Connected Customer Journeys Start With Collaboration
Imagine that you’re in the market for a car, and your first stop is the manufacturer's website. You read up on current models, share your information, build your dream car using a personalization and pricing tool, and are given the information for a local dealer who can help make it a reality.
When you get to the dealership, though, they ask for all your information again, make you search their inventory for the car you already know you want (assuming they have it), and finally offer a price that’s $3,000 more than the website quoted, with a loan interest rate that’s 0.5 percent higher than expected. Even if you decide to buy, the process starts all over again with the finance department.
Any one of these steps might be fine on its own. But together, they feel disconnected. The only constant in the process—the only person with all the information—is you. And it shows, at every frustrating step of the way.
Not a great experience, right? Here’s the bad news: Your buyers probably feel the same way about your customer journey.
Bad News First
Just like our fictional car buyer, each of your buyers has done research, filled out forms (well, maybe, as only about 3 percent of website visitors fill out forms), seen your ads, and already has a pretty good idea of what they need before they make contact with you. By the time the average B2B buyer reaches out to a sales team, they’re 70 percent of the way through their buying cycle, and 84 percent of deals are won or lost before sellers even know the opportunity exists.
That means most of the “sell” happens through marketing touchpoints alone—which is fine on paper. In practice, it creates serious issues.
Sales and marketing teams have worked in silos for so long that their processes, goals, and tools have become completely disconnected. This is especially true within organizations that pursued digital transformation ad hoc, with each department investing in its own tech stack. While these tailored solutions met unique needs, they also built walls between teams. The sales team has its data, and so does marketing. Each department uses different metrics to track performance and different strategies to engage buyers.
The result? Neither team sees the full picture. And because they’re too close to their own processes, they often miss the disconnect. Buyers don’t. By the time they reach out, most buyers have interacted with your company for an average of eight months, according to the 6sense research cited above.
When sellers can’t access marketing data—because it’s locked away in separate systems—they miss critical signals of buyer interest and opportunities to connect before decisions are made.
Now, the Good
There is good news: Once you recognize the problem, you can fix it. The solution requires you to tear down the walls that keep sales and marketing apart.
Start with executive alignment. True collaboration begins at the top. Marketing, sales, and RevOps leaders must agree on shared, revenue-focused goals and metrics to ensure seamless customer experiences and consistent business outcomes. These objectives should cascade down through team initiatives and day-to-day tactics, ensuring everyone contributes to the same outcomes. When the leadership team sets the standard for cross-functional alignment, it sets the tone for the entire organization.
Use RevOps as the connector. RevOps plays a crucial role in maintaining this alignment. By coordinating regular reporting through shared dashboards and cross-functional reviews, RevOps ensures one shared truth and that sales and marketing stay connected and accountable. Continuous evaluation helps teams spot gaps, pivot when needed, and double down on what works.
Invest in the right tools to support collaboration. Breaking down digital silos is often the hardest part. Leaders need to evaluate their tech stacks and seek out an end-to-end revenue orchestration platform that not only streamlines and consolidates processes but also connects, prioritizes, and actions internal and external signals. This will provide actionable insights that guide the actions to keep the organization aligned and on the right track.
Engage in continuous evaluation and realignment. As more B2B businesses lean into data, analytics, and automation, the walls between marketing and sales will continue to crumble. To get durable revenue orchestration right, marketing and sales leaders will need to stay on top of these changes, bring new teams into the fold, and adjust their goals and strategies in turn.
From Walls to Bridges
Aligning sales and marketing teams not only breaks down silos but also creates a seamless experience that matches how buyers engage. When these teams share goals, processes, and data, the customer journey becomes cohesive, not fragmented.
This alignment takes time. It starts with executive buy-in, continuous reporting, and the right tools to support collaboration. RevOps plays a critical role, keeping teams accountable and adaptable. The payoff? Buyers experience fewer friction points, and your organization becomes better at responding to signals—both seen and unseen.
Whether you’re selling cars, software, or anything else, removing barriers between customer-facing teams maximizes the impact of their collective efforts. This approach prepares organizations for future changes and helps them meet the needs of today’s market.
Randy Littleson is the chief marketing officer at Salesloft. He has more than 30 years of experience as a marketing leader in tech and has previously served as a chief marketing officer for Conga. Littleson specializes in demand generation, channel marketing, product strategy and marketing leadership. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from DeVry University and a bachelor’s in computer and communications sciences from University of Michigan.