Your sales team ignores your leads (here's how to fix it)

Hey [Name],

You know that monthly sales/marketing alignment meeting?

Marketing presents beautiful slides about MQLs and attribution.

Sales scrolls through their phone waiting for it to end.

Yeah, that meeting is why your ABM campaigns fail.

The 15-Minute Stand-Up That Works

Ditch the slides. Do this instead:

• 5 min: Here are 3 accounts we're targeting this week
• 5 min: Here's exactly what we did and what happened
• 5 min: What does sales need to close these?

No theory. Just: accounts, actions, needs.

Longer than 15 minutes? You're doing it wrong.

Why Your Handoffs Fail

Typical process:

1. Marketing generates lead
2. Logs in CRM
3. Assigns to sales
4. Sales ignores it
5. Marketing frustrated
6. Repeat

Better process:

1. Marketing generates engagement
2. Slacks sales IMMEDIATELY
3. Shares actual conversation
4. Decide next step together
5. Someone actually follows up

Difference? Real-time collaboration, not throwing leads over wall.

Your Beautiful Account Briefs

You spent hours creating:

• Detailed org charts
• Tech stack analysis
• Strategic initiatives
• 15 pages of insights

Sales read exactly none of it.

What sales actually needs:

One page. Five minutes to read.

Why Alignment Actually Fails

Marketing thinks: Sales is lazy, doesn't follow up

Sales thinks: Marketing doesn't understand real buyers

Both are kinda right.

The solution isn't more process. It's understanding incentives:

Sales cares about:

• Hitting quota THIS quarter
• Deals that close quickly
• Not wasting time
• Looking good to manager

Marketing cares about:

• Lead volume metrics
• Campaign attribution
• Brand consistency
• Long-term pipeline

See the disconnect?

The "Actually Follow Up" System

When target account engages:

Immediate (5 min):

• Slack the rep
• Include actual engagement
• Tag in CRM
• Set 24-hour task

Daily (5 min):

• Review yesterday's engagement
• Confirm follow-up happened
• Plan today's outreach
• Address blockers

Weekly (30 min):

• Review all ABM activity
• Celebrate ANY wins
• Identify stuck accounts
• Plan next week

Total time: 3 hours/week. That's it.

What Good Looks Like

Tag Team:
Marketing notices CEO viewed pricing 3x → Slacks sales → Sales calls about specific questions → Deal closes in 2 weeks not 2 months

The Save:
Sales ghosted after good call → Marketing sends strategic direct mail → Prospect re-engages → Sales books follow-up, closes deal

Intelligence Share:
Sales hears competitor struggling → Tells marketing immediately → Targeted campaign for competitor's customers → 3 replacements in one quarter

Pattern? Real-time collaboration on specific accounts.

Metrics That Drive Alignment

Stop measuring:
✗ MQLs passed
✗ SQL acceptance rate
✗ Marketing sourced %
✗ Attribution percentages

Start measuring:
✓ Target account engagement
✓ Days to meeting
✓ Account penetration
✓ Deal velocity for ABM
✓ Win rate on targets

These require BOTH teams to succeed.

Scripts Sales Will Use

LinkedIn: "Hi [Name] - My colleague mentioned you downloaded our [asset]. Worth connecting to share insights on [their challenge]."

Email: "Noticed you checked our [page] a few times. Most [title] look at that because of [challenge]. Worth a quick chat?"

Voicemail: "My marketing team flagged you've been researching [topic]. Rather than send more stuff, thought I'd see if a conversation would help."

Pattern? Reference actual behavior, make it about them, keep it short.

The Real Secret

Want to know the actual secret to alignment?

Sit next to each other.

Seriously.

Best aligned teams:

• Sit in same area
• Eat lunch together
• Share wins/losses
• Actually like each other

All the process in the world can't fix teams that don't talk.

Your action items:

1. Schedule 15-min daily standup (start tomorrow)
2. Create one-page account briefs
3. Set up shared Slack channel (#abm-accounts)
4. Measure shared metrics (win rate, not MQLs)
5. Sit closer together (physical or virtual)

Tomorrow: Measuring what matters (spoiler: not what looks good).