Sales and Marketing Alignment Isn’t Optional Anymore for Distributors
Why are Sales and Marketing still playing from different playbooks?
Is it a communication problem? I think so. More importantly, though, it’s a profitability problem.
When your sales team focuses on products and technical know-how, but your website leads with messaging about solutions and strategic partnerships, you’re not just sending mixed signals—you’re forcing prospects to do the work of reconciling two different value propositions. One tells them what you sell. The other hints at why it matters. Two solid, positive messages—both working against you.
It might not seem like a big deal. After all, both are technically true.
But here’s what we know as marketers: when you present two competing narratives, most prospects choose neither. They bail.
Asking them to reconcile “What do you sell?” with “What kind of partner will you be?” is asking them to do mental work they didn’t sign up for. And in a high-stakes, low-trust buying environment like distribution, that kind of friction is the fastest path to a closed browser tab.
Sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but here’s why it’s true:
Buyers today are already 60–70% through their decision-making before they talk to sales. So by the time they hear from your rep, they’ve already been primed by your site to expect a strategic partner. Your rep, however, is pitching products and know-how. See the disconnect?
That mismatch doesn’t just cause confusion—it creates dissonance. The kind that makes buyers question, “Do these people really understand what I need?”
In a world where attention is short and trust is earned slowly, that hesitation is all it takes to lose the deal, unless a buyer is generous enough with their time to let your salesperson talk long enough to explain the disconnect. Most won’t be.
Let’s get clear about the new reality. Your website isn’t a brochure anymore. It’s your first, and sometimes only, salesperson.
And if your digital presence doesn’t echo what your sales team is saying on the ground (or vice versa), you’re not just missing leads. You’re ability to create a frictionless buying experience — something we all strive to do — is seriously hindered.
Mike Kunkle has long emphasized in his work that the very first building block of effective sales enablement is buyer acumen—really knowing the buyer, not guessing what they might want. He anchors this in a simple but powerful framework he calls COIN OP:
– C/O: What challenges are they facing—or what opportunities could they be missing?
– I: What are the risks or impacts if they keep doing what they’re doing?
– N: What do they truly need or want (in relation to the solutions you offer)?
– O/P: What outcomes are they after, and what’s in it for them if they succeed?
Kunkle calls this deep understanding a “selling superpower” because once you build it, you can craft messaging and sales collateral that truly resonates with your customers and helps your salespeople move their prospects closer to a sale.
The old model, when Marketing made brochures and Sales closed deals, worked when buyers expected to talk to a human early. That’s not what’s happening today.
Buyers want to vet you first. Compare. Self-educate. If Marketing is working off assumptions, while Sales holds the real customer intel, you’re running two competing narratives of your company side-by-side.
This kind of misalignment doesn’t show up in dashboards, by the way. It’s not measurable (except perhaps through employee frustration). Instead, it shows up as stagnant pipelines, dropped opportunities, and prospects who go dark after their first or second digital touchpoint. Not because they’re not a fit—but because they’re getting mixed signals.
Whether we call it dissonance or confusion, it’s often the very reason customers stick with their current distributor—even when they’re unhappy.
That’s the price of misalignment—real dollars, lost quietly. I’ve seen it a lot over the years, and I still see it today.
Here’s how to get it fixed:
Phase 1: Shared Understanding
Build buyer personas together. Marketing brings data and ideas. Sales brings the real-world context—what customers actually say, ask, and care about. You only get the full picture when both sides are in the room.
Phase 2: Content Collaboration
Have Sales identify the FAQs, the objections, and the trust gaps. Then have Marketing build content that answers those directly. No more guessing on Marketing’s part.
Phase 3: Feedback Loops
Tie CRM and marketing automation together. When a marketing-qualified lead becomes a sales-qualified lead, Sales should know the context. When Sales closes (or loses) a sale, Marketing should know why.
And here’s the part that often gets skipped: make sure Marketing knows why this loop matters. In many distribution businesses, marketing teams haven’t traditionally been included in post-sale conversations.
Help them see the value. Bring them into the process. Once they see how sales intel sharpens their campaigns, they’ll have an even better understanding of your customers, which gives them even more of what they need to create compelling marketing campaigns.
The breakthrough moments, and they WILL come, are when Marketing can stop guessing on the pain points, and Sales can see where and why deals stall, slip away, or never get off the ground.
The right tech (CRM + marketing automation) is necessary to make this possible. CRM alerts. Engagement scoring. Behavioral signals tracked on your website. Logging clear customer notes. But the tech only works when there’s commitment behind it.
The distributors making progress on alignment aren’t just measuring volume—they’re measuring clarity and traction, such as:
– What’s actually working?
– Where are prospects dropping off?
– What messaging is pulling its weight?
– More specifically, they’re looking at:
- Lead-to-qualified-opportunity ratio – Are we attracting the right buyers, or just filling the funnel with noise?
- First-touch to close rate – Which entry points actually lead to revenue?
- Message-match win rates – Are deals more likely to close when the website and the salesperson say the same thing?
- Churn by acquisition source – Are we keeping the customers we worked hardest to win?
This is Key
Alignment isn’t a warm-and-fuzzy goal—it’s a measurable, bankable advantage that allows you to replicate and systematize what works. And when your teams see this working, you’ll start to see trust-building at every stage as your go-to-market culture begins to shift.
You’ll see process changes that elevate everyone’s hard work. And you’ll see employees who prioritize the customer journey over departmental turf.
Sales and marketing alignment isn’t a reorg—it’s a refocus. And the distributors who figure it out? They don’t just win more deals. They attract better customers and better employees.
Now What do You Do?
If you’re ready to tackle this, don’t aim for perfection. Aim for clarity. Map the customer journey. Find the cracks. Here’s how:
Map your current customer journey from first awareness to final purchase. Include every touchpoint, every handoff, and every piece of content or conversation that influences the decision.
Then ask both teams:
1. Where are the disconnects?
2. Where are prospects getting mixed messages?
3. Where could better coordination remove friction and build trust?
4. What are we doing to move each prospect closer to a sale?
The answers will point to your highest-impact improvements.
Keep in mind that momentum is crucial here. This isn’t about launching another bloated initiative or waiting until you “have time.” It’s about small, consistent moves that change how your teams collaborate—and how your customers experience your business.
To facilitate this process, I’ve created the 90-day Digital Distributor Essentials program because it’s too easy to lose momentum when you take this on.
It’s the exact process I eventually take all my customers through, but the difference here is that this program is a focused, 90-day runway for sales and marketing teams who are ready to stop guessing, start aligning, and build durable systems that scale collaboration and trust NOW.
I promise you — there is no faster way to get sales and marketing aligned around what matters most: winning and keeping the right customers.
The Bottom Line
Sales and marketing alignment is no longer a nice-to-have. In a world where buyers control most of the journey, the distributors who deliver a seamless, frictionless, value-driven experience across all touchpoints will be the ones who win. Not just now—but over and over again.
The tech is ready. The frameworks are proven. What’s needed now is your commitment to lead it.
If you’re serious about solving these issues, I’ll show you what alignment could look like for your specific business. Reach out to me today.