Friction between sales and marketing often stems from using separate definitions for a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). The most effective approach is to have one unified definition: a potential customer that sales can realistically close. This focuses both teams on the ultimate goal of revenue generation.

The fundamental tension between sales and marketing extends beyond KPIs to their core operational perspectives. Marketing operates at a macro level, analyzing broad market trends and brand awareness. In contrast, sales is hyper-focused on the micro level of one-on-one customer interactions. This inherent difference in viewpoint is a primary source of friction.

Instead of marketing and sales running separate races with siloed KPIs, a modern GTM model measures the entire journey like a relay. Both teams are measured on how efficiently accounts move through the funnel, focusing on the quality of handoffs and collaborative impact on velocity.

Misalignment stems from sales and marketing using different numbers and narratives. High-performing organizations treat GTM as a single, unified motion. They focus on seamlessly passing the customer from one stage to the next, prioritizing a collective win over defending individual functional metrics.

A modern data model revealed marketing influenced over 90% of closed-won revenue, a fact completely obscured by a last-touch attribution system that overwhelmingly credited sales AEs. This shows the 'credit battle' is often a symptom of broken measurement, not just misaligned teams.

Average teams measure success in functional silos (sales vs. marketing), leading to finger-pointing. Elite teams remove functions from the equation. They focus entirely on the customer's journey, identifying patterns that lead to pipeline and fixing those that don't, regardless of which department "owns" them.

CloudPay stopped attributing opportunities to single sources like "marketing" or "sales." Analysis showed multiple departments influenced every deal, rendering attribution a source of pointless internal arguments. They still use multi-touch attribution at the campaign level, but not to assign inter-departmental credit.

By changing the lexicon from an adversarial "versus" to a complementary "generation and capture," Ally's marketing team created a shared language. This simple reframe aligns disparate functions toward a common goal, dissolving internal friction and fostering collaboration.

Relying on outdated metrics like "marketing sourced" or "SDR sourced" pipeline creates departmental silos and credit disputes. This flawed measurement system prevents teams from understanding the true sequence of events and collaborative patterns that actually lead to conversions.