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B2B marketing and sales have long been at odds. Sales teams frequently criticize the quality of leads they receive, while marketers question sales’ ability to follow up effectively. At the heart of this frustration is a structural problem rooted in CRM systems.
I personally think Salesforce, the most widely used CRM in B2B, is to blame for this disconnect.
Simply put, the Lead Object, which is central to Salesforce’s design, completely messes with everyone’s head and doesn’t align with how B2B buying decisions are made.
In B2B, purchases happen at the account level, involving multiple stakeholders across an organization. Yet marketers are expected to focus on generating individual leads, usually hit with a certain quota…and we all know how that usually pans out.
This problem isn’t because of technology, though. It’s all about mindset.
Too many marketing strategies focus on influencing individuals rather than building relationships across entire organizations. Similarly, sales teams often lack the visibility they need to understand the full picture of account engagement and end up chasing the wrong individual simply because they ended up in a list from marketing. You see how the cycle is destined for division!
Dig deeper: Why account-based expansion is B2B’s next growth lever
The Lead Object is where this problem started
To put it bluntly, the Lead Object is outdated and ineffective for B2B marketing and sales. When Salesforce introduced this model, it made sense for simpler, transactional sales processes. But in BB today, the Lead Object creates more problems than it solves.
Let’s take a peek at this through the lens of your ops team and see exactly why it doesn’t work.
Once a Lead converts to a Contact, it can’t go back
This alone should tell you everything you need to know about why the Lead Object is unnecessary and absurd. Once a Lead becomes a Contact, that’s it — it’s a one-way trip. Seriously, why even bother using this in the first place?
The Lead Object overlooks multi-stakeholder buying
B2B deals are rarely decided by a single person. Buying committees are the norm, with champions, blockers, influencers, decision-makers and maybe even a grumpy executive or two. Focusing on just one lead in an organization ignores how decisions are actually made and that’s going to hurt you down the road.
Dig deeper: Why B2B CMOs are frustrated with ABM platforms
Shift to account-level thinking
B2B purchases don’t happen in a vacuum, and they’re rarely the result of just one person’s decision without any other input. So why do so many organizations still treat their CRM systems like they’re selling to individuals? Here’s how you can start winning as one team.
Focus on accounts, not individuals
Track all activity at the account level. Every contact, every conversation and every touchpoint should map back to the broader organization. Why wouldn’t you want to leverage this information? This creates a unified view of their engagement and makes it easier to build your own engagement strategy to create and win the deal.
Map out stakeholder relationships
Not all stakeholders are created equal. You need to know who’s influencing the deal, who’s advocating for your solution and who might try to block it. Understanding the roles each contact plays within the buying process is critical to building a strategy that works. Know your enemy. Anticipate what’s to come so you can plan accordingly rather than reacting in real time.
Rethink communication as a cohesive motion
Why does communication between marketing and sales need to feel so binary? Marketing warms them up. Sales closes them. It sounds good in theory, but it’s disconnected in practice. A smarter approach would treat communication as one cohesive strategy. Sales could focus on key players while marketing engages other stakeholders. After all, most communication happens in the same channels, so why not coordinate and anticipate what needs to happen to move the account forward? Anything less feels like wasted potential.
Stop over-complicating things
Look, as fun as it is to make your job sound wildly complex with Rube Goldberg-like processes and over-the-top jargon — it’s not. Keep it simple. At the end of the day, you’re one of thousands and thousands of companies trying to do the same thing: track who to communicate with and when to reach out and why.
Too many organizations still treat individual leads as the center of their process when the reality is you’re selling to entire accounts. Buying decisions don’t hinge on one person. They’re made by groups of people with different perspectives, needs and priorities. Fragmenting communication between marketing and sales makes it impossible to approach accounts as a cohesive whole, limiting your ability to build the relationships across stakeholders that drive deals forward.
The account IS the lead.
The sooner you stop clinging to individual lead-centric processes, the sooner you’ll start working smarter.
Treat communication as one cohesive motion, with marketing and sales playing complementary roles instead of stepping on each other’s toes. When you shift your mentality to the account, you start building a strategy that mirrors how B2B buying actually happens — where every connection is a chance to strengthen your position and move closer to a win.
When your CRM is built to support this reality, it becomes an actual solution that helps you achieve alignment and results.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the martech community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.
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