Stop Sales vs Marketing: One Playbook That Wins

Most small businesses don’t have a “sales team” and a “marketing team”. They have you—and maybe a part-time freelancer—trying to do both without tripping over yourself.

That’s why the classic B2B sales vs marketing conflict matters to UK solopreneurs. The same friction shows up in different clothing: you post on LinkedIn because you “should”, run a few ads because you “need leads”, and then feel annoyed when none of it turns into real conversations. The problem isn’t effort. It’s misalignment between what marketing is doing and what sales actually needs next.

Marketing Week’s latest reporting on B2B sales leaders puts numbers on a tension many of us recognise. In their State of B2B Marketing research, 35.4% of B2B marketers say they’re often in conflict with sales, and 50.8% say marketing is perceived as only there to serve sales (Marketing Week, 2025). The underlying causes are painfully familiar: unclear priorities, mismatched expectations, and a lack of shared context.

For this instalment of the UK Solopreneur Business Growth series, I’m going to translate those enterprise lessons into a simple, low-cost system you can run in a one-person business—so your marketing stops generating “activity” and starts generating pipeline.

The real cost of sales–marketing conflict (even when it’s just you)

Answer first: Misalignment costs you twice—once in wasted marketing spend/time, and again in missed deals because prospects don’t get the right information at the right moment.

In bigger companies, conflict looks like marketing complaining about lead quality while sales complains about “vanity metrics”. In a solopreneur business it’s more subtle, but it’s still damaging:

• You publish content that gets likes but doesn’t attract the right enquiries.
• You generate leads, but they stall because you don’t have follow-up assets ready.
• You chase “hot” opportunities and end up building one-off materials that never get reused.

One sales leader quoted in the source described the root cause as a lack of a shared playbook. That’s the shortest, most useful diagnosis: without a common playbook, marketing and sales work in parallel, not in tandem.

Here’s my stance: if you want consistent leads in 2026, you don’t need more channels. You need one joined-up revenue journey that connects your content, your CRM (even if it’s a spreadsheet), and your sales conversations.

A myth worth ditching: “Marketing is for awareness; sales is for revenue”

This split creates endless arguments because it’s not how buyers behave.

B2B buyers—especially in the UK right now, where budgets are being scrutinised hard—move back and forth between research and reassurance. They want clarity on:

• what problem you solve,
• what it costs (or how pricing works),
• what success looks like,
• and whether you’ve done it before.

That’s marketing and sales. If your digital marketing doesn’t help answer those questions, it’s not helping revenue.

Build a “common playbook” in 60 minutes

Answer first: A common playbook is a one-page agreement on who you sell to, what you sell, and what proof moves deals forward.

In the source article, sales leaders repeatedly came back to shared context and shared workflows. For a solopreneur, the win is speed: you can create alignment fast because you don’t need a committee.

Open a doc and write the following. Keep it scrappy. Make it real.

1) Your ICP and the actual trigger to buy

Don’t write “SMEs” or “startups”. Write something you can recognise instantly.

Example:

• Ideal buyer: UK operations director at a 20–100 person manufacturing firm
• Trigger event: new contract won + delivery capacity stretched
• Pain they admit out loud: “We’re firefighting”

This matters because it stops your marketing from drifting into generic advice that attracts the wrong audience.

2) Your sales stages (not your funnel diagram)

You need stages that match reality. Here’s a simple version that works for many service-based solopreneurs:

1. Suspect → might fit
2. Qualified → problem + budget + authority are plausible
3. Active evaluation → comparing options, needs proof
4. Proposal → wants a clear plan and risk reduction
5. Won/Lost → feedback captured

Now the key part: write what the buyer needs at each stage.

• Qualified: a short “how it works” page
• Active evaluation: case study + example deliverables
• Proposal: timeline + implementation plan + ROI assumptions

That becomes your marketing-to-sales handoff—even if the “handoff” is just you sending the right link.

3) Your proof library (three assets you reuse constantly)

Sales leaders in the article argued that transparency about strategy and data reduces assumptions. Proof does that.

For most UK solopreneurs, the highest-leverage proof assets are:

• One case study (1 page, problem → approach → result)
• One “what it costs” explainer (even if it’s ranges)
• One objection handler (“Why not just hire in-house?”, “Why are you more expensive than a freelancer?”)

If you’re thinking, “But I don’t have big numbers,” use what you do have: time saved, fewer errors, faster onboarding, reduced churn, fewer back-and-forth emails. Specific beats impressive.

Three low-cost digital marketing moves that reduce friction fast

Answer first: Align your marketing with sales by capturing real objections, standardising follow-up, and reporting one shared set of revenue signals.

These are deliberately low-cost because most solopreneurs don’t need more tools—they need better use of the ones they already have.

1) Shadow your own sales calls (and turn them into content)

The source highlighted a simple but underused idea: marketers should listen to sales calls to understand roadblocks. For you, that means: review your last five sales conversations.

Create a two-column list:

• What they asked (exact phrasing)
• What they were really worried about (risk, time, cost, reputation)

Now turn that into:

• 3 LinkedIn posts
• 1 FAQ page
• 1 email follow-up template

This reduces friction because prospects feel “seen” earlier, and you stop improvising every time.

2) Create a follow-up system that doesn’t rely on motivation

A lot of sales-marketing conflict is really timing conflict: sales wants something now, marketing works in campaigns.

Fix it by building a tiny automated sequence (or a manual checklist) for new enquiries:

Day 0: Thank-you email + one relevant proof asset

Day 2: “Common mistakes” insight + invitation to share context

Day 5: Short case study + “If you want, I can map a plan” CTA

Day 10: Clear off-ramp (“Not the right time? Tell me and I’ll stop nudging.”)

You can run this from a basic email platform, or even as templated drafts in Gmail. The goal is consistency, not complexity.

3) Replace vanity metrics with shared revenue signals

One of the tensions in the article is the perception that marketing is a cost, not an investment. The fastest way to end that argument is to track outcomes that sales respects.

In a one-person business, your shared dashboard can be four numbers updated weekly:

• Sales conversations booked (not clicks)
• Qualified opportunities created
• Proposals sent
• Revenue won

Then keep two supporting indicators:

• Top 3 content pieces driving enquiries
• Top 3 objections causing drop-off

That’s it. If a metric can’t influence a decision, it’s noise.

Working “in tandem”: the simplest workflow that actually holds

Answer first: Weekly alignment beats big quarterly planning. One 30-minute rhythm keeps marketing and sales connected.

Sales leaders in the source talked about staying connected, sharing context early, and using the same workflow systems. You don’t need a wall of dashboards. You need a repeatable rhythm.

Here’s the 30-minute weekly routine I’ve found works well for UK solopreneurs trying to grow through online marketing:

The Friday pipeline + content check (30 minutes)

1. Review this week’s enquiries: where did they come from?
2. Pick one stage that’s leaking: e.g., calls booked but no proposals
3. Write one fix: an email, a landing page tweak, a new FAQ
4. Schedule one distribution action: post, newsletter, referral ask

This keeps you out of “random acts of marketing” and forces every action to connect to revenue.

“Alignment on the bigger picture matters more than identical KPIs.” That’s a useful line from the sales leaders quoted in the source—and it’s even more true when you’re doing everything yourself.

Quick Q&A solopreneurs ask about sales and marketing alignment

How do I align sales and marketing if I don’t have enough leads?

Start with conversion assets, not top-of-funnel volume. If you can turn 2 enquiries into 1 proposal instead of 5 into 1 proposal, everything gets easier—and cheaper.

What if my audience is on different channels?

Pick one primary channel you can sustain (often LinkedIn for UK B2B solopreneurs) and make everything else secondary. Consistency beats presence.

Do I need shared KPIs if it’s just me?

You need shared definitions more than KPIs. Define what counts as a qualified lead, what counts as a sales conversation, and what “good” looks like at each stage.

What to do next (so this becomes leads, not theory)

Sales–marketing friction is real, but the fix is practical: shared context, shared workflow, shared proof. Whether you’re an enterprise team or a UK solopreneur, buyers reward clarity.

If you’re serious about small business digital marketing that produces leads, start with the 60-minute playbook and the 30-minute weekly rhythm. Give it two weeks. You should see the difference in the quality of conversations, not just the quantity of clicks.

When you look at your last five enquiries, what’s the one question prospects keep asking that you still haven’t answered properly on your website or in your content?