‘The conflict is real’: B2B sales leaders on erasing the ‘friction’ with marketing – Marketing Week

From developing a “common playbook” for success to establishing a sense of shared context, B2B sales and marketing can become close collaborators.

It’s a tale as old as time: a sales and marketing team constantly at loggerheads. And, according to Marketing Week’s State of B2B Marketing research, it’s one still grounded in reality.
More than a third (35.4%) of the 450 B2B marketers surveyed ‘often’ find themselves in conflict with sales, citing a failure by sales teams to understand their priorities (54.8%) or appreciate their work as an investment rather than cost (27.4%). Worryingly, half (50.8%) recognise a perception marketing is only there to serve sales.
If a high proportion of B2B marketers see their relationship with sales as fractious, what do salespeople think?
It’s a tale as old as time: a sales and marketing team constantly at loggerheads. And, according to Marketing Week’s State of B2B Marketing research, it’s one still grounded in reality.
More than a third (35.4%) of the 450 B2B marketers surveyed ‘often’ find themselves in conflict with sales, citing a failure by sales teams to understand their priorities (54.8%) or appreciate their work as an investment rather than cost (27.4%). Worryingly, half (50.8%) recognise a perception marketing is only there to serve sales.
If a high proportion of B2B marketers see their relationship with sales as fractious, what do salespeople think? Do they also sense the friction? And, if so, what steps are they taking to address it, and quash the tired trope once and for all?
For Rob Greaves, general manager for enterprise at Xerox UK and Ireland, it simply isn’t an issue.
“I see no level of conflict. We are business partners striving and sharing the same growth and success objectives. I have not once heard anyone in my team claim they could do a better job in marketing than the marketers,” he states.
At software firm Creatio meanwhile, any conflict that does arise tends to be easily resolved, explains sales director for Western Europe, Joshua Hughman.
“Any conflict that does happen usually comes from misunderstandings about priorities or timing, not from a lack of alignment. Clear communication solves most of it,” he states.
The most successful sales organisations I’ve ever been part of were those where both sales and marketing teams shared a common playbook.
However, others agree conflict is  – and remains – an issue for both sides.
Greg Shickle, head of growth at digital technology consultancy Making Science, has seen both sides of the equation, having held marketing roles at the likes of Datamonitor, Carat and I-Level earlier in his career.
He explains “the conflict between the two is real” and there are two major reasons.
“First, the sales team does not always have the time to adequately communicate the day-to-day reality of their role to those in marketing,” says Shickle.
“Second is a misunderstanding of marketing. People often make the mistake of confusing marketing with advertising, which is something we are all familiar with and have an opinion on. But the reality is they are not the same. It’s like football fans thinking they can be a football manager.”
At some B2B companies, this lack of comprehension can even spiral into what marketers perceive as a superiority complex among sales. According to Marketing Week’s research, 44% of marketers say they believe sales teams think they could do the job of marketing, while 43.1% say sales teams think they know customers better.
Hughman gets how marketers might feel this way.
“That feeling tends to show up when sales doesn’t have full visibility into what marketing is doing or why certain decisions were made. Once there is more transparency around the strategy and the data behind campaigns, those assumptions tend to disappear,” he states.
Listen to each other. It stops us working in silos and becomes a shared effort to move the customer forward.
This conflict rings true for Ash Pearson, regional manager at industry network Property4Media, who spent a decade in marketing and the last three in sales.
“When I was a marketing manager, I would often find the sales team pushing hard for a new campaign to go out promoting a single feature simply because one of their hot leads had shown an interest in it,” he recalls.
“This would sometimes risk a whole lot of time being spent on very targeted marketing that a small percentage of clients would actively use, simply because the sales team wanted to get that one over the line.”
However, the sense of frustration goes both ways. Pearson argues campaigns can generate awareness and “boost a bunch of vanity metrics”, but any spend has to be tied to commercial results.
“How many trials will it generate? Will it improve our revenue for this quarter?” he asks.
“Pushing back on these ideas can be seen as conflict, especially when a lot of planning has gone into it and it genuinely is an awesome idea that we’d love to do, but every business right now is watching their figures more closely than ever before and prioritisation on key campaigns that directly drive revenue is key.”
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The cause of conflict is invariably misalignment between the two functions, echoes James Palmer, international general manager at software firm Seismic.
“When teams lack a common goal or limited visibility into what buyers actually want, it can cause friction. The most successful sales organisations I’ve ever been part of were those where both sales and marketing teams shared a common playbook and worked together seamlessly,” he states.
When the relationship works, it’s a win-win.
“When marketing truly understands the market and provides clarity about who we are, the problem we’re solving and why it matters now, sales become 10 times more effective,” Palmer adds.
So, how can both sides put aside any preconceptions and overcome conflict?
For Pearson, it’s as simple as building better relationships between the two teams. That’s as much about congeniality as commerciality.
“Hang out, go for drinks and champion each other. Know your actual R&Rs [rewards and recognition], as well as your boundaries so you can both complement each other’s success and both win in the end,” he recommends.
“Get a system going and stay in the loop on every detail. Everyone else across different departments should be in the loop, but sales and marketing should be very close knit.”
Marketers could shadow sales calls to understand the roadblocks they face, Pearson suggests. For example, do prospects need more education with a how-to video? Does an existing customer need an automated email series set up to onboard them on each feature?
“Understanding this [as a marketer] helps you to create those campaigns that can directly contribute to revenue growth and client retention, not just all the fluffy stuff and vanity metrics like 10,000 TikTok followers,” Pearson adds. 
When both sides know how success is defined, it becomes much easier to support each other. Alignment on the bigger picture matters more than identical KPIs.
Greaves agrees it’s important for B2B sales and marketing to work side-by-side and understand one another’s wins and losses.
“Sharing of the highs and the lows, celebrating and commiserating together. Giving credit where credit is due, but above all maintain a healthy dialogue,” he says.
In some cases, it might even help ease conflict to have sales and marketing teams formalise that greater working proximity, suggests Shickle.
“The best performing teams have joint sales and marketing functions, where structurally and operationally they are in lockstep, and culturally too,” he says.
“Teams know each other, sit together and problem-solve together based on shared insights and goals. This culture helps to foster a deeper understanding of each other’s roles and objectives and, importantly, how each function plays a role in each other’s success.”
After all, reflects Palmer, both teams are ultimately working towards the same goal with the same “north star” – the buyer.
“It’s obvious, but both teams can’t engage with customers and drive sales if they don’t put the buyer and their needs first. Open communication, shared campaign planning and consistent feedback on what buyers respond well to are essential,” he adds.
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Hughman believes the simplest approach is for both teams to talk to each other regularly and share context early.
“When sales can offer real customer insights and marketing can explain the thinking behind their initiatives, both sides end up making better decisions. It really comes down to staying connected rather than operating in silos,” he adds.
Some brands may even want to consider mutual KPIs or performance metrics as a way of cementing the connectedness of the two teams.
“Working from separate goals, objectives and priorities can lead to misalignment,” Palmer notes. “The top GTM [go-to-market] teams always stay aligned with their shared revenue and pipeline targets.”
This approach can only go so far, argues Hughman. While shared goals help, he believes what’s more important is to make sure each team understands what the other is measured on.
“When both sides know how success is defined, it becomes much easier to support each other,” he states. “Alignment on the bigger picture matters more than identical KPIs.”
As does agreeing on what tangible evidence even counts towards evaluating performance, adds Shickle. He points out marketing may have signals on buying intent, audience engagement trends and quality of leads entering the sales cycle.
“Even better, is when marketing can evidence that doing X, Y, Z in the campaign leads to X% sales,” he states.
The best piece of advice Shickle would give marketers grappling with any conflict with their sales team is to work together in tandem, rather than in parallel.
“Sit together, use the same workflow systems and visualise everything,” he says. “One team I worked with had live marketing data on one screen and live sales data on the other, which was visible to everyone in the office. And listen to each other. It stops us working in silos and becomes a shared effort to move the customer forward.”
For Pearson, it’s crucial marketers “enable sales” however they can.
“At the end of the day, business revenue is the most important thing and therefore before starting a new task, taking on a new project, ask yourself. Will this directly or indirectly contribute to more revenue for the business?” he suggests.
The best campaigns, Pearson argues, are those which help the company grow, secure customer success and retain them. 
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Hughman advises marketers to keep resources practical and easy for sales to use, as well as involve salespeople early in the planning so their perspective is “baked in” from the beginning.
“Collaboration feels more natural when both teams help shape the work,” he adds.
For Palmer, it all comes back to keeping that dialogue open – and open-minded.
“Sales doesn’t need more assets. We need a way to highlight the points that actually matter in a deal and communicate them effectively. Maintaining an open dialogue between marketing and sales is crucial,” he states.
“The strongest relationships I’ve had with marketing teams were built on the shared idea that we’re honest and willing to adapt when we see shifts in the market, and in the needs of prospects. Being able to do this quickly and staying close to each other, especially in industry moments that matter, is the difference between losing and winning a deal.”
Something perhaps both sides can agree on.
Read the State of B2B Marketing series so far here.
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