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Flat budgets demand better alignment between Sales and Marketing

Published 13 days ago • 1 min read

Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey shows marketing budgets holding at 7.7% of company revenue - flat year over year. Published in June 2025, it confirms many teams must create more pipeline without more dollars.

What from the CASH framework of Communication, Alignment, Systems, and Honesty can help us address this topic?

This needs a focus on Alignment.

When money is tight, the fastest lift comes from Sales and Marketing aiming at the same goals with the same definitions so effort compounds instead of colliding.

Your actions:

  • Set three shared KPIs this week: Lead-to-Opportunity rate, Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), and Win Rate. These should be owned jointly by Sales, Marketing, and RevOps, and reviewed every Monday in one dashboard (lives in your CRM). These are recommended as shared measures to keep both teams pushing toward real revenue outcomes.
  • Lock a single “Revenue Funnel” definition across CRM and Marketing Automation in the next 7 days (stage names, entry/exit rules, and what triggers a handoff). This stops reporting conflicts and keeps actions in sync. Owner: RevOps, with one Sales lead and one Marketing lead signing off.
  • Publish a shared KPI view (one page) that shows trend lines for the three KPIs and who’s accountable for each lever (content, outreach, follow-up). Review it together weekly and adjust campaigns and sequences based on what the numbers say.

Sales teams, Marketers, and their leaders can increase business revenue when they work cohesively with a shared understanding of the CASH framework.

Keep the framework on your desk by getting a copy of the book at ALeeJudge.com/cash​

Or contact me directly to schedule a CASH Kickoff session for your team.

1395 East Cobb Dr. #71472, Atlanta, GA 30007
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Content Monsta

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