This blog is a summary of Kyle Lacy's Episode on the Revenue Mavericks Podcast. Visit the Mavericks Podcast Homepage to see the latest episodes.

 

Most organizations purport to prioritize and foster alignment. But researchers at Harvard Business School have uncovered a different story: despite 83% of business leaders claiming that their organizations are aligned, only 23% have the metrics to prove it. Most companies have a serious problem when it comes to internal alignment. 

The Disconnect: Why Alignment is Harder Than It Appears

A major cause of misalignment is often a lack of shared metrics across teams. Fortunately, the remedy for this is simple. Everyone, from CS, to sales, to marketing, should have access to the following metrics: 

    • Stage-one and stage-two pipeline numbers (both by count and dollar, and segmented by channel): Track the number and value of opportunities at different pipeline stages, segmented by marketing channels, to understand the effectiveness of each source.
    • Inbound production segmented by market: Measure the number of inbound leads generated, broken down by market segments (e.g., SMB, mid-market, enterprise) to evaluate market-specific performance.
    • Demo conversion rates: Track the percentage of demo leads that convert to customers, indicating the effectiveness of the sales demo in closing deals.
    • Customer health metrics: Monitor factors like usage, satisfaction, and support interactions to gauge customer satisfaction and identify potential churn risks.
    • Quota attainment by rep: Measure how well each sales rep is meeting their sales quota, providing insight into individual performance and sales effectiveness.

This is where many organizations fall short. While teams may share a sense of enthusiasm and optimism about the direction, if they’re not measuring success with the same data points across teams, they can’t move in the same direction. 

Getting data in front of all the right people is only the first step. Most companies even already have the tools in place to analyze them. Even more important is having up-to-date metrics and using them consistently. If you’re relying on vanity metrics or inconsistent data that don’t tie back to business goals, you’re likely missing the mark. 

The Challenge of Defining Alignment

Many businesses also incorrectly understand alignment to extend only to sales and marketing — in reality, it requires all teams, from customer success to product development. It's never enough to have a "hand-off" between marketing and sales or ensure both teams have a perfunctory understanding of each other's goals. Alignment needs to involve a wider perspective that includes customer success, product teams, and leadership, all united under a strategic vision and shared metrics.

I’ve heard it argued that the antidote to misalignment is simply to agree on a vague, high-level concept like "driving customer value" at the expense of considering competition. I disagree. Of course, you should spend a significant amount of time thinking about how to deliver value to your customers. But without the right metrics—like Net Revenue Retention (NRR), Gross Revenue Retention (GRR), upsell opportunities, and product adoption data—you won’t be able to properly measure your success.

On their own, high-level concepts like "customer value" lead to a total organizational breakdown. There’s no real collaboration happening between marketing, sales, product, or customer success teams as a result. It points teams in a direction without informing them how to get there together. Defining alignment needs to extend to the inter-department collaboration and shared responsibilities that you expect of your organization. 

 

A Step-By-Step Approach to Alignment

Achieving alignment can feel daunting, but it doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing, company-wide initiative right off the bat. Start simple and focus on one area at a time. For me, this often begins with pipeline models. When there’s no historical data, make educated guesses to get something to work from, knowing you’ll review and adjust them as you go. The key is to have something in front of you. 

For instance, in the early stages of growth, marketing should work closely with sales to ensure that marketing, business development representatives, and sales enablement are all aligned to support AEs in hitting their quotas. 

Once that’s in place, start addressing other areas, like customer success. With a strong foundation in sales, customer success can begin focusing on improving onboarding processes, better understanding customer health, and conceptualizing how to drive upsell and expansion opportunities – strategies that may overlap with or complement those that your sales reps utilize. 

 

The Role of Revenue Operations in Alignment

Revenue Operations plays an especially important role when it comes to aligning teams. RevOps has unique visibility into the success of an organization and can leverage its overview to recommend metrics and strategies to unite other departments. 

RevOps can help create alignment documents and playbooks that outline how other go-to-market teams collaborate, from pipeline management to handoffs between departments. When something goes wrong, these documents act as a map to help understand what’s happening and how to realign.

 

The Challenge of Scaling Alignment

As companies scale, alignment becomes more difficult. The more people involved in a process, the more moving parts there are to manage. With increased complexity, the metrics you track may need to evolve. For example, a company generating $100-200 million in revenue might place more focus on upsell and expansion, while early-stage companies might prioritize net new bookings.

I’ve worked in environments where clear misalignment was evident from day one. In these situations, the lack of shared metrics and defined processes leads to confusion and frustration. People start making assumptions, treating guesses as facts, and as the organization grows the problem only compounds.

 

Taking Ownership of Alignment

When you spot misalignment, it’s crucial to take ownership of fixing it. Don’t wait for someone else to solve the issue—own it, and ensure it’s addressed no matter the pushback. Start by identifying what’s missing and bringing together the right people to tackle the problem. 

It all starts at the top. If there’s misalignment on the leadership team, it’s the CEO’s responsibility to step in and correct it. The CEO should be focused on aligning the entire organization around a shared set of metrics that go beyond just growth percentages or aggressive bookings targets. A CEO who values alignment and collaboration will ensure that the company is working toward a sustainable growth strategy.

Ultimately, alignment should be treated as a contract between teams, documented and agreed upon so that everyone is on the same page, working toward the same goals. When that alignment is in place, you’ll see faster growth, more efficient operations, and stronger collaboration across departments. So, start with the basics—set your metrics, agree on goals, and build from there.

 

 

Kyle Lacy is the Chief Marketing Officer at Jellyfish, a software engineering management platform that aligns engineering work with business goals by analyzing team performance, workflows, and resource allocation.