What happens when sales and marketing are not aligned? Less leads.

In the past it was acceptable to operate independently of each other.
The roles and responsibilities were clear.

Marketing was responsible for branding and awareness to generate traffic and convert website visitors into a Sales Qualified Lead.

Sales was responsible for educating the lead and influencing the buyer to choose their company.

And that all kinda worked ok.
But over the years it’s become increasingly more difficult for marketing to land those leads.

Here's why:
👉 Today's buyers are younger and grew up using the internet to look things up.
👉 They prefer to research you and your competitors online and the primary resource is your website.
👉 They will only talk with your sales team if you make their short list of potential suppliers.

And one thing for sure:
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐛𝐲 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐆𝐏𝐓.

They want to consume content so they can find a supplier who:
✅️ Understands their problem
✅️ Has the experience and expertise to solve their problem
✅️ Is easy to work with

Anyone in sales will see that these are the educational questions that sales teams have traditionally answered.

And that is the step where you see one of the biggest mis-alignment between sales and marketing: the education of the buyer.

Marketing, tasked with driving traffic, uses GenAI tools to create SEO optimized content at scale.  But, this commodity content doesn’t really help guide buyers through their journey.

Sales is hesitant to let go of the educational piece and allow marketing to publish their knowledge on the website.

And the result?
❌ The millennial and GenZ buyers don't get the information they want.
❌ Your company doesn’t make it to their short list.
❌ Your sales team is not getting that lead.

You see this a lot when there is healthy website traffic but the number of leads that sales gets from the website, phone calls or emails remains frustratingly low.

Educating buyers is no longer just the responsibility of sales.
Buyers research online, so marketing needs to create online content.

If you want leads, then marketing and sales needs to work together to create content that answer sales questions on your website.