Sales & Marketing Alignment: 5 Collaboration Best Practices

Sales and marketing teams operate differently by design: Sales focuses on personalized, one-to-one interactions, while Marketing engages and nurtures audiences at scale. 

Companies need both skill sets to survive and thrive. But neither drive sustainable growth on their own. Your Sales and Marketing teams have to collaborate—your company’s survival may depend on it.

In 2025, SaaS is not a burgeoning industry. It’s a full-blown market, and the competition is fierce. In this reality, your company’s success hinges on how well your revenue teams work together.

Enter revenue enablement, a more holistic way of operating sales and marketing teams (as well as customer success) that revolves around the shared goal of revenue growth.

In this guide, we’ll go into more detail about why sales and marketing alignment is so crucial right now, how revenue enablement is key to alignment, and what you can do to implement it successfully.

Why sales and marketing alignment matters in 2025

“The marketing team needs to change their mindset from just driving leads to generating revenue.”
—Alex Kracov, founder and CEO, Dock

For revenue leaders, the challenges of 2025 demand a more integrated approach to sales and marketing. Economic uncertainty has raised the stakes for every lead, making it essential to focus on prospects who are not just high-quality but also likely to convert and stay.

That said, achieving this focus is difficult when sales and marketing teams aren’t on the same page. 

Misalignment between sales and marketing can result in costly inefficiencies, such as unqualified leads clogging the pipeline or prospects dropping out during onboarding, jeopardizing revenue growth in an already competitive environment. 

Fortunately, revenue enablement solves this problem.

Revenue enablement is the process of uniting revenue-generating teams—Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success—under one roof and one set of shared goals. 

This shift is especially critical in Product-Led Growth (PLG) models, where leads often originate within the product itself, making the sales funnel especially fuzzy.

Because of high expectations from customers, sales departments also need to embrace Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies that go beyond sales calls, such as creating personalized content and hosting networking events that benefit the buying team.

When everyone rallies around revenue as the ultimate goal, it’s easier to focus on what really matters: growing the business and keeping customers happy.

When should you start thinking about sales and marketing alignment?

“Sales technique is important. But the more fundamental piece of knowledge you can get is understanding your buyer so well that you can peer into their soul. If you can get to that point, everything becomes far, far easier.”
—Chris Orlob, former Head of Sales and Growth at Gong Labs and Director of Product Marketing at Gong

It’s never too early to start thinking about aligning sales and marketing. Ideally, cross-functional collaboration is built into company culture from the very start. Some forward-thinking startups discard the labels of sales, marketing, and customer success (CS) and put these departments under the umbrella of Go To Market (GTM). Others include Revenue Operations (RevOps) roles and functions from day one.

However, most teams feel the pains of misalignment—low-quality leads, poor communication, early churn, etc.—especially further on in a company’s lifetime. If you’re in this bucket, you’re not alone, and you’re definitely ready to start implementing a strategy to fix it.

Like all cross-functional jobs, however, it can be hard to decide who steers the ship.

Who should be in charge of aligning sales and marketing teams?

“I think a lot of companies sort of get that [cross-functional team leadership] wrong, where they're like, ‘Well, yeah, our product works. We've got five customers that are in this segment. Let's just build a six-person sales team, and it'll magically work.’ But the reality is: sales is the last piece.”
—Dini Mehta, former CRO of Lattice

Every company is structured differently, but many go through similar stages of maturity. Here’s how we view those stages and who should take the lead when.

Early-stage SaaS (startup)

• CEO or Founder: In small startups, the CEO often drives growth directly, as they deeply understand the product, market, and initial sales motion.
• Sales Leader: If there’s a small team, the Head of Sales might take charge of driving new revenue.

Growth-stage SaaS (scaleup)

• CRO: By this stage, the company typically has defined sales and marketing processes, and a CRO can integrate and scale efforts across teams.
• VP of Marketing/Sales: If a CRO hasn’t been hired, leadership might come from the VP of Sales or Marketing, depending on whether acquisition or retention is the primary goal.

Mature SaaS (enterprise)

• CRO: As the company grows, a CRO becomes essential to oversee complex revenue streams, including upsells, renewals, and partnerships.
• RevOps: A revenue operations leader might play a significant role in supporting the CRO to optimize systems and processes.

Taking on sales and marketing alignment may seem like a lot of work initially. But the value that can be added through increased revenue, customer retention, and lower churn is worth it.

What successful sales and marketing alignment looks like

“At the end of the day, the thing we're trying to do is drive revenue. I still, to this day, look for marketing folks who think that way. Because if they don't, it's really easy to become adversarial with sales and do the finger pointing thing. And so that relationship, in my opinion, is what either allows you to succeed or to fail.”
—Nico Dato, CMO of Entrata and former VP Marketing of Podium

Creating alignment means breaking old habits and instilling new processes. The sales and marketing departments won’t magically spring into action on their own. You need an alignment strategy. Here’s what that initiative looks like in practice.

• Shared goals and metrics
• Clear lead handoff process(es)
• Single ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), positioning, and messaging
• Joint planning and collaboration
• Strong feedback loops
• Mutual accountability
• Data transparency and shared tech
• Consistent customer experience

Shared goals and metrics

Before anything else, sales and marketing team members need to align around revenue goals and metrics to ensure both teams are working toward the same outcomes.

What to Look For:

• Both teams are accountable for metrics like pipeline generation, customer acquisition cost (CAC), and revenue growth.
• Marketing goals (e.g., marketing qualified leads—MQLs) translate directly into sales objectives (e.g., sales qualified leads—SQLs, closed deals).

Red Flags:

• Discrepancies in definitions (e.g., what constitutes a “qualified lead”).
• Teams blame each other for low win rates or missed revenue targets.

Clear lead handoff process

Confusion or dropped opportunities are less likely when revenue teams are clear on how to move leads from marketing to sales.

What to Look For:

• A documented process for moving leads from marketing to sales, including criteria for qualification (e.g., BANT or other frameworks).
• Tools (e.g., CRM or marketing automation) ensure leads are seamlessly passed to sales without delays.

Red Flags:

• Sales dismissing leads as “low quality” without feedback.
• Leads falling through the cracks due to poor communication or unclear ownership.

Single ICP, positioning, and messaging

Mixed messages can confuse or alienate potential buyers. So, it’s important that sales and marketing consistently maintain a cohesive brand image to build trust and credibility with prospects and prevent wasted efforts on mismatched leads. 

What to Look For:

• Both teams use the same customer personas, pain points, and messaging strategies.
• Content marketing aligns with sales calls and resonates with the target audience.

Red Flags:

• Misaligned messaging (e.g., marketing promises features sales can’t deliver).
• Sales creating their own collateral instead of using marketing-provided resources.

Joint planning and collaboration

Joint planning provides a structured starting point for collaboration. Together, both practices encourage open communication, ensure shared ownership, and align team efforts.

What to Look For:

• Regular meetings for strategy, planning, and performance reviews.
• Collaboration on campaign design, feedback loops, and content development.

Red Flags:

• Sales and marketing operate in silos, rarely meeting or sharing insights.
• Lack of input from sales when marketing launches campaigns.

Strong feedback loops

Effective feedback loops between sales and marketing ensure a well-aligned, collaborative system where both teams continuously share insights to refine strategies for achieving revenue growth. 

What to Look For:

• Sales provides real-time feedback on lead quality, messaging effectiveness, and customer pain points.
• Marketing adjusts campaigns and strategies based on sales insights.

Red Flags:

• Marketing works with outdated or irrelevant data.
• Sales feedback is ignored or not acted upon.

Mutual accountability

When sales and marketing share responsibility for key metrics, it creates mutual accountability. They are more likely to communicate openly, align strategies, and support one another in achieving their objectives, strengthening trust and overall effectiveness.

What to Look For:

• Both teams understand their role in driving the pipeline and share responsibility for success or failure.
• Marketing supports sales beyond lead generation (e.g., nurturing prospects further down the funnel).

Red Flags:

• Finger-pointing when goals are missed.
• A disconnect between marketing's leads and sales’ priorities.

Data transparency and shared tech

Sales and marketing teams work more seamlessly when they use the same data and technology to drive their decisions. Ultimately, this makes them more efficient, resulting in cost savings and revenue growth.

What to Look For:

• Both teams have access to the same CRM and analytics tools, ensuring visibility into the pipeline and customer journey.
• Consistent reporting frameworks for shared KPIs like lead conversion rates, deal velocity, and revenue attribution.

Red Flags:

• Sales and marketing rely on separate, disconnected tools or data sets.
• Lack of visibility into where leads are in the pipeline.

Consistent customer experience

When customers feel valued and supported consistently, they are less likely to switch to competitors and more likely to confidently purchase additional products from you.

What to Look For:

• Prospects experience a seamless buyer’s journey from awareness (marketing) to decision-making (sales) to post-sale engagement (customer success).
• Marketing and sales messaging is consistent at every touchpoint.

Red Flags:

• Drop-offs in engagement due to misaligned messaging or expectations.
• Potential customers feel surprised or misled by sales compared to marketing content.

Common sales and marketing alignment challenges (and solutions)

Even if you follow revenue enablement best practices to a T, you will encounter challenges along the way. If you don’t watch out, this could lead the whole initiative to crumble. Here we’ve gathered some of the most common issues you may encounter, and what to do.

1. Lead quality/quantity/definition

Misalignment often begins with a disconnect over what defines a “good lead.” Marketing might flood the pipeline with leads to hit their numbers, while Sales dismisses them as unqualified, creating friction and wasted effort.

Solution: Align on an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Agreeing on a detailed ICP ensures Marketing targets the right prospects and Sales pursues leads with the highest potential for conversion. Regular reviews of lead performance data can refine the ICP over time, helping both teams focus their efforts on quality over quantity.

2. Poor communication and lack of collaboration tools and best practices

Silos form when there’s no consistent way for Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success to collaborate, leading to missed opportunities and inconsistent messaging.

Solution: Establish a Single Source of Truth (SSOT). Implementing collaboration tools like Dock CMS can serve as an SSOT, where all teams can share, update, and access critical information. With Dock, teams can centralize playbooks, campaign data, and even customer handoff notes to ensure alignment at every stage of the revenue journey.

3. Lack of shared KPIs

“You're not here just to drive MQLs or whatever made up metric you want. It's about growing a business and revenue. You should all be incentivized at the end of the day to do that. “
—Nico Dato, CMO of Entrata and former VP Marketing of Podium

When sales and marketing measure success differently, it’s hard to hold teams accountable for shared outcomes. For instance, the marketing strategy may focus on MQLs, while sales reps prioritize SQLs, leading to disjointed efforts.

Solution: Use metrics tied to the bottom line. Get rid of marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads, and other metrics that only serve a single team. Align on KPIs that matter to revenue, such as conversion rates, MRR, and pipeline growth.

4. Misalignment on sales enablement

Sales enablement content like case studies, whitepapers, and product collateral often gets created in isolation by marketing, leaving sales feeling unsupported or disconnected from the materials they need to close deals.

Solution: Enable collaboration early in the sales process. For example, sales can identify ideal case study candidates during conversations with high-value prospects and inform marketing upfront. This ensures that marketing content achieves customer buy-in while sales gets tailored assets they know will resonate throughout the sales cycle.

5. Off-brand messaging

When Sales uses inconsistent messaging or outdated assets, it can undermine the brand’s credibility and confuse prospects. Marketing works so hard to build brand awareness and create unified branding, so it’s understandable they’d be frustrated. If you wouldn’t post it on social media, reps probably shouldn’t be putting it in their sales decks.

Solution: Use a shared CMS for consistency. Dock CMS allows revenue teams to centralize brand-compliant templates, collateral, and messaging. With a single platform, Sales can access polished, on-brand resources that align with marketing efforts, ensuring a cohesive buyer experience.

Using Dock for revenue enablement 

Dock is your hub for revenue alignment. By supporting seamless communication and resource sharing, Dock empowers teams to:

1. Collaborate effectively across Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Revenue Operations departments.
2. Partner with customers throughout their lifecycle, providing an intuitive way to share important files, updates, and insights.

Let’s look at some examples of how Dock creates alignment throughout the buying process:

• Sales reps use Dock to share content, send order forms, and work through action plans
• Customer Success agents use Dock to onboard customers and guide renewal conversations
• Marketing uses Dock to create and share buyer personas, sales enablement content, and case studies
• All teams analyze buyer engagement and adjust their strategy as needed to meet their common goal

To learn more about how Dock can help your revenue teams collaborate, talk to our sales team.

How to maintain Marketing and Sales alignment

1. Create a Service Level Agreement (SLA): Define the number and quality of leads marketing will provide and how sales will follow up.
2. Regular Syncs: Host regular meetings between sales leaders, marketing leaders, and CS leaders to discuss pipeline health, campaign performance, and shared goals.
3. Unified Leadership: If you don’t already have one, consider introducing a RevOps team or a shared leadership role, like a CRO, to oversee alignment.
4. Continuous Feedback and Adjustment: Keep optimizing based on data and results.
5. Adopt the right tools: Use Dock for all your revenue enablement needs. Create digital sales rooms, update your product marketing assets, and track key performance indicators, all from one platform.

Unite around shared goals

In 2025, aligning sales and marketing teams is more crucial than ever for driving sustainable revenue growth and ensuring a seamless customer journey. Revenue enablement programs help break down silos, equipping teams with the tools, content, and data they need to collaborate effectively. 

By using Dock as a single source of truth, companies can ensure all revenue teams stay aligned and focused on shared goals, driving better results across the board.

Try Dock for free or talk to our sales team.