07/22/2026
Do sales and marketing define success differently?
Marketing does their job and delivers leads. But when those leads reach sales, the feedback is that those leads are not ready to buy.
Marketing looks at the data and sees leads sitting untouched for days.
On the other hand, Sales pushes back and says the messaging brought in the wrong people to begin with.
Both teams are working hard. Both teams think the other one is the problem. And while they go back and forth, deals are quietly falling through the cracks.
According to LinkedIn research, 97% of business leaders say sales-marketing misalignment hurts their revenue. And yet some companies treat alignment as a "nice-to-have" instead of a growth requirement.
The truth is, when these two teams operate independently (with separate goals, metrics, and definitions of success) friction builds at every stage.
The fix is alignment. Both teams agreeing on what a qualified lead looks like, working from the same messaging, and being accountable to the same revenue goals. When that's in place, lead quality improves, sales cycles shorten, and close rates go up, because everyone is finally working toward the same outcome.
Sales and marketing should not b two separate departments with two separate scorecards. They're two halves of one revenue team, and every day they spend misaligned is revenue left on the table.
If your sales and marketing teams don’t have a shared definition of what a "qualified lead" actually means, we can help. Let’s have a conversation: https://www.xzito.com/book-a-growth-conversation-xzito