Why It's Your Responsibility as a Sales Leader to Break Down Silos

Sales teams, quite rightly, often get the spotlight. They’re at the sharp end of the business, bringing in the revenue and driving business growth. But in my experience, no sales team, no matter how good they are, can succeed without the rest of the company behind them.

If sales is fighting for every deal on their own, battling internal processes, or struggling to get the support they need, it’s clear they’re going to find things tough. As sales leaders, part of our job is to remove those barriers. To break down those silos. And make sure everyone is working towards the same goal: profitable sales growth.

But I’ve seen too often that sales can sometimes operate in isolation. They’re expected to ‘just sell stuff’ while other departments focus on their own priorities. This means that there could be mismatched goals, wasted effort, and lost revenue.

So, how do you stop this from happening? Let’s look at why sales needs the whole business behind them and how you, as a leader, can bring teams together.

Sales Can’t Do It Alone

I’m not a musician, but I do like to think of sales as the drummer in a band, keeping the rhythm and driving the momentum. They’re the ones engaging with customers, negotiating deals, and closing revenue. But without the rest of the organisation playing in sync, the whole set is going to fall apart, and it will be noticeable too.

When I work with sales teams I see that they rely on:

• Marketing to generate demand, provide insights, and create messaging that resonates with buyers.

• Product or Engineering to build solutions that meet customer needs and keep up with competitors.

• Operations and Finance to ensure pricing, contracts, and logistics work smoothly.

• Customer Support to retain customers and drive long-term value.

The main issues I experience that that when these teams aren’t aligned, the friction builds to a level that can even cause conflicts. Marketing delivers leads that don’t fit, the product team launches features that don’t solve real problems, finance slows down deals with rigid policies, and customer support isn’t looped in until it’s too late.

It’s not that anyone is deliberately trying to make things harder. It’s more that their priorities aren’t joined up. And that’s where leadership comes in.

Remove Barriers and Build Alignment

Some of the best leaders I’ve seen do more than manage their own direct team. They influence the entire organisation. If departments are working in silos, it’s your responsibility to fix it.

Here’s where I feel you could make a start:

1. Get Everyone on the Same Goal

Every department has its own KPIs, and that’s fine. But if they don’t all feed into the same overarching goal, you’ll run into some problems. Make sure every function understands that their role ultimately supports profitable sales growth.

That means:

• Marketing isn’t just generating leads; they’re generating leads that sales can actually convert.

• Engineering isn’t just delivering features; they’re solving problems that drive revenue and retention.

• Finance isn’t just enforcing policies; they’re enabling deals that make sense for the business.

• Operations isn’t just shipping items; they’re creating long-term customer value that fuels further growth.

It sounds obvious, but many companies miss this. So if your teams aren’t aligned around the same goal, then that’s the first place to focus.

2. Build Real Collaboration

Well, we’ll just have more meetings! Cross-functional meetings can help, but they don’t really solve the silos issue. The best way is to have teams collaborate on real work.

Perhaps you could try to encourage:

• Marketing and sales to co-own pipeline targets. If marketing is only measured on MQLs and sales on closed deals, expect some serious finger-pointing. Is there a way to move to some level of shared accountability?

• Product and sales to work together on roadmap feedback. If sales isn’t influencing product development, you’re probably building things customers don’t need. Is that the best use of their time?

• Finance and sales to streamline pricing approvals. If every deal needs five levels of sign-off, revenue generation is going to slow down. Can you find a way to balance the control you need with speed of execution?

• Customer support and sales to align on handovers. If customers feel like they’re restarting the conversation  every time they move from sales to support, that’s a problem. How do you ensure a seamless hand-over to show the customer that you care about their success?

The goal here should never be to have more meetings; it’s fewer barriers. Make collaboration practical, and involve the right team members in improving processes for the benefit of your customers.

3. Fix Internal Bottlenecks

A lot of salespeople waste too much of their time on things that should be easy. Approvals, paperwork, and process gaps spring to mind. If you’re hearing concerns from your team; they’re problems that definitely need solving.

Keep a look-out for:

• Contracting and legal bottlenecks. If deals take weeks to sign because of legal back-and-forth, can you simplify the process?

• Pricing and discount roadblocks. If salespeople  are waiting days for approval on standard discounts, can you rethink the authorisation structure?

• Technology that doesn’t talk to each other. If the sales team is manually re-entering data between tools, is that wasted effort?

• Reporting chaos. If as a sales or commercial leader you spend hours pulling data instead of acting on it, perhaps something’s broken?

Your team should be selling at every opportunity, and not navigating red tape. Fix what you can, escalate what you can’t, and always question the value.

Where to Start

Thanks for reading this far, it would great if you add some comments to the post to share some of your challenges. If after reading this newsletter you feel like your sales team is fighting internal obstacles, it’s time to change that. Here are three things you can do this week to help make a start:

1. Identify the biggest internal blockers slowing down sales. What’s causing frustration? What’s wasting time? Make a list and prioritise fixing them.

2. Schedule one conversation with a leader from another department. Ask, “How can we work together better?”

3. Shift the language in your leadership discussions. Stop saying “sales targets” and start saying “business growth.” Frame everything around a shared goal.

Your job as a sales leader isn’t just to manage your team and expect everything to work. They need some help, and it’s important they have the full backing of the company.

So, what’s getting in your way? And more importantly. What are you going to do about it?