A cross-border firm selling high-ticket services across two countries had a revenue problem that wasn't showing up in any dashboard. Marketing was hitting their KPIs. Sales was working their pipeline. But deals were slipping through the handoff, and both teams had stopped trusting each other.
Marketing believed they were delivering qualified leads. Sales believed they were drowning in unqualified noise. Neither side had visibility into what the other was actually doing, and the disconnect was costing the company revenue, morale, and internal credibility. Leads arrived with expectations shaped by top-of-funnel messaging, only to encounter sales conversations that didn't match. Prospects felt misled. Sales felt set up to fail. Marketing felt unappreciated.
Pholus was already engaged on retainer when the client flagged the friction as a growing concern. What we uncovered wasn't a performance problem on either side. It was a structural gap that no amount of effort could bridge without governance intervention, shared language, and a framework both teams could trust.
This case study is relevant if you're facing:
Sales and marketing teams that blame each other for poor performance. Your sales team complains that marketing delivers unqualified leads, while your marketing team insists they're hitting volume targets and the sales team isn't closing. Both departments feel overworked and underappreciated, and leadership meetings have devolved into finger-pointing sessions rather than productive problem-solving.
Leads that arrive with the wrong expectations and stall during sales conversations. Prospects who click through your marketing funnels seem engaged initially, but when they reach sales calls, there's a fundamental mismatch between what they thought they were getting and what your sales team is actually offering. Conversion rates are suffering, but no one can pinpoint whether the problem is messaging, qualification, or sales approach.
High-performing individuals trapped in misaligned systems. You have competent people on both teams who produce solid work in isolation, but when their outputs have to connect, something breaks down. You suspect the issue isn't talent or effort but rather a structural problem in how the teams coordinate, communicate, and define success.
No formal feedback loop between departments that depend on each other. Sales has no structured way to tell marketing which campaigns produce quality leads, and marketing has no visibility into what happens after handoff. Decisions get made in silos, assumptions harden into resentment, and neither team understands what the other is optimizing for or struggling with.
Revenue growth that feels inefficient despite increasing activity. Your business is growing, but it requires more marketing spend and more sales effort than it should. Deals take longer to close, cost per acquisition keeps climbing, and you have a nagging sense that internal friction is quietly draining momentum and profitability.
We diagnosed the disconnection through structured interviews that revealed competence trapped in silos. Rather than assume either team was at fault, we interviewed members from both sales and marketing to understand what each believed the other did well and where frustration originated. The pattern was clear: both teams were competent, but they had no insight into each other's processes, constraints, or success metrics. Marketing optimized for click-through rates and lead volume without regard for deal readiness. Sales reacted to volume surges with skepticism because no one had agreed on what constituted a qualified lead. The handoff was broken not because of incompetence, but because of structural isolation.
We mapped the full lead lifecycle to expose the gaps between marketing promises and sales reality. We visually documented every stage from ad click to closed deal, identifying where messaging diverged and where expectations fractured. Marketing assets were aspirational, emphasizing transformation and speed. Sales conversations focused on deliverables, constraints, and realistic timelines. No one had aligned these narratives, so prospects arrived confused and sales teams felt undermined. The map made the problem visible to both sides simultaneously, shifting blame into shared accountability.
We designed a simple governance framework that created predictable alignment without bureaucratic overhead. Rather than launch another alignment initiative that would fade after initial enthusiasm, we proposed enforceable structure: biweekly meetings attended by senior reps from both teams, mandatory preview of new marketing assets with sales before deployment, shared lead quality logging using an agreed rubric, and joint interpretation of KPIs rather than isolated celebration or criticism. We positioned these changes as operational respect, not oversight. Each team was being asked to understand what the other was solving for.
We facilitated the first three alignment meetings to model tone, structure, and productive conflict resolution. Pholus guided both teams through real-time miscommunications, helping them reframe disagreements into objective analysis rather than personal attacks. We encouraged direct feedback that was specific and actionable, not vague or adversarial. By month two, the meetings were running smoothly without us. Both teams had developed shared language, mutual respect, and a process that turned friction into collaboration. The result wasn't just better internal relationships but measurably better business outcomes.
The full case study details the diagnostic interview process we used to surface hidden misalignments, the lead lifecycle mapping methodology that exposed narrative gaps, and the governance framework design that created sustainable alignment without adding bureaucratic weight.
If your sales and marketing teams are blaming each other for poor results, your leads arrive with mismatched expectations, or you suspect structural problems are masking individual competence, Pholus provides governance design and team translation that reduces friction without restructuring. We specialize in diagnosing silos, building alignment frameworks, and facilitating productive conflict resolution in high-trust environments.
This expertise also applies when departments across your organization depend on each other but lack formal coordination mechanisms, when talented individuals underperform because systems don't connect, or when growth feels inefficient despite increased activity and investment.