Sometimes Marketing Set Sales Up For Failure

Since I live in my clients’ CRMs, I get a good view into down-funnel lead performance. I actually provide all of my clients with analyses that break down how often leads become SQLs, and how often SQLs result in actual revenue. This vantage point allows me to see how marketing activity can influence sales departments.

In most cases, I’m fortunate enough to work with teams who are collaborative and align themselves to the same revenue goals. However, I have seen some instances where marketing and sales teams don’t align on bottom-line metrics, and this can put a big strain on sales teams.

Below I’ll break down how I’ve seen some marketing teams set their sales counterparts up for failure, and how this can be remedied.

Focusing On Lead Volume Over Quality

One of the most inefficient practices I’ve seen from a marketing team is when they focus on lead volume over quantity. This can take the form of marketing simply looking at cost per meeting, and the number of meetings booked.

The marketing team may believe they’ve had a successful month when cost per meeting dropped and meeting volume increased, but I’ve seen this correlate to lower show up and close rates for the sales team. At the end of the day this hurts CAC and profitability for the business.

I’ve heard statements like “sales needs to work on improving their close rate for these leads to be similar to other channels.”

This can be a big indicator that it actually isn’t a sales problem at all, but a marketing one. If the sales team is having success closing leads from other sources then chances are they’ve got a good system figured out. In actuality, it may be that the marketing leads just simply aren’t ready to have a conversation about making a purchase.

Shifting the focus to the sales team and their close rate can start a downward spiral for the business.

Separate Department Goals Can Lead To Sales Bloat

When marketing is focused on cost per meeting and meeting volume, I’ve seen sales teams start to hire more reps to meet revenue goals.

Unfortunately, this can be a slippery slope. If close rate is poor and CAC is below the business’s breakeven point, hiring more sales reps to handle a larger meeting volume simply amplifies the existing problem.

Yes, overall revenue will increase, but so will overall losses. The entire go-to-market (GTM) program would have already been inefficient, so increasing headcount puts more strain on the business. If this practice is sustained over the course of a few months, it can lead to layoffs and hurt a business’s cash reserves.

Solution: Align Marketing and Sales To Revenue Efficiency Goals

When marketing and sales teams are aligned to revenue efficiency goals like CAC (customer acquisition cost), then the entire business can grow more efficiently.

By focusing on KPIs closer to the bottom line, teams can diagnose when there’s a big discrepancy in close rates between channels, and determine where it makes sense to focus process optimization.

For example, if the sales team has an average close rate of 40% across all channels, but only closes at 15% for leads coming through Meta, that’s most likely a marketing issue. In these scenarios, chances are the show up rate for meetings will also be low, but cost per meeting might appear to be relatively efficient. This is often because the leads being generated are low quality, and they’re not ready to speak to the sales team yet.

When conducting analyses like these across departments, teams can more quickly identify where the leaks are in their GTM bucket.

Wrapping Up

Even though I work in marketing, I fully acknowledge that certain marketing practices can set sales teams up for failure.

Based on my experience, aligning both departments to the same revenue efficiency goals can help improve performance for the overall GTM function. This may result in lower overall lead volume and slower revenue growth, but the foundational processes will allow the business to grow more sustainably.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn.