I sat down with the director of global customer growth and loyalty at Headspace Health, Maureen Burke, to chat about the frequently-complex relationship between marketing and sales teams on the job. Here’s what she had to say about building better connections and working together to deliver on company goals:

[This interview has been edited and condensed.]

What can make the relationship between sales and marketing teams complicated?

There is a natural tension between marketing and sales organizations. There doesn’t have to be, of course, but the nature of the relationship means that each can point fingers to the other when something isn’t right. The sales team can say, “We’re not making our number because the leads aren’t high-quality.” And marketing can say, “The sales team isn’t calling our leads or following through on what we’re delivering.”

The marketing/sales relationship can be very clinical if the two organizations don’t talk — when leads just come into Salesforce and sales follows up on those leads rather than a back-and-forth communication. Trust is key; throwing leads over the fence happens when there is no relationship between the two organizations. Marketing might say, “We’re doing our job and delivering leads” rather than working together as a team and asking, “What does sales really need? How can marketing fill that need, and what common goal are we driving toward?” It’s about communication and that open partnership.

What strategies have you found that make for smooth, mutually beneficial relationships between marketing and sales?

1. Make sure everyone is aligned on the goal. What are we trying to do together as an organization? It’s usually revenue or leads; having measurable, shared KPIs help make the goal clear to everyone.
2. Make sure everyone’s talking the same language. “What do you think I mean when I say a ‘lead’? What makes a lead ‘qualified’?” It’s important to make sure our definitions are aligned so our expectations are set properly between the two teams.
3. Show progress and be transparent. I build dashboards so anyone can see how many leads we’re generating, how many marketing-qualified leads are resulting, and how many sales-qualified opportunities are coming out of those leads at any time. These metrics are then quantified and made measurable in a shared sales pipeline so the sales team can have full transparency of what’s happening and our progress. We know enough about what the other does to connect, but the sales team doesn’t need to know all the nuances of marketing. They do need to understand why we’re doing it and what we’re trying to achieve with our strategies. You have to be transparent and communicate in a language each team will understand.
4. Listen. I build trust with the sales team by holding regular meetings so they feel comfortable sharing honest feedback if my team’s delivering low-quality or low-qualified leads. In these meetings, I listen for trends or concerns prospects are discussing. If prospects in sales calls are frequently mentioning the stress of employees resigning, for example, that gives me some intelligence to build a marketing campaign around supporting the remaining employees. It builds trust when the sales team knows I’m listening and campaigns reflect what they’re sharing. And the two teams need to partner to deliver the best programs and strategies to get our mutual results.

“You have to be transparent and communicate in a language each team will understand.”

Tell me about a time when you and a sales team were able to collaborate and solve a problem or roll out a program together.

In a previous consulting project, the sales organization had built an ROI calculator to help sell their software solution, “How many employees are in your company, what’s your annual revenue, what are your numbers on employee absenteeism?” They plugged this data into a spreadsheet and at the end, shared the return on investment for the tool they were selling. My marketing team came in and said, “This asset is marketing gold mine.” So we had the idea to make it into a simplified web tool, where you can come onto the website as a prospect, enter in a few data points, and get back an exact ROI number saying, “This is how much money you can save buying our software, call a sales rep to get more information.” We took that sales idea and turned it into a marketing program, which could deliver leads to the sales team.

What advice would you give to a marketing manager looking to grow in relationships with sales?

In the end, the marketing-sales relationship is just that: A relationship. Both sides need to be talking, listening, and sharing their thinking. And I really do feel like bringing your whole authentic self (and maybe a little humor!) seems to help. Authenticity allows for better partnerships and for trust to flow; if you are saying one thing and doing another, you’re eroding trust. If you say what you think, even if it’s not what they want to hear, at least it’s all open and moving toward progress.