An eternal problem
Marketing says: “We deliver leads.” Sales says: “The leads are no good.” Marketing says: “Sales doesn’t call the leads fast enough.” Sales says: “The leads aren’t qualified.”
This conversation happens in almost every company. It is not a communication problem. It is a structural problem.
Why this happens
In most companies, marketing and sales are led separately, measured separately and rewarded separately. Marketing optimises awareness and leads. Sales optimises deals. Nobody is responsible for the entire path.
The result: everyone optimises their own metric, at the expense of the other.
What really helps
A shared definition of success. If marketing is measured on MQLs (marketing qualified leads) and sales on deals, the incentives are wrong. If both are measured on revenue, they suddenly speak the same language.
A shared definition of a qualified lead. What is a lead worth following up? If marketing and sales give different answers, frustration is inevitable. This definition has to be worked out together, and adjusted regularly.
Direct communication, not via reports. The best results I have seen were in organisations where marketing and sales talked to each other every week. Not via dashboards, but directly. What works? What doesn’t? Why?
An example from practice
In a B2B scale-up, marketing and sales were working against each other rather than with each other. Marketing reported rising lead numbers, sales complained about poor quality. Both were right, because each meant something different by “lead”.
Before we talked about campaigns or targets, we sat down with both teams and worked through the entire sales funnel, step by step. When does a contact become a marketing qualified lead? Which criteria must it meet for sales to take it over? What does the handover require, and what happens to a lead that gets rejected? When does it become a sales qualified lead, and when a real opportunity?
In the end, there was clarity on every definition, metric and KPI. Only from that moment on did marketing and sales pursue the same goals. The biggest change, though, was cultural: working against each other turned into working together. The discussion was no longer about who was to blame, but about how to win more customers together.
The question I have asked ever since, before assessing any organisation: “Who is responsible for the handover between marketing and sales?” If the answer is unclear, you have found the problem.