lack thereof) from a people/process perspective, but if you end up in the same situation regardless, then it’s a tooling problem.

Specifically: the fact that every department has its own tech stack which lives in its own little silo without really being concerned about what happens before and after.

People will improve what they can observe and measure, that’s why the best performing organizations I’ve been part of find ways to observe and measure the full funnel in a cross-functional way, rather than the opposite.