The engine of every company is customer acquisition. Customers translate into revenue which fuels job creation, investment and shareholder value. Without customers there is no business. While everyone in an organization has a role in driving business, finding and winning customers largely falls on the shoulders of Marketing and Sales.


Historically, Marketing was focused on building awareness and branding. Think about the TV series “Mad Men”, the world it depicted wasn’t that far off the truth. Sales were responsible for knocking on doors and closing deals.


That all changed with the Internet, eCommerce, and customers – business and consumer – taking control of how they bought products and services. In today’s world, Marketing and Sales have to work together as one team. But in most companies, large and small, they struggle to do so. There is constant friction between the teams that goes something like this.


Marketing: Sales don’t follow up on the leads we give them.

Sales: Marketing doesn’t give us good leads that close.


Companies know that aligning Marketing and Sales is critical to growing and keeping customers.


Funny thing about alignment is that it requires both parties to meaningfully contribute to the process. Alignment is like marriage and like any relationship it needs to be constantly invested in and managed. Marketing and Sales alignment is at top of the list for just about every CEO, head of Sales and head of Marketing.


This course explains why it is so hard for these two disciplines to work as one team, determine how aligned your company is and how to go about aligning the two teams in a business-to-business (B2B) environment. By the end of the course, you will be able to understand the major root causes for friction between these two teams, how to approach the alignment discussion internally with managers and the changes that Sales and Marketing can specifically undertake to work productively as one team.