Let’s face it: Attribution is broken.
Marketing claims they’re generating plenty of MQLs.
Sales counters that those leads aren’t qualified.
Attribution tools, meant to align teams and optimize resources, have instead become weapons—for justifying budgets, assigning blame, or claiming credit for compensation.
And the reporting?
It’s far from complete.
Google no longer shares the keywords visitors search before landing on your site.
Dark social’s impact—like conversations in Slack communities—goes untracked.
If someone hears about your brand elsewhere and later searches for it on Google, guess who gets the credit?
Not the true source of influence.
Attribution tools push a linear narrative that buyers simply don’t follow.
Worse, they encourage investments in the same platforms while ignoring what may be more effective strategies but more difficult to track, like brand building and attending in-person conferences.
This problem is rooted in the predictable revenue model, where Marketing generates leads, SDRs nurture them, and AEs close deals.
The system propagates silos, and if neither team is incentivized to collaborate, true cross-functional alignment—and revenue growth—will remain out of reach.
Before you can solve the problem, you need to know why it exists in the first place. So, how did we get here?
Let’s dig in.
Rand Fishkin, co-founder of SparkToro said it best: "If you're talking about paid media, there's still a decent amount of attribution that's possible, but I don't think there's full funnel attribution. I think that is a complete myth.”
Sure, you can track clicks, form fills, and email opens, but what about the real drivers of growth—word-of-mouth, dark social, conferences and events, or a recommendation dropped in a Slack community?
These don’t fit neatly into dashboards, yet they shape buying decisions every day.
Attribution tries to measure the unmeasurable, leaving blind spots that obscure what’s truly driving results.
This fixation on attribution didn’t happen by accident.
It stems from Peter Drucker’s Management by Objectives (MBO), which revolutionized goal setting by emphasizing measurable results for individual teams.
While MBO works in isolated functions like manufacturing or finance, it breaks down when applied to interconnected teams like sales and marketing.
Why?
Because it incentivizes teams to optimize for their own success, not the company’s.
Marketing is incentivized to generate leads—regardless of their quality. This creates a problem, as it sends sales on countless wild goose chases and wastes valuable time.
Similarly, sales is rewarded for closing deals—whether or not the buyer is a good fit. This becomes an issue when long payback periods lead to churn before the deals reach their full potential.
Instead of collaboration, MBO fosters silos, misaligned priorities, and finger-pointing.
The Predictable Revenue model only deepened these issues.
Rooted in MBO thinking, this approach split sales and marketing into highly specialized roles: SDRs focus on prospecting, AEs handle closing, and marketing is tasked with generating leads.
While this worked for a time, it eventually backfired as buyers grew frustrated, stopped answering calls, and ignored emails.
Today, this model has not only deepened the divide between teams but also failed to adapt to a critical change—modern buyers no longer follow predictable, linear journeys.
They self-educate, seek peer recommendations, and often make decisions before ever engaging with sales.
Predictable Revenue wasn’t built for this reality—it was designed for a world where sellers had way more control over the buying process than they do today.
Then came the sales and marketing tech industrial complex where tools were created to propagate the growth at all costs mindset.
Attribution models—whether first touch, last touch, or multi-touch—only made things worse.
With incomplete data from platforms like Google and Facebook, these models offer a distorted view of success.
Metrics become proxies, not true indicators of what’s working.
The result?
Companies pour money into what they can attribute to the CFO (good or bad), like paid ads, while starving harder-to-measure channels such as events, PR, or community engagement—channels that are often more effective but don’t show up neatly in attribution reports.
Teams spend more time defending their metrics than working together to understand and serve the buyer.
This isn’t just bad luck—it’s the inevitable outcome of a system that prioritizes individual goals over shared outcomes.
MBO, Predictable Revenue, and the tools they’ve inspired are relics of a bygone era.
Today’s buyer has changed, but the system hasn’t.
To fix these bottlenecks, you need to rethink the entire approach, moving away from silos and attribution wars toward alignment, collaboration, and a focus on what truly drives growth.
So, what’s the solution?
It starts with fostering true cross-functional collaboration.
In his book Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal describes how breaking down silos and creating tightly interconnected teams can transform an organization.
These teams aren’t just groups working together—they’re interdependent, sharing information freely and aligning around a common mission.
That’s what cross-functional collaboration should look like.
But let’s be honest: this kind of transformation won’t happen unless leadership is willing to change how power operates.
And no, we’re not talking about a massive restructuring.
What’s needed is a shift in mindset.
Leaders must prioritize collaboration over control, trust over command.
Without this shift, the best you can do is fix it within your department.
How do you move beyond the silos, attribution wars, and outdated systems that MBO and Predictable Revenue have created?
It starts by rethinking how success is defined, measured, and achieved—both for your team and your organization.
1. Align Around Customer Outcomes, Not Individual Metrics
Stop measuring success by department-specific KPIs like MQLs or closed deals. Instead, focus on metrics that reflect how well you’re serving your customers. For example:
By aligning marketing, sales, and customer success around shared customer outcomes, you break the cycle of finger-pointing and foster collaboration.
The debate isn’t about whether paid ads or webinars drove more revenue—it’s about how your entire team worked together to deliver value.
2. Create Cross-Functional Plans
Implement joint account plans and shared customer journey insights across teams.
These tools ensure alignment by focusing on shared goals:
These aren’t just tactical fixes—they’re frameworks for building trust and breaking down silos.
3. Incentivize Team Collaboration
Move away from individual compensation tied to specific metrics, like MQLs or closed deals. Instead:
When everyone’s success depends on shared goals, collaboration becomes a priority, not an afterthought.
4. Adopt Collaborative Leadership
Train your teams in collaborative leadership, which focuses on empowering individuals to contribute their expertise and co-own decisions.
This is a radical shift from the traditional top-down “directive leadership” style. Collaborative leadership ensures:
Leaders must model this behavior, actively creating an environment where trust and open communication thrive.
5. Implement Collaborative Project Management
Go beyond leadership styles by rethinking how work gets done. Collaborative project management transforms execution into a team-driven process:
This approach builds trust and ensures that everyone—from marketing to sales to customer success—works toward the same goal.
6. Enable Data-Driven Experimentation
Attribution doesn’t have to be a trap. Use data as a tool for discovery, not blame. Equip your teams with:
7. Lead the Change—Even Without Permission
If your broader organization hasn’t caught up, start small. Build a culture of collaboration within your own team or department:
This isn’t just a stopgap—it’s a roadmap for the future. By creating alignment in your own corner of the company, you can set an example for others to follow and show how breaking free from attribution addiction and siloed thinking drives real, sustainable growth.
You’re doing everything right—at least according to the playbook. But somehow, the bottlenecks persist.
The leads don’t convert.
The pipeline doesn’t move.
And you’re left wondering if the whole system is broken.
Well, it is.
It’s the result of a system designed for an era that no longer exists.
Now imagine this: your teams aligned, working together seamlessly, sharing insights and accountability.
Marketing, sales, and customer success rowing in the same direction, focused on delivering real value to your customers.
It’s not just a pipe dream. It’s what happens when you commit to cross-functional collaboration. When you break free from the silos and start building bridges, the entire game changes.
Yes, it means rethinking how you lead and how your teams operate. And many times, leadership won’t go there with you.
But if you can increase cross-functional collaboration, you’ll not only eliminate the bottlenecks holding you back, but you’ll also create a culture where innovation thrives, and customer outcomes drive everything you do.
So take the reins, rally your teams, and show the rest of your organization what’s possible when silos fall, and collaboration takes the lead.
If you’re not getting enough qualified demos for your sales team to make quota, it could be your messaging.
Vague, hard-to-understand messaging that fails to inspire action is the silent killer of your demo pipeline.
Prospects aren’t booking demos because your messaging isn’t compelling them to take that first step.
That’s where our Marketing and Messaging Review comes in.
We’ll help you uncover exactly why your messaging isn’t driving demos—and, more importantly, how to fix it.
Our comprehensive review dives deep into how your current content is performing, whether it’s your website, content, or ads.
We pinpoint gaps, vague language, and missed opportunities that may be causing potential prospects to scroll right past you or bounce off your site.
With actionable insights and clear recommendations, we’ll show you how to craft messaging that speaks directly to your target audience’s pain points, sparks curiosity, and gets them thinking, “This is exactly what we need!”
Here’s what you’ll gain from our Marketing and Messaging Review:
Here’s the truth: Your demo problem starts with your messaging.
If prospects don’t understand how you can solve their problems, they’ll never make it to the demo stage. Fix your messaging, and you’ll start seeing a ripple effect through your entire sales process.
Ready to stop leaving opportunities on the table?
Let’s make your messaging work as hard as you do.
Learn more about our Marketing and Messaging Review here.