When sales and marketing work together, the results are staggering.

Specifically, businesses are 67% more effective at closing deals and 58% at retaining customers.

Historically, while sales and marketing function toward the same goal—getting more customers and driving revenue—they don’t often approach that goal cross-functionally. Instead, they often work in silos, unaware of what the other half is doing. 

And too frequently, one side will blame the other for poor performance. 

In this blog, we’ll talk about why fractional leadership is key to breaking down barriers between both powerhouses and driving mutual accountability.

The Trouble With Lack of Alignment

If you had a superhero team, you wouldn’t want two of your most important members not working together. The same logic applies to sales and marketing. 

When both sides aren’t aligned, the business suffers in myriad ways. Often, there can be confusion about what kind of customers to go after, which can result in poor lead generation, lower conversions, and unqualified leads.

Similarly, a lack of clarity about customer needs can impact both parties. If marketing doesn’t understand the customer, they can’t create targeted content for sales to use to speak with those customers. When that happens, fewer customers get tailored messaging that tackles their unique issues—and as a result, business revenue suffers.

But the business isn’t the only entity affected. Customers feel the ripple effects, too. Customers may expect something different from the business’s product or service as a result of marketing efforts, and then they may have an entirely different experience when communicating with sales. This makes customer churn a huge probability.

All these challenges speak to one central theme: a lack of clarity.

Related: Closing the Gap: Smarketing Strategies for Superior Lead Generation

The Source of the Issue and What To Do About It

Poor sales and marketing alignment comes down to both sides not being clear on who their customers are, what their customers want, what their company messaging is, and what their particular goals are. 

This is where effective marketing leadership can make the biggest impact.

A leader can speak with both parties and facilitate clear roles and responsibilities across both, so every player knows what they’re doing and why. 

But for many organizations, hiring a full-time CMO is not in their budget. And even if it was, finding a qualified professional takes time and resources that they just might not have.

A fractional CMO might be exactly what’s needed. A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who combines strategy with execution. They will work alongside your team using a hands-on approach to drive up sales and increase revenue. 

They help your business get clear on your customers and their needs, hold internal staff and vendors accountable, and stay on board to ensure your strategy is executed correctly—all at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time leader.

Related: What’s the Deal with Fractional CMOs?

Working Toward Your North Star

As we mentioned previously, sales and marketing can fall out of alignment when they’re not clear on company goals or messaging.  

A fractional leader can help both sides head toward the same destination—but using different routes.

One way to do this is by creating a unique selling proposition (USP) for your company, which helps your internal team and your customers understand what makes your business more appealing than your competition.

When sales and marketing understand their company’s USP, they can speak with customers in a more focused and consistent way. This ensures the customer journey is seamless from the first tap on a website to the deal being closed.

Related: Getting Sales and Marketing on Board with Your Unique Selling Proposition

Understanding Your Audience

Part of sales and marketing speaking with customers in the same manner comes down to something obvious, but often hard to get right: understanding the buyer.

A fractional leader can conduct buyer interviews to better understand how your customers make decisions and what might stop them from making a purchase.

When that happens, both sales and marketing can communicate with customers using the same language based on real insights from those customers. They can tackle common challenges they might have, cite particular goals customers have, and establish their business as an authority in the space.

Related: Don’t Guess How Customers Decide: Do Buyer Interviews

Clear the Air Between Sales and Marketing

If your sales and marketing teams could use a fresh start for 2024, a fractional leader can give you the clarity and insights you need to get both sides working in tandem. 

Click here to set up a 30-minute, no-obligation call with a fractional CMO. During that discovery call, you can identify challenges your company has with sales and marketing alignment and brainstorm ways to address the issue.

Want to learn even more ways to improve sales and marketing alignment?

Join us for the Sales Xceleration Summit, taking place in Atlanta from January 22–24. 

yorCMO is a proud sponsor of the summit, working together with Sales Xceleration to help you make sales and marketing collaboration a reality using a proven, holistic approach that tackles strategy development, lead generation, value prop positioning, and sales enablement.

Want to learn more about how we can help your business by adding Fractional CMO to your team?  Book a call with our team here

 Not sure if the Fractional Model is a fit for you? Check out our free guide to learn more.