The Silent Killer of Revenues (and CROs): Team Misalignment

I dug into Google to find the most searched question from CROs. The answer? “How do I break down the silos in my organization?”

This mirrors the feedback I hear constantly — in private equity portfolio companies and from the CROs I mentor. It’s a major issue.

Why does this matter? Put simply: fragmented organizations kill revenue growth – stone dead.

In the worst cases, I’ve seen Sales blame Marketing for poor leads, Marketing blame Product for weak propositions, Customer Success blame Marketing for poor communications, and so on. Goals and priorities can be, at best, inconsistent – at worst, in conflict!

🔍 What are the symptoms?

Ambiguity of direction across the organization leads to self-doubt in management teams, resulting in slow (or even absent) execution. Externally, it leads to inconsistent messaging and poor customer engagement. Needless to say, employee engagement isn’t exactly in the upper quartile range!

In many ways, SaaS businesses have shone the fastest light on this problem. Any friction or gaps in handoffs between the funnel stages across Sales and Marketing stand out clearly.

I also see challenges in businesses pursuing inorganic growth. They often struggle to integrate newly acquired companies and eliminate legacy behaviours.

For the CRO, a misaligned organization is a bad advert for their leadership capability. It’s highly visible — to insiders and outsiders — and a window into their professionalism.

Operating models are just part of the solution

The operating model is vital. Where authority sits in the organisation and the supporting structure itself are critical ingredients. But even in the most “perfect” structures, I still see dysfunctional behaviour, political agendas, and uncoordinated activity.

Here are eight tactics (ignoring the operating model) that I’ve deployed successfully across a variety of B2B companies:

1. Set the vision

There should only EVER be one “north star.” People across the organisation (regardless of internal boundaries) need to understand what’s being asked of them and feel that it makes sense.

Believing in the “why” inspires them to support the agenda.

The vision must be:

• Inspirational
• Simple
• Clear
• Supported by a business plan

It needs to show believable impacts on the customer experience that link to measurable economic outcomes. In other words: “If we all behave in this way, we create value for our customers and value for us. And it’s worth doing.” No ambiguity. Nice and clear!

Most importantly, the vision must be customer-centric. This externalises people’s thinking and avoids internal noise and boundaries. Nothing is more important than enriching the lives of customers!

2. Share and align goals

Top-line goals and objectives must be common across teams, especially those related to revenue growth, customer retention, and satisfaction. Everyone impacts these outcomes, whether in Sales, Customer Success, Marketing, or Service.

I’d go further: sales targets aren’t just for Sales. Why not index people outside of traditional boundaries to these targets, even if it’s objective-based rather than commission-based? For example, Product Managers act much more collaboratively when their end-of-year review includes some degree of sales success!

Don’t forget the old adage: “What gets measured gets done.” Your governance framework needs to mimic these KPIs — these should appear on the agenda in every operational review across all teams.

Finally, ensure the timing and sequencing of goals are aligned across boundaries. I often see CFOs planning budget cycles in blissful isolation from the CRO’s plans. Equally, I see CTOs or CIOs setting their own priorities independently of Product and Marketing. Many a product launch (and the associated revenue) depends on IT integrations that don’t make it onto the technical roadmap in time.

3. Speak in a common language

The best way to create confusion and ambiguity? Mix up your terminology across teams!

First, make sure the most frequently used descriptors across the business are standardised. It’s common to see, especially in newly acquired bolt-on businesses, the retention of legacy or local language.

For example, one person’s “suspect” is another’s “prospect” or “lead.” “50% probability” can mean different things to different people. So:

• Set specific criteria for what “prospect” and probability levels mean
• Standardise all critical definitions

Make sure this common language permeates every communication and report. A key enabler here is RevOps (or any equivalent central resource). They’re a great resource for setting common standards, policing behaviour, and reinforcing best practices.

4. Create a single customer view

There should only ever be one version of a customer for your business. Period.

I’ve seen highly product-centric organisations create competing sales teams all pitching to the same customer, sometimes even the same buyer! There’s no coordination or thought given to whether a suite of services (a “solution”) would create a better win-win result.

Unless single-product sales are appropriate (and sometimes they are), there should always be a high-touch type of coordination to bring silos together. It’s far more customer-centric to deploy a global account manager to glue the silos together and provide appropriate engagement - internally and externally.

To reinforce this, every company should have one customer database - the single, transparent repository all departments leverage. Classically, this is your CRM. It should be the place we live.

5. Inject cross-silo collaboration

A great way to encourage non-partisan behaviour is to create agile, cross-silo teams to develop initiatives, plans, or tackle specific problems.

One example I’ve deployed is a Proposition Roadmap Board. This pulls together Product, Marketing, Sales, and Technology teams with the united goal of creating compelling value propositions based on direct customer and market intelligence.

This approach works especially well in SaaS businesses, where things happen at the speed of light. Agile teams accelerate feedback loops — checking what’s working (or not) in lead generation, content generation, and more.

Another tactic: Build a War Room. Whether physical or virtual, it’s a cockpit for brainstorming, reviewing progress, and making decisions quickly.

6. Integrate technology and tools

Technology that promotes collaboration — project management software, communication tools, shared databases — can break down silos and improve cross-departmental workflows.

A few great examples:

• Slack: a centralised platform for faster, more transparent communication
• Chatter (in Salesforce): a social collaboration tool for real-time feedback and idea sharing
• Project Management templates: centralised hubs for tracking tasks, updates, and progress

7. Launch a company-wide campaign

Campaigns are a great way to pull together multiple tactics, creating camaraderie, fun, and incremental revenue growth. They’re also a chance to use a war room and embed common KPIs and language.

My personal favourite? “Back to the Customers’ Floor.” This campaign gets everyone out of their silo and into the customer’s world — whether packing bags at checkouts, helping in a restaurant, or even helping aircraft land at airports (too much?).

In my experience, these campaigns generate massive energy and team bonding. Customers usually appreciate the effort, too.

8. Deliver continual training

I see training and development budgets shrinking, and it’s a mistake.

The world evolves, and so must the CRO’s teams. Beyond core job skills, there’s real value in cross-fertilizing knowledge across functions.

Understanding the interdependencies between departments - and why, for example, Sales blames Marketing and vice versa - is crucial. This doesn’t have to be expensive: have heads of department present to the wider team, or even bring in customers to share their challenges and needs.

Hearing directly from customers can be an incredibly sobering and helpful reminder of what truly matters.

In summary

A misaligned organisation is a revenue-killing machine. Aside from planning the org chart, CROs need to deploy a mix of hard and soft tactics to unify the team.

Remember: Customers don’t care about your org chart. They just want your services to work together seamlessly and without friction.

🌍 Found this newsletter interesting? Check out my latest webinar on this topic - I recently ran a session exploring this very challenge in depth!

A huge thank you to everyone who joined live from the USA, UK, and Australia — the turnout was fantastic.

👉 Watch the replay of “THE SILENT KILLER OF REVENUES (AND CROs): TEAM MISALIGNMENT” here: https://youtu.be/jfRXa4gOj88

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