Key takeaways
- The war between marketing and sales is a data problem
- The integration contract
- The dashboard that ends the war
The war between marketing and sales is a data problem
Sales says marketing leads are garbage; marketing says sales never follows up. Both are usually right, and both are symptoms of the same disease: a CRM that records activity but not accountability. The fix is not a tool - it is a data contract between the two teams.
The integration contract
One: agreed definitions - MQL, SQL, qualified, opportunity - written down, not vibes. Two: lead scoring - fit (firmographics) plus behavior (engagement), with the threshold set jointly. Three: activity capture - every touch logged automatically, so 'never followed up' becomes verifiable. Four: round-robin assignment and speed-to-lead alerts. Five: a closed-loop dashboard showing lead source through to won sales.
The dashboard that ends the war
The only number that settles arguments is sales by source: cost per won opportunity, by channel, by campaign. When marketing is measured on opportunities and sales - not clicks and leads - the conversation becomes strategic. Our integrations typically take 30 days to stand up and produce the first sales-by-source report; the team dynamic changes in the same week the report lands.
