The B2B Sales-Marketing Quick Action Playbook…
Chapter 7.
Building the Foundation for Long-term Success
The path to sustainable B2B sales success requires a fundamental reset in how sales and marketing teams collaborate. With only 17% of buying group time spent with vendors, organisations must establish frameworks that enable seamless cooperation between these traditionally separate functions.
Luke Rogers from ComplyAdvantage describes the ideal state: "The key is not treating sales and marketing as separate functions but as an integrated commercial team. In our organisation, despite having different reporting lines, our head of marketing is included in all sales management meetings and we work together as one team. This close integration ensures that both teams are aligned on objectives and can respond quickly to market opportunities."
Eero Juvonen from Oneflow emphasises the fundamentals: "Common goals and transparent communication form the foundation of our successful collaboration between sales and marketing. We communicate transparently between the two departments, and we all work together for the same goal."
James Mensforth from Aircall shares their vision: "The dream scenario is moving away from completely cold outreach to having marketing build initial awareness before sales engagement. Currently, we're operating in a two-speed approach -- wide-scale demand generation alongside focused SDR and account executive efforts on target accounts."
Richard Francis from Foleon describes their evolution: "While we've historically been very marketing-led, with 80-85% of pipeline generated through inbound marketing, we're actively pivoting our strategy. This shift is driven by changing sales metrics and investor expectations around profitability and customer acquisition costs."
Alex Freeman from YouGov emphasises data integration: "What's crucial is that both teams have access to and understand the same data points. This has greatly improved our ability to make data-driven decisions as a unified function."
Arjun Mahajan from AND Digital shares their collaborative approach: "Our strategy is underpinned by regular strategy sessions where we discuss target accounts, success stories, industry insights, and performance metrics across different sectors. This collaborative approach ensures that we consistently deliver value while ensuring alignment between our brand messaging and front-line customer interactions."
Our survey reveals that joint KPIs and success metrics rank as the most critical aspect of sales-marketing alignment, with 54% of respondents identifying this as their top priority.
The key to success lies in establishing:
- Clear joint accountability measures
- Shared technology infrastructure
- Regular collaboration frameworks
- Unified planning processes
- Consistent measurement approaches
Key Insights Recap
For sustainable results, Sales and Marketing must operate as a single revenue team, sharing data, goals, and accountability. Siloed targets and disconnected systems lead to missed opportunities.
Quick Action Guide
About 6sense
6sense is on a mission to revolutionise the way B2B organisations create revenue by predicting customers most likely to buy and recommending the best course of action to engage anonymous buying teams. 6sense Revenue AI is the only sales and marketing platform to unlock the ability to create, manage and convert high-quality pipeline to revenue. Customers report 2X increases in average contract value, 4X increases in win rate and 20-40% reduction in time to close deals. Know everything, do anything, with 6sense.