The opportunity no one asked for

In 2025, the crisis of confidence persists in our economies. This crisis of confidence makes acquiring new customers long, complex, and uncertain. As in every crisis cycle of a system based on the continuous growth of sales of goods and services.

In too many French companies, the pattern repeats itself: Marketing generates leads non-stop, but salespeople do not want them (“not qualified enough”, “not mature”). On their side, salespeople struggle to close deals due to a lack of relevant information or poor timing. Result:

• Poorly leveraged leads, a lengthened sales cycle, and a fragmented customer experience
  
• An opaque marketing ROI, difficult to defend to the executive committee
  
• Growing disengagement from both teams
  

And yet, Sales/Marketing alignment is a direct lever for revenue growth. The most aligned companies observe (source: Forrester):

• +38% customer conversion
  
• +208% revenue generation via marketing
  
• +67% closing efficiency 

The challenge? Transforming a juxtaposition of teams into a unified Revenue strategy.
If crises reveal pre-existing problems by amplifying them, they also make it possible to challenge existing processes. 

In this article, I propose an operational framework, intended for CMOs looking for ROI, to understand how to reconcile marketing acquisition and sales performance, and a new key role: the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).

Why are Sales and Marketing so often misaligned?

From my experience since the 1990s, the gap is systemic. Team Marketing or Team Sales, your objectives are not aligned:  different KPIs, different timelines, different tools.

For example, salespeople will have 3 months to figure out how to achieve their fiscal year quota and will be recognized only on the revenue signed in their territory (geographic or named accounts). Their tool for reporting deals and actions is the CRM.

Marketing managers will put events in place throughout the year, and will be recognized based on the number of leads generated regardless of where they come from and the potential closing timeframe. They will use lead generation and campaign automation solutions.  

Sales & Marketing alignment is therefore not a concept (or an option): it is a key lever of the Revenue strategy.

CRM + Marketing Automation: the double Kiss Cool® effect

To create real team alignment, it is necessary at a minimum to build a shared data base (CRM) and synchronized action logic (Marketing Automation). The CRM & Marketing Automation duo synchronizes teams around real-time data and clear rules of the game:

• A single view of the customer journey (source, scoring, maturity)
• Shared qualification rules (MQL, SQL, SAL)
• Automated workflows between marketing triggers and sales follow-ups

Four workstreams to sustainably align Sales with Marketing

Now that you have the tools, it is the processes you are going to align between the Sales team and the Marketing team.
First, let us use the same semantics by building a Funnel (or sales funnel) including shared definitions:

• Jointly define exactly what an MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead), an SQL (Sales Qualified Lead), and a SAL (Sales Accepted Lead) represent,
• Clarify and spell out with examples the stages lead > opportunity > closing,
• Formalize an SLA for salespeople regarding the leads entrusted to them, including at minimum an acceptable follow-up time, and the feedback methods for marketing teams. 

Next, let us define a dynamic, shared scoring system based on CRM data and unique visitor behavior  (clicks, page views). This way, everyone agrees that salespeople only follow up on hot leads suited to their revenue, territory, and timing targets. Algeco scores its leads “On Fire, Hot, Warm, Cold” and calls those rated “On Fire” within 2 hours, which optimizes conversion (BtoB Leaders).
Then, let us build workflows that will automate nurturing (and therefore remove follow-up actions  and/or strengthen the follow-up schedule). By validating content co-created with salespeople, you will naturally equip Sales with multichannel sequences (email + LinkedIn + call) that you can iterate on in a lean, continuous improvement mode. For example, when a file is downloaded, the CRM labels it as “Warm Lead”, generates a sales task within 48 hours, and sends an adapted script. 

And finally, measuring ROI and lead attribution via your CRM allows you to correlate marketing KPIs with closing results. This is fundamental for improving processes in lean mode, but also for communicating internally and bringing sales and marketing teams together. Algeco links each contact point (email, ad, phone) to the revenue generated. Result: 2.63 times more conversion on scored leads, and €800,000 in revenue from 11 new contracts after each referral campaign (BtoB Leaders). 

Your KPI benchmark to achieve

CMO, 3 questions to take action

1. Is my CRM central to my Revenue strategy?
   If your salespeople are not using it, or your marketers are manually entering contacts into it from an Excel file… the answer is no.
   
2. Do I have a clear framework for judging lead quality?
   If “hot” means “they opened 2 emails”: that is not enough.
   
3. Is my marketing ROI visible in concrete revenue?
   If you cannot link a campaign to a euro earned, automation is your priority lever.

Alignment is not a luxury, it is a growth lever embodied by the CRO

Sales & Marketing  alignment is not a fad: it is a performance foundation for any company that wants to control its acquisition cost, accelerate its sales cycle, and maximize its ROI. CRM and Marketing Automation, provided they are designed together, are the pillars of this Revenue strategy.

At Webmecanik, the RevOps model, embodied by the role of the CRO (Sophie Panot, our Chief Revenue Officer is also our President or CEO), is taking hold. And it begins with aligning the following topics:  

• Centralize data from prospects, customers, and partners
• Synchronize marketing actions correlated with sales objectives
• Manage overall performance by connecting every campaign
• Trigger the right actions at the right time in the sales cycle
• Measure marketing ROI in euros (or dollars), not in vanity metrics

By drawing inspiration from concrete cases such as Axys, Welink, or Algeco, CMOs can become Revenue architects, not just simple lead generators.