Sales and marketing want the same thing: better business results for the company. I think the difference often lies in how to get there.

A little healthy tension between the two groups’ views isn’t a bad thing. But based on my experience leading a growing startup, I also think that harmony between them — while challenging to achieve, for the reasons outlined in the rest of this article — is really important to attaining solid business results.

For two terms that get put together nearly as often as love and marriage or peanut butter and jelly, sales and marketing don’t seem to have enjoyed the smoothest of relationships over the years. While some companies have found harmony between the two, interaction between these two teams at other companies has been characterized as everything from a rocky relationship to outright war.

What’s up with that?

I believe if we can get at the heart of some of the common disagreements between sales and marketing, we can find ways to bring them together. The result can be an alliance that’s far greater than the sum of its parts. One source has calculated that aligning sales and marketing could boost revenue by more than 200%.