Most business leaders know the sound of misalignment.
It’s the friction that happens when Marketing feels under-appreciated for hitting a lead target, while Sales feels unsupported in hitting a revenue target. It’s the debate over a slide deck that drags on for three weeks. It’s the finger-pointing that starts when the quarter ends and the numbers aren't there.
We often label this as a culture clash or a personality issue. We assume that if we just got the teams to like each other more, the problem would vanish.
But in my experience, the root cause is rarely interpersonal. It is operational.
The friction exists because the organisation is operating without a single source of truth.
When you don't have a foundational agreement on who the customer is and what they actually care about, your strategy is driven by internal opinions, the latest trends, and the pressure to meet arbitrary deadlines.
The result isn't just an unhappy team. It’s a disjointed brand.
When there is no source of customer truth, every department invents their own.
Think about this from your customer’s perspective.
They see one promise on an ad, hear a different story on the sales call, and experience a third reality during onboarding. At every touchpoint, the story changes.
Trust evaporates in the gap between the website promise and the sales pitch. And when trust drops, sales cycles get longer and win rates go down.
To fix this, companies often create a brand guidelines document.
While useful for designers, a PDF containing hex codes, logo usage rules, high-level voice and tone guidance, and a generic mission statement is not an operational tool. It tells you what you look like, but it doesn't tell you what to say to close a deal.
To align the company, you need a messaging framework, built on data, not opinions. When you base your messaging on actual quotes from customer interviews, specific pain points, and verified buying triggers, you remove the subjectivity.
You stop arguing about whether a headline sounds "punchy" and start asking if it reflects the research.
A messaging framework is an operational asset, capturing your positioning, your story, and your sales arguments in one place.
Ideally, the document flows from internal (who we are) to external (who we serve) to tactical (how we sell).
Depending on the complexity of your product, this can be a simple one-pager or a more comprehensive playbook.
The one-pager (the essentials). At a minimum, every team needs a single page that defines:
The strategic framework (the expansion). For teams that need to go deeper, the framework expands to cover the full customer reality:
The golden rule: It must come from the customer
This document cannot be an internal exercise. If you build your framework based solely on internal brainstorming sessions, you are just creating an echo chamber.
To solve the alignment problem, your framework must be research-driven. It has to be built on what the market actually says, not what your team hopes is true. When the customer provides the data, the internal debate stops.
The beauty of a messaging framework is that it’s not just for Marketing. It’s a tool for the entire organisation.
Even the best framework will fail if you don't understand the human element of the rollout.
A few years ago, I was working through a frustration that every marketer knows well. I had built the materials, written the copy, and organised the assets—yet the sales team wasn't using any of it.
I was venting to a business coach, blaming "stubbornness" and "culture." She stopped me and asked a question that changed my entire perspective:
"Do you know what they are afraid of?"
I realised that I wasn't just asking them to use a new slide deck. I was asking them to change how they hit their targets.
Salespeople live and die by their quota. They stick to their old pitch (even if it’s outdated) because it feels safe. It has worked in the past. Asking them to use a new, untested message feels like asking them to gamble with their paycheck.
If you want to fix the alignment gap, you have to lower the risk.
You cannot simply email a strategy document to the sales team and hope for the best. You need a rollout plan that acknowledges the pressure they are under.
Here is how to turn a messaging framework into revenue:
Involve them before you write: Don't reveal the new messaging at the end of the project. Interview your customer-facing teams during the research phase. Ask them what objections they hear most often. Ask them where the current deck fails. When they see their feedback reflected in the final framework, they are far more likely to trust it.
Make it impossible to miss: You can have the best strategy in the world, but if it is buried three folders deep on a server, it won't get used. It doesn't need to be fancy—a simple Google Site or a dedicated folder pinned to the top of your Shared Drive works. But don't just store it; broadcast it. Share the link in Slack or Teams regularly. Send it via email. Remind people it exists until they roll their eyes. If they can’t find it in two clicks, they will go back to using the old deck. Remove the excuses.
Create "flex zones": A common fear is that marketing scripts will sound robotic. To counter this, provide templates rather than handcuffs. Build a sales deck with "flex zones"—slides where the rep can customise the story for the specific prospect, while keeping the core value proposition consistent.
The cheat sheet Strategy documents are for leadership; tools are for the front line. Translate your 20-page framework into a one-page cheat-sheet.
Prove the impact: Once the framework is live, track the performance. Does the new pitch shorten the sales cycle? Is the new website copy increasing conversion? When you can prove that the new story works, you stop having to "enforce" adoption. Sales will adopt it because they want to win.
We tend to overcomplicate alignment. We try to fix it with team-building days or new Slack channels.
But true alignment comes from clarity.
When you strip away the internal opinions and build a source of truth based on customer insight, you remove the need for debate. You give your Sales, Marketing, and Product teams a shared map.
Stop guessing. Stop fighting. Get your story straight, and the revenue will follow.
If you are ready to fix the alignment gap, here are three ways I can help:
Get the templates: Download my messaging kit to start building your own one-pager today.
Get the data: You can't build a source of truth without input. Read my guide on customer interviews to stop guessing.
Get a partner: If you need to align your team fast, get in touch. Let’s build a messaging framework that your sales team will actually use.