Sales and marketing alignment, without the 12-person meeting
Most companies try to fix alignment with a big meeting. The problem is, alignment breaks every week, not once per quarter. Marketing updates the message, sales is in front of customers, and suddenly you have five “latest” versions in circulation.
If you want alignment to actually hold, you need a small weekly routine that keeps the story clear. Not a workshop, not a project, and not a meeting where 12 people talk and nobody changes anything.
Keep it simple. Once a week, 20 minutes, 2 to 4 people. One person from sales leadership, one person from marketing who owns the message, and if you want, one experienced seller who is actively meeting customers. If you are launching something new, you can add product marketing for that week, otherwise keep the group small.
Before you join, bring three things only. First, what sellers actually used in customer meetings and follow ups. Not what you hoped they would use, what they really used. Second, two or three customer questions or reactions that came up repeatedly. Third, one or two business changes that affect what sellers should say, like a promo, pricing, a focus product, competitor talk, or supply issues.
When the 20 minutes ends, you must ship three outputs. If you do not ship these, you did not align, you just talked.
One main message for this week. One sentence that a seller can remember, and that fits real customer conversations.
One improvement, and one removal. Improve one thing that is already used, remove one thing that is outdated or confusing.
One short note to sellers. What changed, why it changed, what to do now, and one link to the latest version.
If you need a simple agenda, use this. Spend the first few minutes looking at what was used. Then share the customer reactions. Then decide the main message. Then update one item and remove one item. Finally, write the short seller note and send it.
There is one rule that decides whether this works in real life. The story must live in one place, and it must be easy to access. If sellers have to search emails, chat threads, shared drives, and old attachments, they will use whatever they find first. Use one link that always points to the current version, and update the content behind that link. This one detail removes a surprising amount of chaos.
If you want practical next steps, here are the basics for each group.
For sales leaders: stop asking for “more content”. Ask for fewer, clearer materials that sellers actually use. Your job is to remove friction, so consistency becomes easy.
For marketing leaders: when sales changes your message, it usually means something does not work in real customer conversations. Treat it as a signal. Fix the official version so sellers do not need to create their own.
For sellers: spend less time building slides and more time selling. Use the official link in follow ups, and when something breaks, give clear feedback instead of making another version.
You will know this is working when sellers stop asking “which deck do I use”, marketing stops hearing “sales ignores our materials”, the library gets smaller instead of bigger, and follow ups become more consistent because everyone shares the same link.
Written by Juha Qvick, Partner and Head of Growth at Salesframe, working daily with sales and marketing teams across multiple markets.