Most mid-market revenue teams don’t struggle because they lack effort, intent, or intelligence. They struggle because the system they are operating inside was never designed for alignment at scale.
That’s the thread running through two recent conversations I had on the Insightly/Unbounce Closing Time podcast.
Across both conversations, I shared five big ideas shaped by experience, sharpened through conversations with revenue leaders, and backed by research. These are not tactics. They’re the changes that make alignment stick.
1. Misalignment Is a Business Design Flaw
Most leaders treat misalignment like a people issue.
Sales and marketing aren’t communicating enough.
Teams aren’t collaborating well.
Relationships need work.
Sometimes that’s true. But more often, misalignment is built into the business.
It shows up in goals that pull teams in different directions, metrics that reward the wrong behavior, handoffs that rely on best intentions, and decision-making that breaks down the moment tradeoffs appear. When the design is flawed, even strong teams end up working at cross-purposes.
If alignment only exists when everyone is in the same meeting, it’s not alignment. It’s temporary agreement.
2. The Misalignment Tax Is Real (and Compounding)
Misalignment rarely shows up as a single dramatic failure. It shows up as drag.
-
Longer cycles.
-
Less reliable forecasts.
-
Duplicated work.
-
Endless debates over whose numbers are right.
That drag has a cost. And the cost shows up quarter after quarter.
What makes it worse is how quietly it hides. Leaders push harder inside their own lanes, convinced the answer is more activity, more tools, or more meetings. Meanwhile, the system keeps leaking value in the background.
Once you name the tax, you start noticing where it’s coming from.
3. Alignment Is an Operating System, Not an Initiative
A lot of companies treat alignment like a project.
-
Kickoff.
-
Working group.
-
Dashboard.
-
Quarterly reset.
That can create movement, but it doesn’t create durability.
Alignment holds when it’s built into how the business runs. The cadence. The decision rights. The definitions. The review rhythm. The “this is how we do things here” stuff.
Every organization already has an alignment operating system. The question is whether it was intentionally designed or accidentally inherited.
And you can tell the difference the moment pressure hits.
4. One Source of Truth Requires Real Ownership
Almost every revenue team claims to have one source of truth. Very few actually do.
What they really have is multiple dashboards, multiple definitions, and a lot of time burned reconciling answers that should be obvious. That’s not insight. That’s debate.
A source of truth only works when someone owns it. In practice, that ownership needs to sit with RevOps.
Not as a reporting function. As a governance function.
When RevOps owns definitions, data integrity, and the review cadence, leaders stop arguing about the numbers and start making decisions from them. Without that ownership, new tools and AI don’t fix confusion. They speed it up.
5. Culture Is the Foundation for Sustainable Alignment
Process and tools get most of the attention. Culture gets labeled “soft.” That’s a mistake.
Culture is what determines what happens when incentives conflict, when bad news hits, and when tradeoffs have to be made. In other words, culture determines whether alignment holds when it matters.
Culture isn’t posters or values statements. It’s what gets rewarded, what gets tolerated, and what people do when no one is watching.
If the culture avoids candor or protects silos, alignment efforts eventually slide back to where they started.
Why These Conversations Matter Now
Taken together, these five ideas explain why alignment can look fine in meetings and still fall apart in execution.
If you’re heading into the new year feeling like alignment is fragile despite strong teams and modern tools, the two Closing Time conversations will resonate.
Consider them a simple way to pressure-test what’s actually happening inside your revenue system.
Listen here:
Part 1 – Sales and marketing alignment: What it really takes to operationalize it
Part 2 – Sales and marketing misalignment: How RevOps and culture can help fix it
If this resonated, you’re not alone.
Join a growing community of revenue leaders rethinking how sales and marketing work together to drive sustainable growth.
Until next week,
Jeff
RevEngine™ | Built for Revenue Leaders Driving Alignment and Growth—Together
