Creating Sales and Marketing Alignment Without Formal Processes

If you are a product marketer at an early stage company, you have probably heard the phrase “sales and marketing alignment” more times than you can count.

It sounds like something every team should be doing. But what most people will not tell you is how to actually achieve it, especially when you do not have formal processes in place.

No shared KPIs. No enablement tools. No regular interlocks. Just two teams working hard, trying to move fast, and often moving in different directions.

The good news is, you do not need a perfectly built process to create alignment. What you do need is awareness, visibility, and a commitment to sharing what you are doing even when no one explicitly asks for it.

You Cannot Collaborate With a Team You Do Not Understand

One of the biggest friction points I see between Sales and Product Marketing is a lack of awareness, not just about what the other team is doing, but what they are capable of contributing.

Sales might not know how much insight Marketing has gathered from interviews and win loss calls. Marketing might not realize the exact objections that Sales is hearing every day.

And in the absence of communication, assumptions fill the gap.

That is why I always recommend mapping out the shared touchpoints.

Where do your responsibilities overlap?
Where can your work support theirs?
Where can you provide context that saves them time, or vice versa?

When both teams understand each other’s strengths, alignment becomes a lot easier.

Share Loudly and Often

If you do not have time for a formal process, you have to make up for it by keeping everyone in the loop.

That means sharing early drafts of messaging.
That means previewing product updates before launch.
That means over communicating insights from campaigns and feedback from customers.

Even a quick weekly email or a ten minute Slack update can go a long way. When Sales sees that Marketing is operating transparently, and building things that are actually useful, it builds trust.

And when you keep that loop active, they are far more likely to share what they are seeing, too.

Alignment Does Not Have to Be a Meeting

At one company I worked at, we were moving quickly and there was no formal enablement function. Instead of sitting with the rest of my marketing team, I sat next to my sales counterpart.

That one decision changed everything.

We shared updates in real time. If he was on a tough call, I heard about it right after. If I was updating messaging, he gave input before it shipped.

There was no need to schedule a sync or write a report. We were in constant conversation, casual, informal, and effective.

Now, not every company setup will allow for that. But the principle applies. Find ways to embed yourself closer to Sales. Be physically or digitally available. Show up where they are already working.

The faster your feedback loop, the stronger your alignment will be.

Think of Sales as a Customer and a Collaborator

Sales does not just consume what Product Marketing creates. They shape it.

They are your feedback engine. They are your test environment. And when you treat them like partners, not just recipients, you get better insights and better outcomes.

Ask them what is working and what is not.
Invite them into your brainstorming sessions.
Let them see how their feedback shows up in the assets you build.

The more they feel heard, the more they will engage. And that engagement is what makes alignment real.

You do not need a polished playbook to work well with Sales. You just need to make yourself available, stay visible, and invite collaboration at every stage of the process.

Because at the end of the day, alignment is not about structure. It is about trust.