Stop the War: Why Your Sales and Marketing Teams Are Sabotaging Your Growth
Here’s what’s happening in B2B companies across Australia right now:
Marketing and sales work in complete isolation, despite being utterly dependent on each other. Marketing operates with generally broad targets, planning campaigns months ahead with metrics that can be reported as success despite their actual revenue impact. A lot of time could be spent on beautiful customer journeys crafting, with a risk of creating a process disconnected from actual buyer conversations.
Meanwhile, sales fights in the trenches every day, trying to hit their rigid targets with specific deadlines looming ahead. They have conversations with prospects, dealing with real objections and budget constraints. That may narrow their focus on immediate wins, and have far less desire to work with slower moving deals.
The disconnect deepens when marketing blames sales for not following their “meticulously crafted” processes and disqualifying leads that were supposedly sales-ready. In an ideal world, marketing should be providing bullets and ammunition – great materials and quick wins that sales can use. But the reality? Sales may feel abandoned in the field.
In simple terms, marketing is focused on long-term impact. Sales thinks how to get some wins this month.
Big enterprises have solved this puzzle with dedicated revenue operations teams and sophisticated attribution models. But smaller Australian companies? They’re still asking the chicken-and-egg question: should they start from investing in beautiful website design and sparkling logos, or hire a killer sales rep who can close deals without any support?
Both answers are usually a wrong choice.
This isn’t just departmental friction – it’s revenue suicide. When sales and marketing alignment breaks down, B2B companies lose 10% or more of revenue per year. Sales-marketing misalignment is estimated to cost businesses more than $1 trillion each year.
The irony? These teams need each other more than they realise, especially in complex B2B sales cycles where prospects research extensively before ever speaking to a salesperson.
The B2B Reality Check: Your Sales Team Holds the Keys
Here’s what most B2B companies get backwards: your sales team possesses the most valuable market intelligence in your organisation.
They know:
- Which pain points actually drive purchasing decisions
- What language resonates with different buyer personas
- Which objections kill deals (and which are just smoke screens)
- How long your real sales cycle actually takes
- What spokes your prospects away
Yet most marketing teams operate in isolation, crafting campaigns based on assumptions rather than this goldmine of frontline intelligence.
Marketing and sales alignment isn’t just about better communication – it’s about leveraging this intelligence to create campaigns that actually work.
The Lean B2B SMarketing System: How to Build Revenue Engines, Not Pretty Campaigns
Forget the traditional approach of building marketing first, then hoping sales can close whatever comes through. Smart B2B companies rely on sales and marketing consulting to build integrated revenue functions from day one.
Phase 1: Extract the Intelligence
Before spending a dollar on campaigns, extract intelligence from your sales conversations (or conduct them if you’re starting fresh).
What you need:
- Exact pain points that trigger buying decisions
- Language prospects use to describe their problems
- Typical objections and what overcomes them
- Real budget ranges and approval processes
Phase 2: Build Your Foundation
- Craft Your Cold Acquisition Ready Value Proposition Use sales intelligence to create messaging that speaks directly to verified pain points. Test every word against real prospect feedback.
- Create a Conversion-Focused Website Skip the corporate fluff. Build pages that address the specific concerns your sales team hears daily. Every section should move prospects closer to a sales conversation.
Phase 3: Deploy Your Secret Weapon
- Install Appointment Setters as Your Intelligence Bridge These hybrid professionals sit between marketing and sales, conducting prospect conversations that validate messaging while generating qualified opportunities. They’re junior sales people working for marketing objectives.
Why this works: Setters provide real-time feedback on what resonates, what confuses prospects, and what drives action.
Phase 4: Test and Optimise
- Validate Before You Scale Use setter conversations to refine your messaging until it consistently generates interest. Only scale marketing spend on proven concepts.
- Expand with Confidence Once your core message converts prospects into qualified opportunities, scale through additional channels – LinkedIn campaigns, industry events, or strategic partnerships.
The SMarketing Advantage: What Happens When B2B Sales and Marketing Actually Align
Companies that achieve true sales marketing alignment create competitive advantages that are difficult to replicate:
Faster Market Penetration:
- Campaigns based on real buyer intelligence connect immediately
- Sales teams can reference specific marketing touchpoints that influenced prospects
- Shorter time from campaign launch to closed deals
Higher Conversion Rates:
- Marketing qualified leads actually convert because they’re pre-qualified by sales criteria
- Sales teams eagerly follow up on marketing leads because they know the qualification process works
- Reduced time wasted on unqualified prospects
Sustainable Growth:
- Continuous feedback loop improves both marketing effectiveness and sales efficiency
- Scalable processes that work regardless of team size
- Predictable pipeline generation
Companies like Atlassian and Canva built their B2B success on this integrated approach, ensuring marketing campaigns reflected actual sales conversations rather than theoretical buyer journeys.
Your Next Move: Stop Guessing, Start Aligning
The B2B landscape is too competitive for departmental silos. Every campaign dollar needs to contribute to revenue, and every sales conversation should inform your next marketing move.
Sales and marketing alignment isn’t a nice-to-have anymore – it’s the difference between expensive guesswork and suitable growth.
Start with intelligence extraction. Get your sales team’s insights into your marketing strategy. Build campaigns that reflect real buyer conversations.
Your competitors are probably still fighting the sales-versus-marketing battle. While they’re busy pointing fingers, you’ll be closing deals.