Breaking The Growth Stalemate |

Breaking the growth stalemate:

Delivering commercial growth through strategic alignment

The importance of Marketing and Sales Alignment
Executive Summary
1. Breaking the growth stalemate
2. The B2B journey has changed forever
3. The Marketing and Sales alignment conundrum
4. Seven Steps to achieve commercial excellence
5. Regeneration, Not Stagnation

The importance of Marketing and Sales alignment

Businesses are at an inflection point caught between pursuing growth targets amid industry downturns, monumental shifts in buying behaviours and increased competition. The method of many is to default to cost-cutting, particularly within sales and marketing functions. While understandable, this strategy, especially prevalent in recent years, creates long-term vulnerabilities that stifle sustained commercial success¹.

Instead, achieving enduring growth requires a targeted, intelligence-led strategy that identifies growth sectors, assesses competitive landscapes, and strategically allocates resources.

At Magnus, we have developed the right frameworks to ensure our clients have the right marketing blueprint for commercial success alongside alignment with Sales. Something that positions organisations to not only survive volatility but thrive.

Executive Summary

In this paper we aim to outline the importance of Marketing and Sales alignment for commercial growth as well as the Magnus strategic recommendations to deliver cross-departmental long-term adoption and success.

Marketing and sales alignment is no longer a ‘nice to have’, it’s a commercial imperative. True alignment means full integration: shared goals, unified data, and coordinated customer engagement. Magnus’s Deep Growth Maturity Model shows that most mid-market firms sit in the ‘connected’ or ‘aligned’ phase, with significant headroom for growth unlocked through unified, strategic coordination across teams.
The B2B buyer journey has been permanently reshaped, demanding a radical rethink of go-to-market strategy. Growth now depends on coordinated marketing-led trust-building and consultative sales execution. Marketing is no longer a support function. It’s a critical commercial driver.
Marketing and sales alignment is about commercial integration. When these teams operate as a single, customer-centric unit, businesses unlock sharper decision-making, better resource allocation, and higher growth performance. Yet, misalignment is widespread, not because teams won’t collaborate, but because they lack shared priorities.
Achieving commercial excellence isn’t about adding more tactics—it’s about structuring your business for scalable, sustained growth. Companies with aligned marketing and sales teams grow 24% faster, retain more customers, and lose fewer deals. The most successful companies aren’t cost-cutting commercial engines, they’re fine-tuning them to perform

Breaking the Growth Stalemate

When B2B and SaaS companies are caught in challenging market conditions such as the recent declining growth rates, increased competition and unfavourable conditions in the investments sector¹, a common tactic is often to cut costs, particularly in the sales and marketing functions.

After years of economic conservatism where expense reduction became the default strategy for achieving business growth, many organisations now face significant long-term implications that directly impact their commercial success. Gartner’s Marketing Symposium³ reports marketing budgets stuck at 7.7% of revenue, and 55% of CMOs are diverting larger spend volumes to short-term performance channels.

Sustainable commercial growth requires a strategic approach, allocating resources to areas promising real commercial returns rather than implementing arbitrary cuts².

This approach demands identifying growth sectors, assessing competitive landscapes, and making targeted investments based on market research and intelligence, to drive sustained commercial growth.

Organisations continue to set highly ambitious and scalable commercial growth targets, yet they frequently default to a short-term mindset, such as cost cutting, sales activation and immediate tactical levers, when facing uncertainty, because this is where they feel most comfortable as it is what they have always done. Market volatility demands a more sophisticated commercial response, one that builds resilience and commercial effectiveness from within.

The core challenge of businesses experiencing a growth stalemate is internal disconnection. Marketing, sales, and customer success teams operating in silos produce fragmented commercial strategies, disjointed customer experiences, and lack clarity in execution. The foundations of the revenue operation become structurally incapable of achieving the commercial strategy set at the top of the business.

The result? Teams become disengaged and lack empowerment, messaging becomes functional and lacks value, deal velocity slows, and pipeline degrades.

Simply put, organisations cannot expect to hit commercial targets without marketing and sales alignment. But where are organisations going wrong and what can we do about it?

The B2B Buyer Journey Has Changed Forever

The roles of marketing and sales vary significantly based on the purchase value. For low-value SaaS purchases, marketing leads the way, with 75% of B2B buyers preferring to buy without interacting with a sales rep. Marketing drives the buyer journey through online research and content, with 70%³ of the buying process completed before sales engagement. Marketing’s responsibilities include creating awareness, providing educational content, and enabling self-service transactions, often with minimal sales interaction. Sales involvement is usually reactive, such as answering last-minute questions or assisting with volume discounts.

In contrast, high-value enterprise purchases follow a sales-led approach, where marketing plays a larger role at the top of the funnel, with sales more involved mid and bottom of the funnel. Marketing helps establish thought leadership and brand salience, influencing 86%⁴of enterprise buyers who already have a shortlist of vendors when starting their research.

As the process advances, sales leads with a consultative approach, guiding complex requirements with 10-11 stakeholders involved in the buying process. By mid-stage, 70%⁵of buyers have already defined their needs before engaging with sales. The final purchase decision, often involving custom quotes and long negotiation periods, is driven by sales, which must act as a trusted advisor to close the deal. Marketing continues to support with content, case studies, and reassurance, but sales plays the dominant role in complex, high-value enterprise transactions.

This distinction allows companies to tailor their go-to-market strategies – relying on marketing for low-touch, self-serve purchases and deploying skilled sales teams for high-value, consultative sales.

This commercial shift stems from buyers forming critical evaluations and creating vendor shortlists in the dark funnel – digital channels, peer recommendations, and AI-powered search – making early brand presence and authority a strategic imperative rather than an option. Consequently, conventional sales methodologies are rapidly losing commercial effectiveness. Transactional cold outreach must now give way to sophisticated marketing strategies that establish trust and demonstrate expertise where buyers independently explore potential solutions. value messaging and eroding trust for longstanding customers – the most important customers you have.

These profound moves in commercial decision-making are fundamentally restructuring the B2B landscape, elevating marketing’s role in revenue generation from supplementary to critical.

Stage	Low-Value SaaS Purchase (Marketing-led)	High-Value Enterprise Purchase (Sales-led)
Problem Identification	Marketing: Drives awareness (SEO, content, ads) Stat: 74% of buyers conduct more than half the research online⁶ Example: Blog articles, tutorials, paid search ads. Sales: Little to no direct involvement	Marketing: Sustains salience, establishes thought leadership, builds brand familiarity Stat: 86% of enterprise buyers already have a shortlist⁷ Example: Whitepapers, industry reports, PR, word-of-mouth, analyst mentions. Sales: Secondary role; Account-Based Marketing (ABM) targeted outreach
Solution Exploration	Marketing: Provides self-service content and product trials Stat: Buyers consume 3-7 pieces of content before sales interaction. Example: Free trials, demo videos, comparison tools. Sales: Minimal involvement, usually reactive (e.g., email or chat)	Marketing: Supports with detailed content (case studies, whitepapers, webinars) Example: Tailored content for specific industries Sales: Leads with consultative approach, conducting demos and solution mapping Stat: 90% of buyers will choose a brand they know before the start of the search process⁴ Example: Discovery meetings, solution demos
Requirements Building	Marketing: Offers comparison tools, FAQs, product documentation Stat: 85% of buyers define requirements before engaging sales⁸ Example: Product guides, feature lists, case studies Sales: Rarely involved; the buyer self-defines requirements	Marketing: Assists with RFPs, ROI calculators, reference calls Example: ROI case studies, technical documentation, RFP responses Sales: Leads the process with discovery workshops, custom demos Example: Collaborative solution building, pilot programs
Supplier Selection & Purchase	Marketing: Ensures frictionless purchase experience (transparent pricing, easy checkout) Stat: 71% of B2B vendors offer e-commerce⁹ Example: Online sign-up, promotional emails, free trial support Sales: Involved if necessary for clarifications or volume discounts	Marketing: Provides reassurance content (testimonials, ROI case studies) Example: Customer testimonials, use case videos Sales: Owns the negotiation and final purchase process Stat: Enterprise deals often take 6-12 months to close Example: Contract negotiations, final presentations, pricing discussions

This change towards marketing in the B2B buyer journey makes alignment between both marketing and sales increasingly important, especially for sales teams. That’s why we created our 7 P’s framework, to show you the areas your organisation needs to focus on to create marketing and sales alignment that drive impactful commercial outcomes. We provide a step-by-step plan of how you can use this framework for commercial effectiveness later in this report.

The Marketing and Sales Alignment Conundrum

Marketing and sales alignment goes beyond mere collaboration; it requires true integration. When these functions operate as a single customer-focused entity, organisations unlock significant competitive advantages. From shared data insights to streamlined processes, an aligned approach ensures every strategic decision is grounded in a comprehensive understanding of customer needs and market dynamics.

Deloitte’s 2024 B2B sales research confirms that organisations implementing Revenue Operations (RevOps), which unifies marketing, sales, customer success, service, and partner functions, are 1.4 times more likely to exceed revenue goals by 10% or more compared to those without such alignment¹⁰.

Despite extensive evidence supporting the value of marketing and sales alignment, many organisations fail to recognise that unclear priorities represent their primary obstacle to effectiveness. When assessing commercial performance, the first and most critical question must be: “Are we clear and aligned on our business priorities, objectives, and goals?”

Without clearly defined and universally understood priorities, organisations inevitably suffer from resource misallocation, inconsistent go-to-market strategies, and fragmented customer experiences. Clarity and alignment on priorities between marketing and sales teams aren’t merely important, they are fundamental to achieving commercial excellence.

Organisations that fail to address this misalignment will continue facing inefficiencies that hinder growth, limit scalability, and erode competitive advantage. The path to sustainable commercial success begins with a unified strategic approach ensuring all teams work toward shared business objectives.

The Deep Growth Maturity Model, created by Magnus, illustrates how integration between marketing, sales and customer success drives performance improvements while reducing vulnerability to market volatility. Organisations typically progress through four distinct stages, moving from siloed operations to a completely unified approach. Most businesses currently operate between stages 2 and 3, indicating significant untapped potential for growth through improved alignment.

Seven Steps to achieve commercial excellence

Mapping your growth strategy with the Seven Ps ensures your organisation is structured for sustainable growth. It helps identify competency gaps and drives effective commercial performance.

1. PRIORITIES – Clear strategic priorities prevent misalignment, improve resource allocation, and capture market opportunities. Organisations with aligned priorities are 72% more profitable¹¹.

2. PLANNING – Structured planning translates priorities into actionable goals, ensuring team alignment and measurable outcomes. Companies with robust planning frameworks experience higher revenue growth.

3. POSITIONING – Effective market positioning drives customer perception and competitive advantage. Companies using data-driven positioning outperform competitors.

4. PEOPLE – Commercial success relies on role clarity, collaboration, and employee development. Aligned teams close more deals and enhance performance

5. PROCESS – Efficient processes ensure streamlined operations and consistent customer experiences. Organisations with aligned operations achieve faster revenue growth.

6. PLATFORMS – Leveraging technology enhances process automation and decision-making. Companies integrating AI-driven tools significantly improve operational efficiency.

7. PERFORMANCE – Optimising commercial performance is essential for sustainable growth and profitability. Better data collaboration drives increased revenue.

Implementing these steps builds resilience, creates team alignment, and builds a foundation for sustainable commercial growth. Prioritisation is key, without it organisations risk fragmented efforts and lost opportunities.

Magnus 7Ps Workshop

Kick start your commercial growth journey

Regeneration, Not Stagnation

Aligning teams with clear goals and KPIs drives motivation and success. Leadership support is crucial.

Survey data shows that misaligned teams experience a 48% higher rate of lost deals.¹²

Deals that involve partner collaboration close 38% faster than those that do not.¹²

Misaligned teams incur substantial financial challenges, with enterprises reporting 20–30% revenue leakage due to duplicated efforts, misqualified leads, and inefficient resource allocation.¹³

Organisations with aligned marketing and sales teams see a 36% increase in customer retention rates and 24% faster growth than their competitors.¹⁴

FalconCorp’s 2024 analysis highlights that disjointed operations cost organisations 10% of annual revenue through wasted marketing spend and lost sales opportunities.¹⁵

To summarise, organisations serious about achieving real growth should forget about cost cutting their sales and marketing resources and focus on ensuring the two functions are optimised to unlock sources of growth.

Marketing and sales alignment helps to bring together two commercially focused teams, and see them work towards shared goals, driving them and your organisation to achieve commercial success and growth.

	1. SILOED	2. CONNECTED	3. ALIGNED	4. UNIFIED
Priorities	Teams lack clarity on external risks, long-term goals, and risk mitigation, focusing only on reactive, short-term efforts.	External risks and goals are acknowledged, but teams work on fragmented priorities with little shared understanding.	Teams share clear 12/24/36 month goals, with aligned success indicators and collaborative risk mitigation strategies.	Leadership unites priorities around long-term growth, embedding risk mitigation, adaptability, and a shared vision organisation-wide.
Planning	Topline corporate goal to drive sales with little to no strategy on how to execute across teams.	Each team is executing on the common company strategy, but sales and marketing have independently set goals that have minimal overlap. Success is defined and measured separately. Little focus on customer journey mapping	Aligned and customer-centric KPIs working together. Roles and responsibilities clearly defined and understood across the customer journey.	Insight-first objectives; defining market opportunity, with single focus KPIs around CLTV, with a clearly defined strategy on how to deliver value across the business.
Positioning	Limited audience segmentation and insights lead to disconnected positioning and weak differentiation strategy.	Limited audience segmentation and insights lead to disconnected positioning and weak differentiation strategy.	Consistent messaging throughout the customer journey based on agreed and defined personas that are reviewed and evolved on regular basis.	Insight-first, custom, agile messaging strategy fed by real time engagement data and connected team collaboration.
People	Separate leaders with limited communication lines. Teams not communicating, no role clarity. Land grab for sales. Little consideration for customer post sale from the marketing and sales function.	Leadership have limited communication and sharing of insights and performance. Feedback loops are minimal and irregular. Teams are fractious, with a ‘them and us’ attitude.	Teams are aligned, possibly with a shared leader (CGO) and have regular communications with clear accountability. Handover process between each team is seamless, with clear entry/ exit points for prospects and clients at each stage of the sales and renewal cycle. Supported by a qualitative feedback loop to drive iterative development and actions.	Single team, fully integrated around sub audience segment teams. Working as one along the customer journey, with continuous feedback loops and open lines of communication.
Process	Disconnected customer journey optimisation. Marketing, sales and customer success operating in silos. Lack of relevant and connected data.	Data exists and available but is fragmented across teams making it challenging to get a single view across the customer journey.	Data exists and available but is fragmented across teams making it challenging to get a single view across the customer journey.	Real-time data optimises the process along the customer journey, enabling the whole team to adapt approach, messaging and engagement based on clear customer insights on an account and customer-focused level.
Platforms	Lack of tools – CRM and martech so there is a limited view on performance.	Tech stack is developed but suffers from redundant functionality and/or underutilised capabilities. Lack of fluid connectivity of tools leads to breaks in data travelling. This disjointed data capture leads to lost insight across the customer journey, kept siloed within specific tools or within individuals teams.	Tech fully aligned and utilised. Salesforce updated regularly. Additional tech used to capture intent, engagement and adoption/usage and track actions to alert opportunities/risks ahead of activity.	Tech and tools fully adopted and central to success, enabling seamless integration and real-time insights.
Performance	Metrics focus only on short-term revenue, with no clear tracking of ROI or performance indicators.	Performance influenced by market fluctuations. Growth likely to stagnate. Pipeline health is overlooked.	Performance predictable and steady across net new and retention.	Out-performing market on net new and retention, with metrics like CLTV and NPS driving long-term success.

Transform your Commercial Strategy: Join the Magnus 7Ps Workshop

Designed specifically for C-Level leaders and investment teams, our practical workshop delivers actionable insights to assess and enhance your commercial alignment, using the 7Ps framework:

Evaluate your current sales and maketing maturity

Apply the 7Ps to identify specific gaps and opportunities

Develop a personalised action plan to unlock immediate and long-term commercial success

Register now to transform your company’s commercial effectiveness and achieve sustainable, measurable growth.

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