We spend a lot of our time working very hard to get sales and marketing teams to work together. And this involves questions like the following. What is an effective way in which marketing teams can refer leads to sales teams? What do sales teams do with the leads handed to them from marketing? What happens if the leads are not fully qualified, or if, after qualification, it is deemed that the client is not ready for a company’s services but soon will be? Many times the sales teams and the marketing teams are under different mandates and use completely different metrics as well as different forms of communication. Recently a number of very intelligent people spoken about how the marketing and sales teams at their respective companies function in a closed loop. Thinking harder about this closed loop, what would happen if it was decided to eliminate the two separate spheres, thus having a closed-loop system as a starting point? With this model, there would be no “lobbing” leads over the fence in blind hope that they are good. This model would also eradicate the repetitive echoes: "Well, I did my part,” and “What am I supposed to do with this?”. This one group’s goal would become client acquisition, and this group would be named as such: “Client Acquisitions.” This group’s one concern will be bringing in new clients. The newly formed group, now titled “Client Acquisitions,” will be challenged by the same MBOs, only in this scenario the individual will be measured for results. Our ability to produce actionable pipeline assessments would be greater, and the client’s ability to make quick changes would be easier. At any point in the funnel, a company can thus measure the success of a team and its members. In addition, gap analysis will return much more precise data. The dynamics would change from finger-pointing to finding the right contact point and person for a specific stage of the deal that is in the process of being worked out.