To solve the persistent issue of sales and marketing misalignment, structure executive compensation around shared company revenue goals. When leaders' bonuses depend on overall revenue attainment rather than departmental metrics like pipeline or MQLs, it forces genuine collaboration and a unified focus on winning.

American Family Insurance's CMO transformed her team by prioritizing business acumen. The goal was for marketers to become respected partners who understand profitable growth, customer acquisition costs, and their direct impact on the company's financial health.

Having a CRO oversee both sales and marketing provides the CEO with a single person accountable for revenue. This structure prevents the common scenario where marketing hits its pipeline goal but sales misses its revenue target. It consolidates ownership of pipeline generation and closing under one leader.

Unifying marketing (CMO) and revenue (CRO) leadership under one person forces a holistic view of the customer journey. This structure removes the common friction of sales blaming marketing for lead quality, as one executive is accountable for the lead from creation to close.

At Informatica, the CEO made the CMO solely responsible for the company's entire sales pipeline. This shifts marketing's focus from departmental metrics (like MQLs) to the ultimate business outcome, forcing deep alignment with the CRO and sales organization.

A controversial but effective organizational structure for B2B firms is to have the Chief Marketing Officer report to the Chief Sales Officer. Since B2B purchasing decisions are primarily sales-led and relationship-based, this hierarchy ensures marketing's activities directly serve sales objectives and contribute meaningfully to closing deals, aligning the entire funnel towards revenue.

Traditional salary-only structures for marketing create a disconnect from revenue. By introducing commission-based compensation tied to closed deals, marketers gain a direct stake in the sales process, fostering true alignment and shared financial incentives.

A CMO's role extends beyond lead generation. By analyzing operational data, they can identify bottlenecks and opportunities, creating strategic alignment across marketing, sales, and operations to improve the entire customer experience and drive efficiency.

Despite decades of enabling technology, many CMOs still struggle to prove their financial contribution. The role has fundamentally shifted, and if a marketing leader isn't directly driving revenue, they are failing at their primary responsibility in today's B2B landscape and should consider a career change.