When Product, Marketing, and Sales Stop Speaking the Same Language: Product-Led Growth Alignment
Sep 4
2 min read
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We’ve all seen it happen.
The company grows, the team expands, and suddenly… everyone’s running in different directions.
Marketing is chasing signups.
Product is chasing usage.
Sales is chasing revenue.
Each team is doing “great” in its own world, yet growth slows down.
That’s what misalignment looks like in PLG companies.
And it’s sneaky because it hides behind metrics that look healthy in isolation. Where things start breaking
When teams don’t share a common north star, everyone optimizes for different outcomes.
Marketing celebrates a spike in trial signups that never activate.
Product focuses on new features while users churn on old ones.
Sales closes deals the product isn’t ready to support.
And what you end up with isn’t growth. It’s chaos.
How to actually fix it
1. Create one shared funnel.
Map the entire journey, from the first website visit to expansion.
Use one dashboard where everyone can see how signups, activations, and upgrades connect.
No more marketing reporting in HubSpot, product in Amplitude, and sales in Salesforce with zero overlap.
2. Agree on a north-star metric.
To fix alignment in product-led growth environments, you have to pick one metric that defines real success, not vanity numbers.
For PLG, that’s often activation rate, PQL to conversion rate, or expansion revenue.
Whatever it is, make it visible, and make sure everyone’s targets ladder up to it.
3. Build cross-functional growth rituals.
Weekly syncs between marketing, product, and sales, but not just for updates.
Review funnel data together, discuss what users are doing, and plan next steps jointly.
Small habit, massive payoff.
4. Connect feedback loops.
Sales calls surface objections, marketing sees what attracts, and product sees what confuses.
Put that information in one place. A shared Notion page or Slack channel is enough to start.
It keeps everyone close to the voice of the user.
5. Align incentives.
If each team is rewarded for different things, misalignment will never go away.
Tie bonuses, OKRs, or recognition to the same growth outcome.
When marketing, product, and sales share the same story, the company moves like one unit. That’s when experiments compound, insights connect, and growth feels predictable again.
PLG is orchestration.
Getting every part of the business to play the same tune and play it well.
