---
title: "The One and Only Way to Align Sales and Marketing"
episode: 4
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Cameron Legge"
guest_title: "Engagement Manager, LeanScale"
date_published: 2023-05-03
date_modified: 2026-07-22
duration: 00:14:20
word_count: 2423
topics: ["revenue-operations", "gtm-strategy", "demand-generation", "sales-leadership", "enterprise-sales"]
canonical_url: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/cameron-legge-align-sales-marketing/
source: "LeanScale Podcast Knowledge Hub — https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# The One and Only Way to Align Sales and Marketing

_Cameron Legge uses a basketball coach's playbook to explain why sales and marketing keep two scoreboards — and how to merge them into one_

**Episode 4 · The LeanScale Podcast**  
Cameron Legge, Engagement Manager, LeanScale · Hosted by Anthony Enrico  
Published May 3, 2023 · Updated July 22, 2026 · 00:14:20  
Canonical: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/cameron-legge-align-sales-marketing/

**Topics:** Revenue Operations · GTM Strategy · Demand Generation · Sales Leadership · Enterprise & Public-Sector Sales


## Executive summary

Sales and marketing misalignment is, as Anthony Enrico puts it, 'a tale as old as time.' In this short, tactical episode of The LeanScale Podcast, Anthony hands the whiteboard to LeanScale engagement manager Cameron Legge — a former sales and marketing professional who also coaches his local high school basketball team — to explain the one and only way to actually fix it. Cam's whole argument runs through a sports metaphor: marketing is playing basketball, sales is playing football, and no amount of goodwill aligns two teams who are keeping two different scoreboards.

The symptom everyone recognizes shows up at the monthly review or company offsite: a slide flashes 'how many leads did we get,' marketing says '10,000,' and sales says those numbers are meaningless. That argument, Cam notes, never happens in a basketball game — one team never disputes the other's points, because both are scored on one board. The fix is to get the two functions playing the same sport first, then measuring on the same scoreboard, so they run in the same direction.

The mechanics are concrete. Step one is clearly defining your go-to-market lifecycle — the stages you set up in your CRM, from awareness through closed-won — because that is the foundation for how the game is scored. From there, how you credit marketing depends on sales velocity. In high-velocity businesses (roughly 30–60 day cycles), you run an 'uptempo offense' and tie marketing directly to bookings and closed-won deals; the points land fast and the argument over which team sourced a lead simply dissolves. In long enterprise cycles (12–18 months), you run a 'slow-it-down offense' with no shot clock and credit marketing with 'assists' — created pipeline and sales-qualified leads — while MQLs become leading indicators rather than the goal.

Underneath the metaphor is a real RevOps thesis: alignment is a two-way feedback loop, not a lead-count truce. Sales tells marketing which channels and trade shows are producing real deals; marketing brings branding, positioning, competitive intelligence, and pitch frameworks into the sales process. When both are measured against the same golden stage, nobody cares whose lead it was, and the teamwork becomes a multiplier for the business — and, ultimately, better for customers.

Who should listen: RevOps leaders defining lifecycle and attribution, sales and marketing leaders tired of the offsite scoreboard fight, and founders standing up a go-to-market operating model. The takeaway is disarmingly simple and hard to execute — teams aren't misaligned because they don't want to work together or because one side has weaker people; they're misaligned because they're not playing the same game. Fix the scoreboard and you unlock a positive feedback loop for the whole revenue engine.


## Key takeaways

1. **Misalignment isn't a people problem — it's a scoreboard problem** — Cam's closing point is that sales and marketing don't fail to collaborate because one team has bad people or doesn't want to work together. They fail because they're playing different games — in some cases not even the same sport — and keeping different scoreboards, so their efforts never reconcile.
   _Why it matters:_ Stop trying to fix alignment with more meetings or goodwill. Diagnose it as a measurement-and-lifecycle problem and change what each team is scored on before you expect the behavior to change.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Sales Leaders, Marketing Leaders

2. **Left alone, both teams retreat into silos and their own metrics** — Marketing optimizes the funnel in its own silo against the way it's measured; sales runs around chasing and closing deals in its silo. Each thinks in its own world, which produces the classic 'don't look over the wall at my yard' dynamic.
   _Why it matters:_ Silos are the default state, not a failure of individuals. Any operating model has to actively pull the two functions into a shared plane, because they won't drift there on their own.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Sales Leaders, Marketing Leaders

3. **The '10,000 leads' argument is the tell** — The visible symptom is the offsite slide: marketing reports 10,000 leads, sales calls the number terrible and meaningless. That dispute never happens in basketball — one team doesn't get to declare the other's 30 points 'not real' — because both play to one scoreboard.
   _Why it matters:_ If your reviews devolve into arguments about whether a metric counts, that's the signal your two teams are keeping separate scoreboards. Treat it as the trigger to unify measurement.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Marketing Leaders, Sales Leaders

4. **Define your go-to-market lifecycle first — it's how the game is scored** — The foundational step in alignment is clearly defining your go-to-market lifecycle: the stages you set up in your CRM, from awareness through closed-won. Cam calls it the foundation for 'how we're going to calculate the points,' and stresses it's an ongoing tuning exercise, never set-and-forget.
   _Why it matters:_ Before debating attribution or credit, agree on unambiguous lifecycle stages (including a precise MQL definition). Without shared stage definitions, there's no scoreboard to align to.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Sales Leaders

5. **In high-velocity motions, tie marketing to bookings and closed-won** — For businesses with short 30–60 day cycles — an 'uptempo offense' — align marketing directly to the bookings and closed-won outcome the whole company is racing toward. The points land on the board fast enough that you don't have to reverse-engineer marketing's contribution.
   _Why it matters:_ When the sales cycle is fast, make closed-won the shared golden stage for marketing too. It changes how marketing thinks about what it does and how it does it.
   _For:_ Marketing Leaders, RevOps Leaders

6. **In enterprise cycles, credit marketing with 'assists' — pipeline and SQLs** — In 12–18 month enterprise motions — a 'slow-it-down offense' with no shot clock — closed-won is too far away, and the marketing team that sourced a deal may be gone by the time it closes. So marketing's golden stage becomes created pipeline and sales-qualified leads, with MQLs demoted to leading indicators.
   _Why it matters:_ Match the scoreboard to your sales velocity. Give marketing tangible, near-term credit (SQLs and pipeline created) so the incentive lands within a timeframe the team can actually feel.
   _For:_ Marketing Leaders, Sales Leaders

7. **A shared target kills the 'whose lead was it' argument** — When marketing and sales are measured against the same golden stage, it stops mattering where a lead was sourced. Whether marketing supplied material, sharpened the sequences and messaging, or ran the paid campaigns that fed sales, the credit lands on one shared number — which creates a teamwork mentality.
   _Why it matters:_ Unifying the target removes the political fight over lead source. Design comp and reporting so both teams win or lose together on the same outcome.
   _For:_ RevOps Leaders, Marketing Leaders

8. **Alignment is a two-way feedback loop, not a lead handoff** — Sales tells marketing which channels, trade shows, and events are producing real, workable leads — invaluable both as data and as 'feel.' In return, marketing brings branding, positioning, competitive-landscape intelligence, and pitch frameworks into the sales process itself, a multiplier most sales teams leave on the table.
   _Why it matters:_ Build reciprocal channels in both directions. The biggest missed opportunity is sales not inviting marketing into the pitch — and marketing not listening to the field on where its investment is actually working.
   _For:_ Sales Leaders, Marketing Leaders


## Frameworks

### Same Sport, Same Scoreboard (02:09)

**Definition:** Marketing plays basketball and sales plays football — two different games with two different scoreboards. Alignment means first getting both teams to play the same sport, then to keep the same scoreboard, so they run in the same direction.

The metaphor explains why goodwill never fixes alignment: you can't reconcile touchdowns with three-pointers. The '10,000 leads / those numbers are terrible' argument disappears the moment both functions are scored on one board, the way opposing basketball teams never dispute each other's points.

### Define the Go-To-Market Lifecycle First (07:51)

**Definition:** Clearly define your go-to-market lifecycle — the CRM stages from awareness through closed-won — as the foundation for how points are calculated in the game. It's an ongoing tuning exercise, not a one-time setup.

You can't share a scoreboard without agreed-upon stages. Precise, unambiguous definitions (e.g., what exactly counts as a marketing qualified lead) remove the arguments about whether something 'counts.' Cam references the codified LeanScale method for a best-practice lifecycle.

### Uptempo Offense: Align Marketing to Bookings (08:22)

**Definition:** For high-velocity businesses with ~30–60 day sales cycles, tie marketing's measurement to bookings and closed-won deals — the golden stage the whole company drives toward.

In a fast-break motion the points hit the board quickly, so you don't have to wait and reverse-engineer marketing's role. Anchoring marketing to closed-won changes how the team thinks about its work and dissolves the fight over lead source.

### Slow-It-Down Offense: Credit Marketing with Assists (11:51)

**Definition:** For long enterprise cycles (12–18 months) with no shot clock, credit marketing with 'assists' — created pipeline and sales-qualified leads — rather than closed-won, and treat MQLs as leading indicators.

Closed-won is too far away in enterprise, and the marketing team that sourced a deal may have turned over before it lands. Giving marketing near-term, tangible credit (SQLs and pipeline created) keeps both teams on one scoreboard within a timeframe they can feel.


## Quotes

_Speakers inferred from an undiarized transcript — verify before attributing._

> "We want to use somewhat of a metaphor where marketing is more like playing basketball and sales is more like playing football, America's favorite pastime."
>
> — Cameron Legge, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (02:09)

> "You don't have one team say, 'Oh, we have 30 points,' and the other team says, 'No, that's not even real.'"
>
> — Cameron Legge, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (03:26)

> "If we can align to the same scoreboard, then that'll get the teams to run in the right direction."
>
> — Cameron Legge, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (03:26)

> "This podcast is about getting tactical. We stay away from the high level, stay away from just the pie-in-the-sky ideas. So, okay, we know they're not working together. How do we get these teams working together?"
>
> — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (07:21)

> "The first thing from an alignment standpoint is clearly defining your go-to-market lifecycle, because that's the foundation of how we're going to calculate the points in the game."
>
> — Cameron Legge, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (07:51)

> "We're talking about an uptempo offense here in terms of basketball reference — a fast break up and down the floor. The points are going to be on the scoreboard pretty quickly. You're not waiting around and eventually trying to figure out how marketing played a part."
>
> — Cameron Legge, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (08:22)

> "What we mean by go-to-market lifecycle is actually the stages that you set up in your CRM — what stages are the leads in, what stages are your opportunities in, all the way from awareness to closed-won."
>
> — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (09:22)

> "Who cares where the lead source came from? Who cares if it came from marketing or if it came from sales? Aligning them to the same target really creates that teamwork mentality that we're really striving for."
>
> — Cameron Legge, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (10:25)

> "This is now going to be your slow-it-down offense — no shot clock potentially. So we want to give marketing their fair due when it comes to assists."
>
> — Cameron Legge, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (11:51)

> "From an MQL standpoint, those start to be just leading indicators. Being able to attach them to SQLs, and the assists that they're making in creating that pipeline, is the way that we see enterprise being approached from the scoreboard."
>
> — Cameron Legge, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (12:20)

> "The core of it isn't because they don't want to work together. It's not because one team has good people and the other team doesn't. It's because they're not playing the same game — in some cases, they're not even playing the same sport."
>
> — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 4 (13:31)


## Practical advice by role

### RevOps Leaders

- Start every sales-marketing alignment effort by defining the go-to-market lifecycle — the CRM stages from awareness to closed-won — and keep tuning it; it's the scoreboard everything else hangs on.
- Write unambiguous stage definitions (especially MQL and SQL) so no one can argue about whether something counts.
- Set the shared 'golden stage' by sales velocity: closed-won/bookings for high-velocity motions, created pipeline and SQLs for enterprise.

### Marketing Leaders

- Accept measurement against the same golden stage as sales — closed-won in high-velocity businesses — even though it changes how you think about your work.
- In enterprise, take your 'assists': get credit for created pipeline and SQLs, and treat MQLs as leading indicators rather than the finish line.
- Push to speak into the sales process — bring branding, positioning, competitive intelligence, and pitch frameworks that make sellers more effective.

### Sales Leaders

- Close the feedback loop: tell marketing which channels, trade shows, and events are producing real, workable leads so investment follows what works.
- Invite marketing into the pitch process instead of guarding it — most teams leave a big multiplier on the table by keeping marketing out of the deal.
- Stop fighting over lead source; once both teams share a target, the argument is moot and collaboration replaces it.


## Operations takeaways

### Revenue operations

- **Lifecycle is the scoreboard.** Define CRM stages from awareness to closed-won first; alignment is impossible without shared, unambiguous stage definitions.
- **Scoreboard by velocity.** High-velocity motions score marketing on bookings/closed-won; enterprise motions score it on created pipeline and SQL assists, with MQLs as leading indicators.
- **One target ends the lead-source fight.** When both teams are measured on the same golden stage, it stops mattering who sourced the lead — the incentive produces teamwork instead of turf wars.
- **Feedback loop both ways.** Sales informs channel and event investment; marketing informs positioning and the pitch. The loop is the multiplier, not the handoff.


## Metrics mentioned

| Value | Metric | Context |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 30–60 days | High-velocity sales cycle | The 'uptempo offense' range where marketing should be tied to bookings and closed-won because the points land on the scoreboard quickly. |
| 12–18 months | Enterprise sales cycle | The 'slow-it-down offense' range where marketing is credited with assists — created pipeline and SQLs — because closed-won is too far away. |
| 10,000 leads | Offsite lead-count dispute | The illustrative number marketing reports on the offsite slide that sales dismisses as meaningless — the visible symptom of two separate scoreboards. |


## Entities mentioned

- **LeanScale** (company) — The firm behind the podcast; Cameron Legge is an engagement manager here, and he references the codified 'LeanScale method' go-to-market lifecycle as the best-practice foundation for aligning sales and marketing on one scoreboard. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/company/leanscale/
- **Cameron Legge** (person, guest) — Customer-success professional and early LeanScale Engagement Manager; a CS practitioner who argues customer success is a company's 'front porch' and most underrated growth engine. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/guest/cameron-legge/
- **Anthony Enrico** (person, host) — Co-founder of LeanScale and host of The LeanScale Podcast. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/guest/anthony-enrico/


## FAQ

**Q: What is the one way to align sales and marketing?**

A: Put both teams on the same scoreboard. In this LeanScale Podcast episode, Cameron Legge argues sales and marketing behave like two teams playing different sports with different scoreboards. The fix is to define a shared go-to-market lifecycle (your CRM stages from awareness to closed-won) and measure marketing against the same golden stage sales cares about, so both functions run toward one outcome.

**Q: Why do sales and marketing keep fighting about leads?**

A: Because they keep separate scoreboards. The classic symptom is an offsite slide where marketing reports thousands of leads and sales calls the number meaningless. That dispute happens when the two teams measure success differently; it disappears once both are scored on the same shared stage, the way opposing basketball teams never argue about each other's points.

**Q: What is a go-to-market lifecycle and why does it matter for alignment?**

A: A go-to-market lifecycle is the set of stages you define in your CRM — from awareness through marketing qualified lead, sales qualified lead, opportunity, and closed-won. It matters because it's the foundation for how the 'game' is scored. Without unambiguous stage definitions there's no shared scoreboard, so agreeing on the lifecycle is the first step to aligning sales and marketing.

**Q: How should you measure marketing in a high-velocity sales model?**

A: Tie marketing directly to bookings and closed-won deals. In high-velocity businesses with roughly 30–60 day sales cycles, results land on the scoreboard quickly, so you don't have to reverse-engineer marketing's contribution. Anchoring marketing to closed-won changes how the team thinks about its work and removes arguments over which team sourced a given lead.

**Q: How do you align marketing in a long enterprise sales cycle?**

A: Credit marketing with 'assists.' In enterprise motions of 12–18 months, closed-won is too far away and the sourcing marketer may have moved on before a deal lands. Instead, measure marketing on created pipeline and sales-qualified leads, and treat marketing qualified leads as leading indicators rather than the final goal.

**Q: What is the difference between an MQL and an SQL for alignment purposes?**

A: A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is an earlier-stage, leading-indicator signal that marketing generates; a sales-qualified lead (SQL) is a lead sales has accepted as a legitimate opportunity worth pursuing. For enterprise alignment, marketing gets scoreboard credit for SQLs and created pipeline, with MQLs treated as leading indicators — provided both stages are defined clearly enough that there's no argument about what counts.

**Q: Is sales and marketing misalignment a people problem?**

A: Usually not. Cameron Legge's conclusion is that teams don't fail to collaborate because one side has weaker people or doesn't want to work together — they fail because they're playing different games and keeping different scoreboards. Fixing the shared lifecycle and measurement, not the people, is what unlocks collaboration and a positive feedback loop for the business.


## Timeline

- **00:00** — Cold open + welcome
- **00:21** — A tale as old as time — meet Coach Cam
- **01:34** — How sales and marketing operate in silos
- **02:09** — Basketball vs. football: two different games
- **03:26** — Same sport, then the same scoreboard
- **04:13** — What silos leave on the table: the feedback loop
- **06:19** — Bringing marketing into the sales process
- **07:21** — Getting tactical: how do you actually align them?
- **07:51** — Step one: define your go-to-market lifecycle
- **08:22** — High-velocity: tie marketing to bookings (uptempo offense)
- **10:25** — One target, one team — who cares where the lead came from
- **11:21** — Enterprise cycles: assists, pipeline, and SQLs
- **13:04** — Wrap-up: fix the game, not the people


## Related episodes

- **Ep. 1: Why Is Multi-Touch Attribution So Hard? And Is Anyone Actually Doing It?** (LeanScale) — The attribution counterpart to 'who cares where the lead came from' — how to credit marketing's contribution across the funnel. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/bernardo-alves-multi-touch-attribution/
- **Ep. 18: Our Fastest Growing Customers Are Measuring These 3 Marketing Metrics** (LeanScale) — Goes deeper on the marketing side of the shared scoreboard — which marketing metrics actually matter. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/bernardo-3-marketing-metrics/
- **Ep. 17: 3 Sales Metrics You Need to Measure** (LeanScale) — The sales-side companion to the marketing-metrics discussion; both feed the unified scoreboard. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/bernardo-3-sales-metrics-to-measure/
- **Ep. 6: Why Your Forecast Is Broken** (LeanScale) — Extends measurement and lifecycle discipline into forecasting — the downstream payoff of a clean go-to-market lifecycle. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/why-your-forecast-is-broken/
- **Ep. 2: How to Measure New Business With Usage-Based Pricing** (LeanScale) — Another measurement-first episode on defining what counts as a win when the model complicates attribution. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/bernardo-alves-usage-based-pricing/
- **Ep. 15: Where Should RevOps Report?** (LeanScale) — Org-design companion — where the neutral function that owns the shared scoreboard should sit. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/cameron-legge-where-revops-report/


## Full transcript

_Machine-transcribed and not diarized; speaker attribution is inferred._  
_Transcript only, as a separate file: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/cameron-legge-align-sales-marketing/transcript.md_

### 00:00 — Cold open + welcome

**[0:00]** Hi, I'm Anthony. Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast, where we talk about everything RevOps. Thanks for listening.

### 00:21 — A tale as old as time — meet Coach Cam

**[0:21]** Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast, where we talk about everything RevOps. Today, we're going to be talking about a tale as old as time. The never-ending struggle to align sales and marketing. With me today is Cameron Legge, currently an Engagement Manager for LeanScale, but most importantly, coaches his local high school basketball team. And I thought he could bring some of his courtside expertise to the issue of getting teams aligned. Cameron, thanks for being here. Appreciate it, Anthony. I can definitely say I have the whistle ready. Excited about another episode of the podcast. I think we're going on

**[0:55]** episode four here. So I think it's time to tell the folks that are tuning in and watching and listening religiously. It's time to like, comment, subscribe. Let's go. It's The LeanScale Podcast. Come on. That's right. All the reshares, all the likes. Much appreciated. We hope you appreciate the content and we're happy to keep bringing these topics to you. So let's hop into it. If you could just describe what you typically see in your experience as an Engagement Manager at LeanScale also being a sales professional marketing professional in the past. How do you typically see these departments working together?

### 01:34 — How sales and marketing operate in silos

**[1:34]** Yeah, I think in terms of them working together, a lot of times we see some silos between those two teams. Marketing is making decisions and thinking about the marketing funnel in their own silo and making decisions based on what they feel like is working and the way that they're being measured and how they want to reach those goals. They're thinking about their world, in their world, in their silo. Then you have sales that's also operating in their silo and spending a lot of time obviously running around hustling, getting deals, you know, down the funnel and

### 02:09 — Basketball vs. football: two different games

**[2:09]** close wanting deals, of course. So a lot of times we do see them operating in their own games, right? So as you talked about me being a basketball coach and leaning into the sports analogy, I think we want to use the somewhat of a metaphor where marketing is more than playing basketball and sales is more playing football, America's favorite pastime. And we just, I think from that standpoint, just see those two games being different and being able to align those two games. And I think we even joked about getting LeBron James to play tight end for you and making that

**[2:49]** crossover is extremely important and having a high level of collaboration can be extremely fruitful for the business when you're just having that high level of collaboration. I think when this shows up, when you're in a company, and I don't know if you've seen this, you probably have, but where this is usually obvious is when you're doing a monthly review or you're sharing results at a company offsite and the slide comes up, how many leads did we get? And then marketing will say, Oh, we got 10,000 leads. And then sales is like, Oh, those numbers are terrible. That doesn't even make sense. And that doesn't happen when you're

### 03:26 — Same sport, then the same scoreboard

**[3:26]** watching a basketball game. You don't have one team say, Oh, we have 30 points. And the other team says, No, that's not even real. And I think they met up the metaphor makes a lot of sense, like getting the two teams to at least play the same sport. But then even better, if we can align to the same scoreboard, then that'll get the teams to run in the right direction. So what opportunities are typically missed? What's left on the table by having these teams run in silos? Yeah, that's a great question. I think the big key is the ability to have the sales team collaborate on marketing initiatives. The sales team is going to feel and

### 04:13 — What silos leave on the table: the feedback loop

**[4:13]** also be rewarded by marketing initiatives that are working. So when they're investing in certain channels, that the sales team can then clearly say, whether it's a data driven, right? So, hey, I know I've got deals coming in from marketing channels, and the inbound is pumping. And that's great for me because I can jump in and start to move this down the funnel. That feedback is invaluable, from a data perspective, but then also just the feel, right, you have sales reps attending trade shows

**[4:44]** and other levels of events that sales teams are attending. And they get a pretty good sense of what's working and what's not, you know, when they come back from a trade show, and knowing, you know, hey, this was a productive couple of days or a week, I know we've got some long conferences out there in the business world. But knowing, you know, hey, I'm coming back with some legitimate leads that I can go after. So that just level of collaboration and just that feedback loop, where sometimes when we talk about those silos that

**[5:16]** marketing and sales are working in, it's it can kind of get to the point where it's, hey, don't look over the wall at my yard, right? Like, hey, I, you know, I'm focused on marketing every day, I know what's going to work well. But when you're able to have that feedback loop, and be able to collaborate at a level where nobody's getting their feelings hurt, right? We're all smart business professionals, we're all trying to pull in the same direction and grow the company. I think those things matter a lot. And the same thing can be

**[5:47]** said from marketing to sales, right? It's not just a sales feedback loop for marketing and where their investment should be made. But also, you know, allowing marketing to speak into things that are happening and happening in the sales process based on their experience in the marketing process, I think can be such a big multiplier for your business when you're allowing that feedback loop to happen in a healthy way. And just having that collaboration can just be really fruitful for the business.

### 06:19 — Bringing marketing into the sales process

**[6:19]** I think that makes a lot of sense. And I want to double click on marketing getting involved in the sales process, because I think a lot of sales professionals probably have an opinion about how they can get involved in marketing and might be missing a huge opportunity by inviting marketing into the sales process. You typically have teams that are well trained, well experienced in branding, positioning, understanding the marketplace that you're in, involving marketing in how you're explaining the product, how you're

**[6:51]** explaining the value that it can offer, and then really understanding the competitive landscape as well, and incorporating that into the sales process, incorporating that into the pitch process, I think is invaluable. And we lose the opportunity to leverage a lot of frameworks that would make us as sales professionals, more effective by not bringing marketing teams into the process itself. So this podcast is about getting tactical, we stay away from high level stay away from just the pie in the sky

### 07:21 — Getting tactical: how do you actually align them?

**[7:21]** ideas. So okay, we know they're not working together. Typically, some companies have it down and we're proud of you. But that's that's not the norm. How do we get these teams working together? What do we have to do? Yeah, so bringing that question back to our analogy, right? It's how do we turn touchdowns and field goals and merge those together with three pointers, two pointers and free throws, right? So I think the first thing from an alignment standpoint is clearly defining your

### 07:51 — Step one: define your go-to-market lifecycle

**[7:51]** go to market lifecycle. So having that really drilled in, because that's the foundation of how we're going to calculate the points in the game. So I know here at lean scale, we work with our customers on a regular basis, it's never a perfect science where it's set, and then it's done, right? It's an ongoing process of dialing in that go to market lifecycle. We have a very clear one that we have in our lean scale method. So shout out to all the folks that you know, are able to contribute to what we think is best practice from a go to market

### 08:22 — High-velocity: tie marketing to bookings (uptempo offense)

**[8:22]** lifecycle perspective, and we'd love to share that with folks out there. But having that dialed in is just so important. And when you think about that scoreboard, and we're merging together that scoreboard between marketing and sales, when I think about companies that we work with that are a little bit more high velocity from a sales cycle standpoint, aligning marketing to the bookings outcomes that happen, right? When you're talking about a low sales cycle, so let's say anywhere from 30 to 60 days and that high

**[8:50]** velocity range, the points are going to be on the scoreboard rather quickly, right? We're talking about an uptempo offense here in terms of basketball reference, right? We're talking fast break up and down the floor. So the points are going to be on the scoreboard pretty quickly, right? You're not waiting around and eventually trying to figure out how marketing played a part. That's true. That's true. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, so again, for those who might what we mean by go to market lifecycle is actually the stages that you set up in your CRM. So what

**[9:22]** stages are the leads in what stages are your opportunities in all the way from awareness to closed one. So getting alignment on that, of course, makes a lot of sense so that it's really well defined. If you have something moving to a marketing qualified lead, there's no argument about what that means. And if it counts, or if it doesn't count, where if you use generic terms that that might, that might be the case. But to your point on high velocity, if you get marketing tied to the goal of closed one deals, and like you said, typically 3060 day sales cycle, I think that

**[9:56]** completely changes how they think about what they do and how they do it. Could you dive deeper into that one? Absolutely. So I think just from that standpoint, the points are going to be scored, right? They're going to be scored in a tangible range where you know the outcome. So aligning marketing to that bookings number or the closed one deals, right where the whole company is trying to get to everybody's pushing towards a closed one deal, right? That's, that's what we would call a golden

### 10:25 — One target, one team — who cares where the lead came from

**[10:25]** stage. So having marketing being measured in that same way, is just so crucial. And I think it's really important to to hone in on that and be able to have them a part of that number. And I also think that creates an environment. Who cares where the lead source came from? Who cares if it came from marketing or if it came from sales? Did marketing give sales material that help them get their own leads? Or did they help

**[10:51]** them with their sequences and cadences to get the right messaging to, you know, book an opportunity and book a close one deal? If so, that's great. The marketing helped and sales can can be appreciative. Or did marketing set up great paid advertising campaigns that develop the fruits of those campaigns for sales too? So I think aligning them to the same target really creates that teamwork mentality that that we're really striving for.

### 11:21 — Enterprise cycles: assists, pipeline, and SQLs

**[11:21]** So that works for high velocity. And we have a lot of customers that we work with that are in that segment. What about companies that have major enterprise sales cycles, long drawn out? I mean, we work with companies that have 12 18 month sales cycles. How do you get them playing the same game, when the points are going to be so far away, you might not even have the same marketing team members around by the time the deal actually moves to close one.

**[11:51]** Yeah, let's let's dive into the enterprise world. And this is now going to be your slow it down offense, right? We're no shot clock potentially. So we want to give marketing their fair due when it comes to assists, right, as we continue on with the basketball metaphors here. So the closed one of marketing and our eyes as a sales qualified lead. So when you're thinking about enterprise and marketing is closed one golden stage is what are we able to drive in terms of

**[12:20]** created pipeline and sales qualified leads. So that's where we would want to give them their due on the scoreboard. So I think that's really important. And, you know, in that, that scenario, when we're thinking enterprise, you know, from an MQL standpoint, or marketing qualified leads, those start to be just leading indicators, right? So being able to then really attach them to SQLs, and the assists that they're making in creating that pipeline, I think is the way that we see enterprise being approached from the scoreboard, right, and making sure that they have their part in terms of scoring points on that scoreboard.

### 13:04 — Wrap-up: fix the game, not the people

**[13:04]** Yeah, that seems to work just so well, when sales says, yes, this is a lead. Thank you. I'm moving forward to the conversation with a legitimate opportunity. There's no denying that marketing gets credit for that activity. So let's wrap it up. Typically, these departments are not fully aligned. It's something that we see with our customer base. It's something we've seen in our past experience.

**[13:31]** I'm sure a lot of people listening have seen this in their organizations as well. And the core of it isn't because they don't want to work together. It's not because you know, one team has good people, the other team doesn't. It's because they're not playing the same game. In some cases, they're not even playing the same sport. So that has to be fixed in order for them to collaborate together. And when you do that, then you open up the opportunity for both teams to add value to each other, create a positive feedback loop that ultimately is good for your customers and good for your business.

**[14:08]** Cam, thank you so much for being here today. Really appreciate you going to this topic. Love the basketball metaphors and looking forward to the next one. Awesome. Thanks, Anthony.


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