Why do Sales and Marketing teams often have such a love/hate relationship? Both tribes care about growth more than anyone else in the business.
So what can be accomplished when they really work together? Sarah shares 10 practical strategies to unite your Sales and Marketing teams.
“When two tribes go to war, A point is all that you can score.”
– Frankie Goes Hollywood
It’s been over forty years since Frankie sang those words, and yet here we are, still watching Sales and Marketing glare at each other across the office like rival clans who share a border and a grudge.
Both tribes are brilliant. Both are passionate. Both care about growth more than anyone else in the business.
And yet, somewhere between the pipeline and the PowerPoint, things get… political.
Marketing sighs that Sales “don’t use the content.”
Sales mutter that Marketing “don’t get the client.”
And while the bickering continues, opportunities quietly walk out the door. Because when two tribes go to war, everyone loses. But when they join forces? That’s when the real magic happens – and empires get built.
The Power of One Tribe
Businesses where Sales and Marketing genuinely work together don’t just get along better, they perform better.
According to Wheelhouse Advisors, companies with true alignment see:
These aren’t ‘nice-to-haves’, they’re bottom-line transformation.
So, what can you do to get your Sales and Marketing teams to integrate for success? Here are ten top tips.
1. Share the Campfire
Nothing kills collaboration like isolation.
So, pull your chairs closer. Sit in on each other’s meetings. Nominate a weekly cultural exchange – one marketer, one salesperson, one coffee. Or better yet, and here’s a novel idea, have one meeting where everyone hears the same truths, at the same time.
You can’t build trust through email chains and assumptions. You build it around the campfire.
What’s in it for Marketing: Real insight into client pain points, unfiltered. You’ll start creating content that sounds less ‘brand guide’ and more ‘real life’.
What’s in it for Sales: You stop getting blindsided by campaigns you didn’t know existed. You’re in the loop early enough to use what’s coming, not apologise for it later.
2. Unite from Day One
Stop inviting the other team to the party once the cake’s been cut. If you want campaigns that actually move the dial, get both tribes in the room from the start, not to ‘sign off’, but to build it together.
Sales and Marketing both know the client, the story, and the stakes. So why act like one owns the story and the other owns the conversation? Own the story together and guide the conversation. The best ideas happen where brand meets buyer and speaks their language.
And please, can we retire the ‘create it, then hand it over’ routine? It’s not a relay race, it’s co-creation. Stop passing the baton and start running side by side.
What’s in it for Marketing: Campaigns that actually work in the wild, not just look good on the deck. Less rework, more results, and guess what, Sales will stop ignoring your content and take our campaign to market.
What’s in it for Sales: You get a say before the campaign’s built, not after it’s live. No more random campaigns landing in your inbox like a cold takeaway. You help shape stuff that actually helps you sell.
3. Redraw the Map
Once upon a time, AIDA ruled the world: Awareness and Interest (Marketing), Desire and Action (Sales).
Neat. Predictable. Outdated.
Buyers today do what they want, when they want. They research, compare, ghost, reappear, and decide long before you realise they’re interested.
If Sales and Marketing are still arguing about where the ‘handover’ happens, they’ve already lost them. The modern funnel is shared territory and while it can be represented as many things (a bowtie, a flywheel, etc), the one thing it is, is a continuous journey that you have to own together.
What’s in it for Marketing: You finally see what happens after the lead. Better targeting, sharper storytelling, stronger ROI.
What’s in it for Sales: Warmer leads, better timing, and messaging that lines up with how buyers actually buy, not how org charts or ‘Boring Brenda’ audience personas think they should.
4. Lead Like You Mean It
Tribal tension starts – and preferably ends – at the top. If Sales and Marketing leaders snipe at each other, their teams will too. If they share credit, the culture shifts overnight.
Your teams take their cue from you. So, lead like adults. Model collaboration, reward it, and make it impossible for politics to win.
What’s in it for Marketing: Visibility, influence, and a seat at the table that’s earned through proof, not pleading.
What’s in it for Sales: Leaders who have your back when a campaign works, and who’ll help fix it when it doesn’t.
5. Know Your Buyer – Together
Sales and Marketing are chasing the same people, but sometimes you’d never know it.
Build one shared picture of the buyer using part data, part human story. Agree on what a good lead truly looks like. Map the journey from curiosity to commitment, then put it where everyone can see it.
When everyone’s working from the same playbook, the noise dies down and the focus sharpens.
What’s in it for Marketing: Campaigns that attract the right leads, not just more leads. Instant credibility.
What’s in it for Sales: Less time chasing ghosts, more time closing deals that were worth the effort from day one.
6. Tell the Story Together
Marketing’s job isn’t to ‘make things pretty’. Sales’ job isn’t just to ‘close’. Both tell stories. One paints the picture, the other brings it to life.
Stop thinking in sequence and start thinking in stereo. Blend Marketing’s tone of voice with Sales’ real-world persuasion and you’ll get content that converts.
Bonus: it also saves you from the ‘where’s the Marketing ROI?’ ‘why do you need a brochure?’ and ‘why can’t you sell without a piece of paper?’ questions. In reality, no one likes those, and they distract from what you should be doing. Winning together.
What’s in it for Marketing: Real-world validation – your content isn’t just beautiful, it’s useful.
What’s in it for Sales: Tools and stories that sound like you, not like they were written in a vacuum.
7. Enable, Don’t Entrap
Sales enablement should be a playground, not a filing cabinet. Co-create tools and resources together. One builds, one tests, both refine.
Make access easy. Use data, not guesswork, to see what’s actually helping, and what is hindering.
When enablement becomes collaboration instead of delegation, everyone wins.
What’s in it for Marketing: Proof that your work drives deals — no more ‘soft metrics’.
What’s in it for Sales: Tools that earn their keep and make selling smoother, not slower.
8. Make Feedback a Ritual
Don’t wait until the post-mortem to talk. Run quick, honest check-ins during every campaign.
What’s landing? What’s flopping? What are clients saying? Then adjust in real time.
Treat feedback as shared intel, not a performance review. That’s how tribes evolve – through stories, not scorecards.
What’s in it for Marketing: You hear what really happened, not the filtered version. That’s how you build better campaigns, faster.
What’s in it for Sales: You get to shape campaigns while they’re live, not after they’re over. That’s influence, not hindsight.
9. Practice Radical Empathy
Marketing feel the pressure to prove ROI. Sales feel the pressure to hit target. Both are under fire, just from different angles.
Swap perspectives now and then. Let a marketer sit in on a sales call. Let a salesperson join a creative brainstorm. It’s harder to roll your eyes at each other once you’ve seen the view from the other side.
What’s in it for Marketing: Real-world empathy makes your messaging more human, and your numbers more impressive.
What’s in it for Sales: You stop seeing ‘brand’ as fluff and start seeing it as fuel.
10. Celebrate the Win, Together
When Sales and Marketing finally act as one tribe, the energy shifts. Campaigns run smoother. Leads turn faster. Wins feel shared, not stolen.
It’s more than alignment – it’s momentum.
When you finally build one team, working together, the success happens organically. Beyond that you have each other’s backs and you come together to prove why something is the right topic for the business to be talking about to gain share of voice, why market conditions may be holding back your numbers but what you’re doing to deal with that and why both teams are needed to grow the business…together!
Because when two tribes unite, they don’t just hit targets. They make noise. They make change. They make the brand unstoppable.
So go on and try it. Turn down the volume on the rivalry and turn up the unity.
It’s time to stop scoring points and start building something worth singing about.
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