How to align sales and marketing on client personas
Recently, I’ve been speaking with marketing leaders across companies of all sizes: startups, SMEs and established brands. One theme kept coming back: sales and marketing are still working in silos.
Something that stayed with me is that throughout all these conversations, it was obvious that marketing and sales had different client personas. Two teams, two perspectives, two versions of the “same” customer.
As a marketer, this probably feels familiar. The good news is that you can fix it easily and it starts with one structured conversation.
A simple client persona exercise to bridge the gap
Here’s a practical exercise you can run in your next sales and marketing meeting. It’s simple but surprisingly effective.
Step 1: prepare your marketing personas
Before the meeting:
✅ Draft your existing client personas (even if they’re rough)
✅ Include demographics and psychographics
✅ Accept that they’re based on assumptions
This isn’t about perfection, it’s about creating a starting point.
Step 2: pair up sales and marketing
During the meeting:
➡️ Split into pairs: one marketer with one salesperson.
➡️ Assign each pair a specific client persona.
Now comes the important part. The salesperson steps into the shoes of that persona, the marketer interviews them.
Step 3: ask better questions
Focus on both surface-level and deeper insights.
Demographics:
What role do they hold?
What industry are they in?
What stage is their business at?
Psychographics:
What are they worried about?
What do they actually value?
What objections do they raise?
What makes them hesitate?
Step 4: regroup and refine
Bring everyone back together to discuss. The great thing about this exercise is that both groups will learn a lot from one another. Marketers will hear about customer conversations that sales are having, and in turn, sales will hear about customer research from marketing.
Make sure you discuss:
Where did sales and marketing see things differently?
What surprised you?
What needs to change in the persona?
Building personas in such a collaborative way works because it’s:
✅ Quick
✅ Human
✅ Grounded in lived experience
✅ Collaborative
More importantly, it builds psychological safety because sales feels heard, marketing feels informed, and both teams leave with shared ownership.
So before your next campaign launch or quarterly review, ask yourself: are our sales and marketing teams aligned on who we’re speaking to? Or are we operating from two different versions of the same customer?
If you need your sales and marketing teams to align on strategy, have a look at the strategy builder programme.