Marketing Campaigns

Two Tall Guys Talking Sales – Breaking the Silos: Aligning Sales and Marketing for Real Revenue Growth – Episode 147

By Sean O'Shaughnessey

In this episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, Kevin Lawson and Sean O’Shaughnessey dive deep into one of the most misunderstood dynamics in business: the relationship between sales and marketing. Pulled directly from a thought-provoking question inside the B2B Sales Lab community, this conversation explores how sales teams can contribute meaningfully to marketing efforts and why that collaboration drives better revenue generation. Whether you lead a sales team, run marketing campaigns, or wear both hats in a small business, this episode gives you practical strategies to align your teams, sharpen your messaging, and enhance sales success.

Key Topics Discussed

The Role of Sales in Marketing & Content Development (00:00)
How sales leaders can become strategic contributors to content and campaign direction.
Being the Voice of the Customer Across the Business (00:02)
Why sales must act as a conduit of market intelligence, not just for marketing but across production, delivery, and operations.
Sales Behavior That Builds or Breaks Internal Trust (00:04)
The importance of accountability and humility when offering feedback to other departments.
Making Marketing a Regular Part of Sales Meetings (00:08)
A tactical breakdown of how to engage marketing in the sales rhythm without derailing productivity.
Field Collaboration: Invite Your Internal Teams to Ride Along (00:10)
Why taking engineers or operations managers on customer calls creates stronger cross-functional empathy and better customer experiences.
Marketing Assets: Create Them, Use Them, Give Feedback (00:12)
How to close the feedback loop on content effectiveness and ensure sales uses what marketing builds.

Key Quotes

“Sales is accountable for driving the revenue, but sales is also accountable for working with marketing to get to a market-facing message that addresses current needs.”
— Kevin Lawson (00:00)
“Your job in sales is to be the best-run department in the company. If you’re not, your opinion probably doesn’t matter.”
— Sean O’Shaughnessey (00:08)
“Please, oh please, use the tools your marketing team creates for you. If you don’t, that’s on you.”
— Kevin Lawson (00:12)
“There’s no better way to get internal teams aligned with customers than to take them on sales calls. Let them breathe your air and eat at Burger King between meetings.”
— Sean O’Shaughnessey (00:11)

Additional Resources

B2B Sales Lab Community: A peer group for sales professionals focused on sharpening sales processes, messaging, and revenue management. www.b2b-sales-lab.com

A Significant Actionable Item from this Podcast

Hold a joint sales-marketing meeting each quarter.

Schedule a dedicated 30-minute session within your sales team’s recurring meeting where your marketing counterpart joins to review current messaging, upcoming campaigns, and voice-of-the-customer insights. Let marketing ask questions, present new content, and gather sales feedback. Use this as a structured loop to align both teams on business acumen, sales strategies, and revenue goals.

Why You Should Listen Now

If you’ve ever wondered why your sales messaging isn’t landing or why marketing feels “out of touch,” this episode is for you. Kevin and Sean pull back the curtain on how high-performing sales organizations dissolve silos, share real-time customer feedback, and co-create assets that drive revenue. Whether you’re a VP of Sales, a marketing leader, or a business owner trying to scale effectively, you’ll walk away with ideas you can implement this week to align your teams for better revenue generation and sales success. Tune in now and start building the team your customers deserve.

Adapting to the New Sales Landscape: The Importance of Omni-Channel Outreach

By Sean O'Shaughnessey

Are you still relying on trade shows as your primary sales driver? The sales landscape has undergone a seismic shift. Those packed convention halls and endless rows of booths no longer serve as the bedrock of business development they once were.

Let’s talk about what works in today’s sales environment. Building an effective outbound pipeline isn’t just an option anymore – it’s your survival toolkit. But here’s the challenge: how do you stand out in a market where everyone’s fighting for attention?

Your unique value proposition makes all the difference. Yet many sales professionals miss a crucial point: your value proposition isn’t static. What resonates with a manufacturing client might fall flat with a distribution company. Have you tailored your message to address each industry’s pain points?

Think about your last prospecting campaign. Did you give up after four or five attempts? Research shows it takes 12 to 16 touches before prospects typically respond. This gap between persistence and practice often determines success or failure in modern sales.

The game has changed. Your prospects live in an omnichannel world. They check email between Zoom calls, scroll LinkedIn during lunch, and scan their phones throughout the day. How are you showing up in their digital world?

Consider this: every unanswered email or phone call might be a messaging problem. Are you talking about your features when you should be solving your prospects’ problems? Your prospects don’t care about your product specifications. They care about their challenges, their goals, and their bottom line.

Read the rest of the article…

The Secret to Sales Success: Effective Management and Qualification of MQLs and SQLs

By Sean O'Shaughnessey

The concept of leads is familiar to sales and marketing novices and experts. However, leads are not created equal. There are Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). The differences between these two types of leads and the approach to handling them can significantly impact the efficiency and success of your sales pipeline.

The journey of a lead typically begins with the marketing team. They craft messages and campaigns to attract potential customers, drawing them towards the company. These potential customers or leads are known as Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs). MQLs are individuals who have shown interest in the company’s product or service but have yet to be vetted for sales-readiness. They may have responded positively to the company’s marketing efforts by downloading a case study, signing up for a newsletter, following the company on social media, or a wide variety of other criteria that can be unique to each selling organization.

Unfortunately, just because a lead has shown interest does not mean they are ready to make a purchase. This is where the sales team comes in. Their role is to qualify these leads further, turning them into Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs). SQLs are leads the sales team has determined are ready for direct sales engagement. They have been vetted and have shown a clear interest and willingness to hear about the company’s offering from a sales perspective.

While marketing messages are designed to attract and engage a broad audience, the sales approach is more personal and more targeted. Sales focuses on building a relationship with the individual, understanding their unique needs, and demonstrating how the product or service can meet those needs.

Miscommunication or differing expectations can result in leads being passed along that are not truly sales-ready. This can waste time and resources and even damage potential customer relationships. It’s important for sales and marketing to work together, communicate effectively, and have a clear understanding of what constitutes a qualified lead.

One way to navigate this challenge is to establish clear criteria for MQLs and SQLs. What actions or behaviors indicate that a lead is ready to move from marketing to sales? This might include downloading certain resources, attending webinars, or requesting a product demo. By defining these criteria, both teams can ensure they’re on the same page and that leads are passed along at the appropriate time.

Salespeople should also understand how a lead became an MQL. What attracted them to the company? What information have they consumed? This understanding can inform the sales approach and help the salesperson build a relationship with the lead.

Communication between sales and marketing doesn’t end when a lead becomes an SQL. Salespeople should provide feedback to their marketing colleagues about the leads they’re receiving. If certain leads aren’t panning out, it’s important to communicate this so that marketing can adjust their strategies accordingly. Similarly, marketing should be open to feedback and willing to collaborate with sales to refine their lead qualification process.

In the end, marketing and sales have the same goal: to generate revenue for the company. By working together to manage and qualify leads effectively, they can ensure they’re both working towards this common goal.

With clear communication, collaboration, and a shared understanding of what makes a lead sales-ready, marketing and sales can streamline the sales pipeline and drive success.

Read the rest of the article…