The standard response to misalignment is a recurring meeting. It rarely works, because the cause is not that people are uninformed about each other.
Marketing sends leads sales calls bad. Sales ignores leads marketing calls good. Both are behaving rationally against the number they are measured on. Adding a meeting does not change the number.
The three things that must agree
1. The ICP, written down with disqualifiers. If marketing and sales are working different definitions of a good account, every downstream argument is really this argument. See the ICP development workshop.
2. The stage definitions. What is an MQL, an SQL, a qualified meeting, an opportunity. These are local definitions dressed as standards, so write yours down or the handoff is renegotiated weekly. See the glossary.
3. A shared number at each seam. This is the one that changes behaviour.
Shared numbers, not shared meetings
Give both sides of a seam one number they carry together:
| Seam | Shared number |
|---|---|
| Marketing to SDR | Meetings held from marketing-sourced leads |
| SDR to AE | Meeting-held rate, and next-step rate |
| AE to CS | First-year retention on that AE's accounts |
The change is immediate and slightly uncomfortable. Marketing measured on meetings held stops optimising MQL volume, because volume no longer helps. An SDR measured on next-step rate stops booking marginal meetings.
Nobody had to be persuaded. The incentive moved.
What alignment is not
Not everyone agreeing. Healthy tension between functions is useful. Sales should push on lead quality and marketing should push on follow-up speed.
Not merging the teams. Specialisation exists for a reason, and collapsing roles usually degrades both. See building a GTM team around the buying journey.
Not a dashboard everyone can see. Visibility is not accountability. A number nobody carries is a number nobody acts on.
The test
Ask three people in different functions, separately, two questions: what is a qualified meeting, and what number are you measured on this quarter?
If the first answer differs, you have a definition problem. If the second answers are unrelated to each other, you have a measurement problem, and no amount of meeting fixes it.
Where this sits
Alignment spans Motion and Measurement in the Tenbound Pipeline Architecture Standard. It is the clearest case in the framework of behaviour following measurement design rather than intention.
Related: revenue alignment and the SDR to AE handoff.