?? The $2 Million Dream House Disaster: An Alignment Parable

Hey there!

Let me be the one to welcome you to Thursday with the following parable.

A couple decides to build their dream house. The architect envisions a Georgian masterpiece and draws everything in meters – the British way. Classy! The contractor, old-school American, works strictly in feet. And the designer? He communicates exclusively in Pinterest boards and cryptic feng shui principles that he definitely made up.

Six months and $2 million later, the couple come home to a sun room the size of a closet, a garage that fits half a car, and three kitchens but no bathroom.?

Sound absurd? I see it at companies all the time. 83% claim they're "aligned" but only 23% have the metrics to prove it. Everyone is working exceptionally hard, but it can feel like they’re all running in different directions. And somehow, everyone hit their KPIs while revenue dropped 20%.

The Essential Metrics That Matter

Our design team earlier wasn’t even operating in the same units of measurement. Same can go for your company! Every team needs to be looking at the same numbers. Here are the metrics that should be on everyone's dashboard:

• Stage-one and stage-two pipeline numbers (both count and value, segmented by channel)
• Inbound production by market segment
• Demo conversion rates
• Customer health metrics
• Quota attainment by rep

Where Companies Go Wrong

One of the biggest myths in business today is that alignment stops at the sales and marketing border. It's a bit like thinking a car only needs its front wheels aligned—you might move forward, but you're in for a bumpy ride. The reality is that true alignment spans every department, from product development to customer success.

Common pitfalls include:

• Limiting alignment to just sales and marketing
• Relying on vague concepts like "driving customer value" without specific metrics
• Using inconsistent or outdated data
• Failing to document cross-team responsibilities

Building Alignment That Sticks

The good news? You don't need to revolutionize your entire organization overnight. Thinking back to our house metaphor: you need the foundation before you can worry about the roof. Likewise, your pipeline models are a good place to begin. Even if you're working with educated guesses, having a shared foundation is crucial.

Follow this proven path:

1. Start with your pipeline models - even educated guesses are better than nothing
2. Focus on sales and marketing alignment first
3. Expand to customer success, improving onboarding and expansion strategies
4. Let RevOps create alignment documents and playbooks for cross-team collaboration
5. Evolve metrics as you scale (e.g., shifting focus from new bookings to expansion)

The Bottom Line

Real alignment isn't a feeling—it's a documented agreement between teams, backed by shared metrics and clear processes. Everyone speaks the same language. The house comes together. It’s glorious to behold. When you get it right, you'll see it in your growth numbers, your operational efficiency, and most importantly, in how your teams actually work together.??

Need more reading? Check out our blog post!?

Best,

Batu