When sales and marketing define success differently, alignment doesn’t stand a chance.
There’s a good chance your sales and marketing teams are using the same words—but mean completely different things.
And that disconnect? It’s costing you more than missed handoffs. It’s quietly eroding trust, wasting budget, and dragging down revenue performance.
Let’s take the word lead.
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Marketing says: “We generated 1,000 leads from the last campaign.”
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Sales hears: “We now have 1,000 prospects ready to buy.”
So when the pipeline doesn’t move? Sales blames marketing. Marketing blames sales. Leadership steps in—usually with another meeting, another dashboard, or another tool.
The issue isn’t just communication—it’s misaligned expectations disguised as collaboration.
You’re not speaking different languages. You’re speaking the same language with different meanings.
Here’s what that misalignment really looks like inside your revenue engine:
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Unqualified MQLs are passed to sales too early, killing rep trust
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Sales ignores “hot leads” because they’ve learned the score is inflated
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Marketing celebrates engagement metrics while pipeline dries up
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Teams argue over lead quality instead of fixing broken processes
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KPIs compete, incentives conflict, and the buyer journey suffers
And by the time anyone notices, you’ve already lost deals, wasted budget, and missed your number.
This is how two teams with the same goals—growth, pipeline, revenue—end up playing entirely different games.
The Fix: Start with Shared Definitions
Before you fix tools, tactics, or tech, fix the fundamentals.
Ask yourself:
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Do we have a shared definition of a qualified lead?
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Are we aligned on what signals real buyer intent?
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Is our handoff process actually supporting the buyer journey?
If the answer is “not really,” don’t move forward. Don’t automate. Don’t scale.
Because until your teams are speaking the same language, every “win” is built on shaky ground.
The Bottom Line:
If you’re not aligned on language, you’re not aligned on outcomes.
Alignment doesn’t start with strategy decks or dashboards. It starts with clarity. And clarity starts with common definitions.
When your teams define success differently, no amount of collaboration will close the gap.
