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Ask any revenue leader if their sales and marketing teams are aligned, and you’ll usually hear the same answer:

“We’re getting there.”

But ask whether those same teams share accountability for revenue—and the conversation changes fast.

Because here’s the truth:
You don’t have an alignment problem. You have an accountability problem.

Alignment Without Ownership Doesn’t Last

You can run all the cross-functional meetings you want.
Build shared dashboards.
Even agree on lead definitions and personas.

But if sales and marketing are still measured on different outcomes, alignment will always be fragile.
Eventually, the cracks show up:

• Sales questions lead quality.

• Marketing chases volume instead of pipeline value.

• Each team optimizes for its own success, not shared outcomes.

That’s not a revenue engine. That’s a broken system.

What Shared Accountability Actually Looks Like

Shared accountability doesn’t mean micromanaging.
It means creating clarity without killing autonomy.

It looks like:

• Joint ownership of pipeline targets—not just lead or close rates

• Shared definitions of success that span functions

• Clear metrics that are visible to everyone—not siloed in separate systems

• A GTM strategy that reinforces collaboration, not just communication

When marketing owns pipeline impact—and sales engages earlier in the buyer journey—you don’t just get better numbers.
You get a more efficient system, a better customer experience, and a team that acts like one.

Sustainable Alignment Is Built, Not Declared

Leaders often talk about alignment like it’s a switch you flip.

But in reality, sustainable alignment is the result of strategic design decisions—not just good intentions.
And shared accountability is one of the highest-leverage decisions you can make.

Because when everyone’s held to the same outcome, behavior changes.
Collaboration becomes proactive.
And revenue becomes everyone’s job—not just sales’.

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

In many B2B organizations, marketing is still seen as the department responsible for generating leads—not revenue. The goal is often volume over value: fill the top of the funnel, hand off the MQLs, and let sales figure out the rest.

But here’s the truth:

When marketing stops at the MQL, the funnel breaks.

The disconnect isn’t always obvious at first. Teams might be hitting lead targets. Sales might be closing some deals. But behind the scenes, pipeline quality suffers, buyer experiences feel disjointed, and no one’s quite sure who owns what after the handoff.

That’s not a revenue engine.
That’s a broken system.

The Cost of Stopping at the MQL

When marketing is only measured by lead quantity—not revenue contribution—several things start to break down:

• The wrong buyers enter the pipeline, forcing sales to waste time qualifying instead of closing.

• Messaging misfires, because what worked in a top-of-funnel campaign doesn’t support the conversations sales needs to have later.

• Teams misalign, because each side is optimizing for different outcomes.

And while shared dashboards and alignment meetings might mask the issue temporarily, they don’t fix the underlying problem.

Marketing Must Step Into the Revenue Conversation

Fixing this isn’t about asking marketing to do more. It’s about asking marketing to do the right things—things that move pipeline, accelerate deals, and support revenue generation from start to finish.

That means:

• Owning parts of the pipeline, not just the top

• Collaborating on sales stage messaging, not just persona decks

• Reporting on contribution to revenue, not just MQL volume

The best marketing teams today think in terms of conversion, not just campaigns. They know how to influence pipeline health, partner with sales, and use data to prove their impact.

This Is the Future of B2B Marketing

Many marketing leaders are already making this shift. But if your organization still sees marketing as lead gen only, alignment will always be fragile. And revenue performance will always hit a ceiling.

Marketing doesn’t stop at the MQL.
It helps build and sustain the pipeline—because that’s where growth happens.

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

If you’ve been following my LinkedIn posts this week, you already know the truth:

Surface-level solutions—shared dashboards, common goals, and frequent meetings—aren’t enough to drive real alignment between sales and marketing teams.

Here’s why:

Visibility Isn’t Alignment

Shared dashboards have become a staple for revenue teams, promising better transparency. But transparency alone won’t solve deep strategic disconnects. Dashboards simply make visible the symptoms of misalignment without addressing the root cause. Misalignment isn’t just about seeing what each team is doing—it’s about strategically aligning what they’re working toward.

Action Step: Before investing further in dashboard technology, revisit your strategic alignment. Ensure both teams are not only seeing the same data but actively working toward shared, strategic outcomes.

Shared Goals Aren’t Enough Without Shared Accountability

Most alignment initiatives focus on setting shared goals: hitting pipeline numbers, improving close rates, or growing revenue. However, without explicitly defined joint accountability, shared goals quickly deteriorate into blame games:

• Marketing complains sales doesn’t follow through on leads.

• Sales argues marketing delivers poor-quality leads.

Goals alone highlight the problem; shared accountability solves it.

Action Step: Define clear joint KPIs that both teams must own and deliver together. Establish mutual accountability—both teams celebrate wins and equally own setbacks.

Your Go-to-Market Strategy Might Be Sabotaging You

The most overlooked cause of misalignment is often your foundational go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Many GTM strategies unintentionally reinforce departmental silos by:

• Clearly defining sales roles but vaguely defining marketing’s role in revenue generation.

• Developing strategy without cross-team input, leading to lack of buy-in or confusion.

• Creating incentives that reward department-specific outcomes rather than holistic revenue growth.

Misalignment isn’t accidental—it’s built into the very structure of your strategy.

Action Step: Involve both sales and marketing teams in GTM strategy development. Clearly define roles and responsibilities at each stage of your funnel. Ensure incentives align with cross-departmental collaboration rather than individual team goals.

Your Next Steps:

The solution isn’t more meetings or better dashboards. True alignment starts by addressing the deeper, structural problems outlined above.

In future issues, we’ll dive even deeper into practical approaches for restructuring incentives, creating effective joint accountability models, and redesigning your GTM strategy for sustainable alignment.

Why Subscribe?

LinkedIn posts are great for quick insights—but this newsletter is your strategic resource, giving you practical tools and deeper analysis so you can take real action to align your revenue teams.

If you found value here, forward this to a colleague who’s struggling with alignment. The more aligned you become, the faster your revenue grows.

Until next week,
Jeff
RevEngine™ | Built for Revenue Leaders Driving Alignment and Growth—Together

Many companies try to fix sales and marketing misalignment with surface-level tactics:

• More meetings

• Shared dashboards

• Better communication

But here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud:
Those are band-aids, not solutions.

If your teams are still misaligned after all the standups, syncs, and Slack channels… it’s not because they aren’t trying.
It’s because the problem runs deeper—and your systems were never designed for alignment in the first place.

Three Structural Root Causes (That No One Talks About)

1. Misaligned Incentives

If sales is comped on revenue and marketing is bonused on MQLs, you’ve already created two different definitions of success.

No amount of collaboration or communication can override a comp plan that rewards opposing behaviors.

When incentives aren’t aligned, misalignment becomes the default behavior. Teams don’t intentionally work against each other—but they’re wired to prioritize what gets them promoted or paid. That creates downstream tension, not just between departments, but in the buyer experience itself.

2. Lack of Shared Accountability

Shared goals aren’t the same as shared accountability.

Everyone says they want to “grow revenue,” but when targets are missed, finger-pointing starts. Sales blames lead quality. Marketing blames follow-up speed.

Without explicit accountability—not just implied—you’ll never build a true revenue team.

Shared accountability isn’t about blame—it’s about shared ownership. When both teams are responsible for the same outcomes, it creates tighter feedback loops, more honest conversations, and a stronger sense of team identity. That’s the foundation of real alignment.

3. A Fragmented Go-to-Market Strategy

Most GTM strategies are developed in silos—or worse, handed down from above with no cross-functional input.

The result?
Sales and marketing each interpret the strategy through their own lens, leading to disconnected execution and inconsistent buyer experiences.

When strategy is built without both teams at the table, it’s no surprise execution falls apart. Sales gets one version of reality. Marketing gets another. And the customer ends up stuck in the middle—navigating a disconnected experience that feels confusing at best, frustrating at worst.

Stop Treating the Symptoms. Fix the System.

Misalignment isn’t a communication issue. It’s a design issue.

Until you change the way you define success, reward behavior, and build strategy, your teams will keep working in parallel instead of in unison.

The fix isn’t easy—but it is clear.

And it starts by shifting your focus from output metrics to operational design.

Still incentivizing teams to work in silos?

Now’s the time to rewire the system—not just patch the symptoms.

Until next time,

Jeff
RevEngine™ | Helping Revenue Leaders Accelerate Alignment and Growth

What if your sales and marketing teams aren’t misaligned because of communication issues,
but because their paychecks are telling them to stay that way?

That’s not just a theory—it’s the reality in most mid-market B2B companies.

Sales is compensated based on revenue.
Marketing gets bonused on campaign output or lead volume.
And each team ends up chasing its own definition of success.

While more marketers are being held accountable for revenue, fewer than half have any variable compensation tied to it. Even fewer are working from shared metrics with sales (Alexander Group, CaliberMind).

When marketing doesn’t have a financial stake in closed revenue, alignment becomes optional.
And so does accountability.

But the good news is, you don’t need to overhaul your entire compensation model to start shifting behavior.

Comp alignment doesn’t have to be a high-stakes move. It just needs to create shared visibility, mutual risk, and joint reward.

Here are three low-risk ways revenue teams are starting to align incentives without blowing up the org chart:

• Tie a portion of marketing’s bonus to sales attainment
  Even a 10 to 15 percent variable bonus based on quarterly bookings can create shared ownership. It doesn’t have to be complex—just connected to the same outcome sales is chasing.

• Use one shared metric across both teams
  Start with something simple and visible, like pipeline value or win rate. Align on how it’s defined and include it in both teams’ quarterly reviews.

• Set a minimum threshold for payouts
  If the company misses a baseline revenue target (say, 70 percent of plan), no one gets paid out. It drives joint accountability without pointing fingers.

You don’t need new tools. You don’t need a reorg.
You just need incentives that reflect your real goals.

Is your current comp plan reinforcing silos—or helping your teams move in sync?

When sales and marketing aren’t aligned, the tech stack usually takes the blame.

But in reality, most revenue teams don’t have a tool problem.
They have a process problem—and their tech is just exposing it at scale.

Here’s what that looks like inside many revenue teams:

• Sales and marketing adopt platforms in parallel, not together

• Lifecycle stages are defined inconsistently

• Workflows are incomplete or undocumented

• No shared dashboard, no unified view of performance

• Tool adoption is inconsistent, and data quality suffers

Sound familiar?

That’s why 73% of digital transformation efforts fail to deliver business value (Everest Group).
And why less than 30% of sales technology is used effectively (HubSpot).

These tools aren’t broken.
They’re just unsupported by clear, shared process.

Before your teams can fully leverage technology, they need:

• Shared workflows that reflect how buyers actually move through the funnel

• Unified data structures so everyone is working from the same source of truth

• Cross-functional input on tool usage and KPIs to ensure alignment and adoption

• Clear ownership and accountability across systems and handoffs

In other words, the tech stack has to serve your GTM process—not the other way around.

Stop asking “What tool should we buy?”
Start asking “How should this tool support the way we sell, market, and win—together?”

Get the process right.
Then let your tech stack amplify it—not compensate for the lack of it.

What’s one part of your current stack that’s creating more friction than alignment?

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.

• Marketing says: “We generated 1,000 leads from the last campaign.”

• 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:

• Unqualified MQLs are passed to sales too early, killing rep trust

• Sales ignores “hot leads” because they’ve learned the score is inflated

• Marketing celebrates engagement metrics while pipeline dries up

• Teams argue over lead quality instead of fixing broken processes

• 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:

• Do we have a shared definition of a qualified lead?

• Are we aligned on what signals real buyer intent?

• 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.

AI is everywhere right now. But if you’re leading revenue at a mid-market B2B company, the real question isn’t “Should we use it?”

It’s “How does this actually improve our sales and marketing execution?”

According to RSM, 78% of middle market executives say their companies are using AI—but only 20% believe they’ve integrated it in a meaningful way.

That gap says everything. AI adoption is happening—but strategic integration is falling short. And without alignment across sales, marketing, and customer success, even the best AI tools can’t deliver real impact.

The opportunity? AI becomes valuable when it supports alignment—when it’s applied through shared strategy, shared data, and coordinated execution.

If your GTM teams are already misaligned, AI won’t fix that. But when used intentionally, it can help you scale what’s already working.

Here are four ways AI is already improving execution inside the tools most teams are already using:

• CRM Platforms (Salesforce, HubSpot)
  Predictive lead scoring combines behavioral and firmographic data to automatically surface high-intent accounts—so reps spend more time with buyers who are actually ready.

• Sales Engagement Tools (Outreach, Salesloft)
  AI-powered sequences adjust based on buyer behavior, helping reps improve response rates without adding manual effort or guesswork.

• ABM Platforms (6sense, Demandbase)
  AI analyzes intent signals in real time to prioritize in-market accounts—keeping sales and marketing aligned on where to focus and when.

• Conversation Intelligence (Gong)
  AI summarizes sales calls, flags deal risks, and gives marketers direct visibility into what’s resonating—so messaging is based on real conversations, not assumptions.

You don’t need more tools.
You need alignment on what problems you’re solving—and a clear strategy for how your teams will apply AI together.

Ask yourself:

• Are we aligned on what qualifies as a high-intent lead?

• Are we using AI to improve collaboration—or just automate misalignment?

• Which of these tools are we underutilizing right now?

AI becomes powerful when it’s applied through the lens of alignment. Start small. Stay focused. Use the tools you already have—just use them smarter, together.

Which of these AI use cases feels most actionable—or most underutilized—in your GTM strategy?

You’ve seen the signs before.

• Marketing celebrates hitting MQL goals while sales struggles to close deals.

• Leads come in, but follow-up is slow—or worse, nonexistent.

• Sales, marketing, and customer success each report into different leaders, working toward different incentives.

And yet, leadership keeps asking: Why aren’t we growing faster?

The truth is, most sales and marketing teams aren’t designed for optimal effectiveness. They’re structured around internal priorities, not how buyers actually engage.

That’s why, no matter how many alignment meetings you hold, the same inefficiencies persist.

The problem isn’t execution—it’s org design.

Here are some common org design mistakes that cause sales and marketing misalignment:

• Conflicting KPIs create competing priorities – Marketing focuses on MQLs, while sales is measured on closed deals. Without shared pipeline and revenue goals, misalignment is inevitable.

• SDRs are disconnected from marketing – When SDRs don’t work closely with marketing, leads slip through the cracks or get ignored altogether. That’s lost pipeline.

• No single owner of revenue performance – If sales, marketing, and customer success report into different leaders with different priorities, no one owns the full revenue funnel.

• Silos between strategy and execution – If sales and marketing plan separately, marketing’s messaging won’t align with how sales actually closes deals.

Sound familiar? If your team struggles with alignment, the issue isn’t the people—it’s the structure.

Take a look at your own organization—are your KPIs driving collaboration or competition?

How the Best Revenue Leaders Structure Sales & Marketing

The most effective revenue leaders design their teams around how buyers actually engage, not outdated internal structures.

Here’s what that looks like:

• A high-impact marketing team – Leading marketing teams cross-train specialists in complementary areas, ensuring seamless execution and stronger collaboration with sales.

• SDRs positioned for maximum impact – Whether they report to sales or marketing, SDRs need to be fully integrated into demand generation strategy—not treated as a separate function.

• Revenue Operations (RevOps) to unify the funnel – Bringing sales, marketing, and customer success under one function ensures accountability to the same revenue goals rather than competing priorities.

• Shared go-to-market planning – Sales and marketing must build strategies together from the start—not hand them off after the fact.

When these structural changes are in place, teams stop working against each other and start working as one revenue engine.

If misalignment keeps showing up in your company, it’s time to look beyond individual execution issues and rethink how your teams are structured.

What’s the biggest org design challenge you’ve seen in sales and marketing?

Many revenue leaders find themselves drowning in metrics. Sales, marketing, and customer success teams each focus on their own numbers—website traffic, lead volume, or retention rates—without realizing that the full picture of revenue growth emerges only when these insights are integrated. To truly drive sustainable growth, you must shift from isolated performance indicators to a holistic evaluation of your revenue engine.

Rethinking the Value of Functional Metrics

For Sales Leaders:
Traditionally, sales teams zero in on pipeline velocity, conversion rates, and average deal size. While these metrics are crucial, they often miss the nuances of why deals stall or why high-quality leads never close. Ask yourself: Are there friction points in the handoff process from lead to close? Is your win rate declining despite a robust pipeline? By digging deeper into these metrics, you can uncover insights that drive process improvements.

For Marketing Leaders:
Marketing leaders frequently emphasize lead volume, lead quality, Lead Velocity Rate (LVR), and attribution & ROI. However, these figures alone may not capture the full customer journey. For instance, a campaign might generate plenty of leads, but if those leads aren’t converting, the focus should shift to refining targeting and nurturing strategies. Consider how your messaging resonates across channels and whether you’re investing in the right tactics that truly drive quality interactions.

For Customer Success Leaders:
Metrics like retention, churn, upsell, and NPS are crucial indicators of customer satisfaction. However, focusing solely on these numbers can mask underlying issues. For example, a steady churn rate might seem acceptable in isolation, but when analyzed alongside acquisition and conversion metrics, it may reveal that while you’re attracting new customers, existing ones aren’t fully experiencing the value promised—indicating a disconnect between customer success and the rest of the revenue engine.

The Integrated Revenue Engine

The real breakthrough comes from connecting these dots. It’s not enough for sales, marketing, and customer success to excel independently—your revenue engine must operate as a unified whole. Here are the cross-functional metrics that offer a clearer view:

1. Integrated Funnel Conversion:
   Track the seamless progression of leads through every stage—from Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) to Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) to closed deal. A drop-off at any point can signal misalignment between teams. For example, if your overall funnel conversion rate is lower than your individual MQL-to-SQL conversion, it’s time to reassess the handoff process between marketing and sales.

2. CAC vs. CLV:
   The balance between Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a powerful indicator of long-term sustainability. If your CAC is rising while CLV remains stagnant, it might be a sign that your acquisition strategies are not delivering lasting value. This metric forces you to look at the effectiveness of your entire customer journey.

3. Unified Data Effectiveness:
   When all teams operate on the same data platform—sharing real-time insights into customer behavior—the benefits multiply. This isn’t just about having a single CRM; it’s about ensuring that data flows seamlessly across functions, enabling personalized outreach, targeted marketing, and proactive customer success initiatives. Integrated data empowers your organization to make smarter, faster decisions that directly impact revenue growth.

Think Holistically to Drive Growth

By moving beyond isolated KPIs and embracing a holistic view of your revenue engine, you can identify hidden inefficiencies, foster cross-functional collaboration, and ultimately drive sustainable growth. Break down the silos, align your teams around shared metrics, and optimize the entire customer lifecycle—from the first touch to long-term retention.

Are you ready to evaluate your revenue engine as a unified whole and unlock its full potential?