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Sales and marketing alignment becomes durable when both teams own the same financial outcome. Lisa Cole, Dave Bornmann, and Marshall Poindexter connect shared targets with clean data, common definitions, transparent dashboards, and a consistent operating cadence. Their experiences show how one trusted view of pipeline can replace attribution debates with more productive decisions about growth.
Sales and marketing alignment weakens when each team is measured against a different version of success. Marketing may defend sourced pipeline while sales focuses on closed revenue, leaving both sides debating credit instead of improving performance.
In a CMO Huddles Studio conversation, Lisa Cole, then CMO and Head of the AI Center of Excellence at 2X, Dave Bornmann, then a marketing executive at Higher Logic, and Marshall Poindexter, then associated with yorCMO, explored a more unified approach.
B2B purchases rarely belong to one function. Buyers encounter marketing content, sales conversations, communities, product experiences, referrals, and customer evidence before reaching a decision.
Lisa reframed the conversation away from functional credit:
“They have to both be accountable to the same financial targets.”
A shared target does not make functional contributions invisible. It places those contributions within a common business result.
Marketing can still examine influence, engagement, and channel effectiveness. Sales can still evaluate activity and conversion. The primary score, however, remains owned together.
Even a shared target can create friction when the teams define pipeline, qualified opportunities, stages, and conversion differently.
Common definitions establish what enters the dashboard and when. Clean data then makes the operating conversation more credible.
That foundation may include agreement about:
The definitions become useful when both teams recognize them and apply them consistently.
Dave connected sales visibility to marketing effectiveness:
“I would be able to do my job better with that deeper understanding.”
Exposure to sales calls, forecast discussions, opportunity reviews, and buyer objections gives marketing more context for campaigns and enablement. It also helps marketing see where demand stalls after the initial handoff.
The same principle works in reverse. Sales benefits from understanding how awareness, research, content, and community interactions shape demand before a buyer speaks with a representative.
Marshall described the infrastructure supporting a shared view of performance:
“Having a common dashboard that marketing and sales are feeding, in terms of pipeline and reporting that out to the CEO and the C-suite, is critical.”
The dashboard does not resolve alignment by itself. It gives the teams a common source for recurring conversations about performance, gaps, and next actions.
A regular operating cadence turns that visibility into decisions. Teams can examine where accounts are moving, where deals are stalling, and whether the current programs support the shared target.
It may be revenue, qualified pipeline, or another financial target tied directly to the company’s growth plan.
No. Attribution can still inform investment decisions, but it does not need to become a contest over ownership of revenue.
They keep sales and marketing from evaluating pipeline through conflicting stages, qualification rules, and data.
Trusted data, agreed definitions, visible ownership, and a recurring review cadence make the dashboard actionable.
Listen to the full conversation with Lisa Cole, Dave Bornmann, and Marshall Poindexter.
CMO Huddles helps B2B marketing leaders win by bringing together peers, fresh perspectives, and opportunities to build stronger personal brands. Want to join the huddle? Learn more about CMO Huddles and apply to join the community.