Stop Sales vs Marketing: Align for More Leads

More than a third of B2B marketers (35.4%) say they’re often in conflict with sales. That’s not a “big company problem”. It’s a warning sign for every UK small business trying to generate leads with a tight budget.

When sales and marketing aren’t aligned, you don’t just get bruised egos—you get wasted ad spend, confused messaging, slow follow-up, and leads that go cold. And if you’re running lean (like most British SMEs), you can’t afford two teams—sometimes two people—pulling in different directions.

This post is part of the British Small Business Digital Marketing series, and it’s focused on one practical outcome: more qualified leads, faster conversions, and less wasted effort by getting sales and marketing working from the same playbook.

Why small businesses can’t afford misalignment

Misalignment shows up in predictable (and expensive) ways. The moment you recognise them, you can fix them.

The real cost isn’t “conflict”—it’s friction

In the Marketing Week research (450 B2B marketers), the top sources of conflict weren’t personality clashes. They were:

• Sales not understanding marketing priorities (54.8%)
• Marketing being seen as a cost, not an investment (27.4%)
• A perception that marketing exists only to serve sales (50.8%)

For a small business, those same tensions often look like:

• Marketing runs campaigns to “build awareness” while sales needs conversations this month.
• Sales says “these leads are rubbish” but can’t define what “good” looks like.
• Marketing creates content that sounds polished, but doesn’t answer the objections prospects raise on calls.

Here’s my stance: if sales thinks marketing is fluff, and marketing thinks sales is short-term, both are failing the buyer.

Digital marketing only works when follow-up is built in

A lead doesn’t become revenue because you got a click. It becomes revenue because:

1. The message matches what the buyer cares about.
2. The next step is clear.
3. The follow-up happens fast.

When sales and marketing aren’t joined up, step (3) falls apart—especially with inbound leads from SEO, Google Ads, LinkedIn, or gated content.

The “common playbook” that removes sales-marketing tension

The strongest idea from the B2B leaders quoted in the source is simple: the best-performing teams share a common playbook. Not identical KPIs. Not forced “alignment workshops”. A working agreement that makes day-to-day decisions easier.

What a small-business playbook should include (one page)

If you’re an owner, marketing manager, or sales lead, aim for a one-page go-to-market playbook with these sections:

1. Who we help (ideal customer profile)
2. Problems we solve (top 3 pains in the customer’s words)
3. Proof (case studies, results, differentiators)
4. Offers (what we actually sell, and how it’s packaged)
5. Lead stages (enquiry → qualified → proposal → won)
6. Response standards (how fast leads are contacted; who owns what)

This matters because it reduces internal arguments. Instead of debating opinions, you’re referencing shared decisions.

“When teams lack a common goal or limited visibility into what buyers actually want, it can cause friction.”

That’s true in enterprise. It’s even truer when the “team” is two people and a part-time agency.

Stop confusing marketing with advertising

One B2B leader in the source nailed a common misunderstanding: people confuse marketing with advertising.

For a British small business, marketing includes:

• Positioning, messaging, and pricing clarity
• Website conversion paths (forms, booking, calls)
• SEO and content that answers buyer questions
• Lead nurturing emails
• Sales enablement (decks, one-pagers, case studies)

Ads can help, but ads without the rest are just paid traffic leaks.

Shared context: the fastest way to improve lead quality

If you want fewer “junk leads”, the fix usually isn’t your targeting. It’s your shared context.

Put marketers on sales calls (and sales in campaign planning)

A standout practical suggestion in the source: marketers should shadow sales calls to understand real objections and roadblocks.

For SMEs, do the lightweight version:

• Marketing listens to 2 sales calls per month (or reads 10 call notes).
• Sales joins a 30-minute campaign planning slot before anything goes live.

What you’re looking for is a pattern:

• What do prospects misunderstand?
• What feature do they over-focus on?
• What worries them about risk, switching, cost, or implementation?

Then marketing builds content that directly supports revenue:

• A “how it works” explainer page
• A comparison page (“X vs Y”)
• A short onboarding email sequence
• A case study that matches the target sector

This is where B2B lead generation improves without increasing budget.

Agree what success means (without forcing identical KPIs)

One of the better points from the sales leaders: alignment on the bigger picture matters more than identical KPIs.

In small business terms:

• Marketing doesn’t need to carry a sales quota.
• Sales doesn’t need to care about impressions.

But both sides do need agreement on:

• What counts as a qualified lead
• What timeframe matters (this quarter vs pipeline for next quarter)
• What evidence you trust (CRM data, call outcomes, conversion rates)

If you’re arguing about performance every month, it’s usually because you never agreed what “good” looks like.

Practical ways to prevent the conflict (even with a tiny team)

You don’t need a big org chart to fix this. You need rhythm and visibility.

1) Set a weekly “pipeline + messaging” meeting (25 minutes)

Keep it short. Same agenda every time:

1. Pipeline reality: number of new opportunities, stalled deals, wins/losses
2. Lead quality notes: what’s coming in, what’s not converting
3. Market feedback: what prospects are saying right now
4. One action: one change to make this week (landing page tweak, email, ad copy, offer)

Consistency beats enthusiasm. Do this for six weeks and your marketing will feel more like a revenue engine.

2) Use one workflow system (one source of truth)

The source mentions teams working best when they sit together, use the same workflow systems, and visualise performance. For SMEs, the principle is the same: one shared dashboard.

Minimum viable setup:

• A CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho—pick one)
• A shared sheet/dashboard with:
  • Leads by source (SEO, Google Ads, LinkedIn, referrals)
  • Contact rate within 1 business day
  • Meetings booked
  • Opportunities created
  • Wins

If marketing can’t see what happens after the form fill, it will chase vanity metrics. If sales can’t see what’s being tested in campaigns, it will assume marketing is guessing.

3) Tie spend to commercial outcomes (without killing brand building)

A sales leader in the source pushed back on campaigns that “boost a bunch of vanity metrics” without commercial results. That pushback is healthy—up to a point.

Here’s the balance that works for most small businesses:

• 70% of effort on campaigns tied to pipeline now (lead magnets, service pages, retargeting, booking flows)
• 30% on credibility assets that make selling easier (thought leadership, founder POV, PR-style content, community)

Brand building matters, but if cashflow is tight in January (a common UK reality), you need marketing that supports revenue.

A simple alignment template you can copy this week

If you only do one thing after reading this, do this.

Define a lead handover rule (and stick to it)

Write down:

• Marketing commits to delivering: X leads/month that meet clear criteria
• Sales commits to: contact every lead within 1 business day and log outcomes

Then define the criteria together:

• Company type/size
• Location (if relevant)
• Budget signal (range is fine)
• Need/trigger (e.g., “switching provider within 90 days”)
• Decision-maker involvement

This stops the endless loop of “marketing sends bad leads” vs “sales doesn’t follow up”.

Build a shared “objection library”

Create a living doc with:

• Top 10 objections
• Best responses that work on calls
• Links to supporting content (case studies, FAQs, pricing page, security docs)

Marketing turns objections into SEO pages and email sequences. Sales uses those assets to move deals forward. Everybody wins.

Where this fits in British small business digital marketing

Most SMEs think their growth problem is “we need more traffic” or “we need to post more on social”. Often it’s neither.

The reality? You need tighter coordination between your website, your content, your ads, and your follow-up. That’s what turns digital marketing into predictable lead generation.

If you’re already investing in SEO, content marketing, LinkedIn, or paid search, alignment is the multiplier. It’s also the cheapest improvement you can make because it doesn’t require extra media spend—just better decisions.

Sales and marketing conflict is real. But it’s also optional.

If you want, share one detail—what you sell and how leads currently come in—and you can pressure-test your playbook: what to measure, what to change first, and how to tighten the handover so more leads turn into revenue.