You’re spending thousands on ads, content, email funnels, and leads are coming in.
But here’s the kicker: Sales says the leads suck.
Marketing says sales isn’t following up properly.
Sound familiar?
This misalignment between marketing and sales is one of the most common and costly problems in Australian B2B businesses.
I’ve seen it firsthand across companies with the same issue: wasted resources, finger-pointing, and missed revenue targets.
But the real problem? A broken system.
Let’s fix that.
The data paints a clear, and alarming, picture:
1. Lead Quality & Conversion
79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. (MarketingSherpa)
The average conversion rate across all industries is only 2.9%, with B2B often lower. This confirms that most leads fail to progress meaningfully through the funnel.
Nearly 80% of marketing leads go unconverted due to poor sales-marketing coordination.
2. The Cost of Misalignment
Companies with strong alignment see up to 32% faster revenue growth. Those without alignment can face revenue decline.
Aligned teams generate up to 208% more revenue from marketing efforts.
Win rates are 38% higher for aligned organizations, and they are 67% more effective at closing deals.
Alignment doesn’t just help acquisition—it helps retention. Aligned teams see a 36% higher customer retention rate, thanks to consistency and trust-building.
3. Wasted Time on Unproductive Tasks
Sales reps still spend 50% of their time on unproductive prospecting when lead quality is poor. (InsideSales)
A 2025 study found reps spend up to 66% of their time on non-revenue-generating tasks like manual reporting and admin. (McKinsey & Company)
Even worse: 53% of companies have a “broken handoff” where sales teams follow up on fewer than 35% of leads actively engaging with marketing campaigns.
Bottom line: misalignment is burning time, trust, and budget, and the problem isn’t going away.
3 out of 3 business that I’ve worked with here in Sydney from 2023 to 2025, I’ve seen the same recurring issues:
❌ No funnel clarity: MQL and SQL definitions are vague or inconsistent.
❌ No ownership: Marketing executes campaigns without strategic alignment to sales goals.
❌ No feedback loop: Data, insights, and performance results aren’t shared between teams. There is no system in place to support the departments.
❌ No pre-sales function: Leads jump straight from marketing to sales without qualification.
The result?
Departments working in silos, marketing budgets wasted on low-quality leads, and sales teams demotivated by chasing dead ends.
And if think 3 business do not reflect the reality, in 13 years working in this industry, here in Australia, supporting companies in USA and in Brazil, this reality is way more common that you would imagine.
Sales and marketing aren’t separate entities (even though some companies manage to install and create a beef between their team – which is very toxic).
They’re two halves of the same revenue engine.
Think of it as a relay race, if they don’t pass the baton smoothly, the whole race is lost.
Here’s what alignment looks like in practice:
| Stage | Owner | Key Actions |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Marketing | Build brand awareness, attract leads with content, ads, and campaigns |
| Consideration | Marketing + Pre-Sales | Capture, nurture, and segment leads through scoring and qualification criteria |
| Qualification | Pre-Sales (SDRs/BDRs) | Validate fit with frameworks like BANT; provide feedback to marketing |
| Decision | Sales | Close deals with well-nurtured, sales-ready prospects |
| Retention | Sales + Marketing | Nurture existing clients, drive upsells, and increase lifetime value |
This isn’t a handover, it’s a continuous collaboration.
Too many companies blur the line between MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) and SQL (Sales Qualified Lead).
Here’s the difference:
MQL: Prospects showing early-stage interest (e.g., webinar sign-ups, content downloads).
SQL: Prospects that meet buying criteria and are ready for a sales conversation.
The magic happens when pre-sales validates and enriches MQLs before passing them to sales.
If you don’t have a pre-sales team, you do have alternative. You must create a funnel with automation to qualify it, based on score methods…
One way or another, you must ensure that your marketing leads are open to buy, considering to buy, ready to buy before sales engages with them.
Why?
Without that middle step, you’re sending sales teams half-baked leads, and everyone loses.
Think of lead qualification as the tuning fork for your entire revenue engine.
The most overlooked solution in Australian businesses? Pre-sales.
Also known as Sales Development Reps (SDRs) or Business Development Reps (BDRs), pre-sales plays two vital roles:
Lead Qualification, Using lead scoring, CRM data, and outreach to validate if a lead is ready.
Feedback Loop, Sharing insights with marketing to optimise targeting, messaging, and budgets.
According to Gartner, pre-sales can boost conversion rates by 20–30% in mature funnels.
Yet most businesses skip this step and wonder why their expensive leads vanish into a black hole.
Let’s put numbers to it.
Imagine your company generates 1,000 MQLs per month at $30 each (the average cost per lead in australia) = $30,000/month ad spend.
If only 30% are truly qualified → 300 leads
If sales closes 10% → 30 clients
CAC = $1,000 per client
Now, imagine you fix the system:
60% of MQLs become SQLs (via pre-sales) → 600 leads
Sales closes 25% → 150 clients
CAC = $200 per client
That’s 5x better ROI without increasing your budget.
When paired with the industry research showing 208% higher ROI, 38% higher win rates, and 36% higher retention, the case for alignment becomes impossible to ignore.
Here’s the playbook that works:
Define MQL and SQL with precision
Align both teams on what a “qualified lead” means.
Document it. Review quarterly.
Create a shared funnel dashboard
Use HubSpot, Salesforce, or Zoho to track lead progression in real time.
Remove blind spots between teams.
Build a Pre-Sales Bridge
Even a small SDR team improves ROI.
If resources are tight, assign lead qualification duties before handing leads to sales.
Run alignment workshops
Quarterly sessions where sales and marketing review campaign results together.
Create space for feedback and course correction.
Set shared KPIs
Move beyond vanity metrics (clicks, impressions).
Focus on revenue-centric outcomes (MQL → SQL → Closed Won).
If you don’t fix this disconnect, you’ll keep:
Wasting budget on underperforming campaigns
Burning out sales teams with poor-quality leads
Missing revenue opportunities right in front of you
Sales and marketing alignment isn’t just “nice to have”, it’s a non-negotiable growth lever.
When both teams sit at the same table, speak the same language, and chase the same goal, clients, not clicks, you’ll unlock exponential ROI from the same spend.
If your sales and marketing feel like they’re in constant conflict, it’s time for a reset.
At Chama, we help companies untangle messy funnels, build alignment, and transform lead gen systems into revenue engines, with less waste and more impact.
Let’s talk.
