How to Break Down Silos Across Your Go-To-Market Team

Breaking down silos that exist across the revenue team is a goal that most fast-growing B2B companies have these days. The problem is that even if they do have the signs of silos, they don’t always know how to actually do the silo-breaking.

Since we’ve worked with a ton of B2B SaaS companies to do just that, we’ve got some foundational tips you can take back to your go-to-market team. Here are 5 major keys to slaying the silos that are keeping your teams stuck. 

Tip # 1: Understanding GTM Processes 

The first step to breaking go-to-market silos is making sure your whole revenue team understands the processes taking place outside their own function. Too often, operators are so laser-focused on their own processes, KPIs, and challenges, that they don’t have a full understanding of what’s happening at other stages throughout the funnel. 

Why is this a problem? Because that lack of understanding negatively impacts the customer experience. Negative customer experiences lead to reduced revenues. That is definitely NOT the goal.

 
Tip # 2: Understanding GTM Pains

The next important key after understanding your go-to-market processes, is being able to empathize with the pains that exist across the revenue team. You will want to understand the source of the pains as well as the extent of the problem.  That knowledge will not only improve communication with your sales, marketing, or customer success counterparts, but will also bring new points of view to the problem-solving. You’ll find that this diversity of perspectives is clutch in getting more viable solutions to the table, faster.

Tip # 3: Intentionally Broadening Skillsets

We’ve always believed in building on your background. This doesn’t mean expecting everyone to be good at everything, but rather creating a culture where people feel safe acknowledging their weaknesses or limitations. When people have the opportunity to be intentional about strengthening their skills in areas outside their specialty, they are less likely to experience burnout. 

It also makes skill gaps more evident and creates a greater sense of empathy amongst people functioning in different roles. That empathy is crucial when it comes to breaking down silos.

The more people see their roles overlapping in service of your company revenue goals, the less likely they are to resist the breakdown of silos.

Tip # 4: Cross-Functional Collaboration

Breaking down silos is all about good communication. Initiatives that impact the whole revenue team are frequently managed by a single department, all in the interest of expediency.  We’ve lost count of how many times we’ve heard stakeholders say that the reason they didn’t loop in members of other departments was that either they assumed a lack of interest or wanted to keep the process as simple as possible.

While we agree that consensus is often the enemy of progress, excluding important viewpoints out of convenience isn’t the way to go. By bringing in other voices on the revenue team, you benefit from fresh perspectives that are likely to improve your outcome. It might make for longer email threads, but it’ll be worth it.

Tip # 5: Shifting Mindsets

When people think about the traditional go-to-market functions—sales, marketing, customer success—the silos are built-in. This is one of the reasons it’s not enough just to say you have a RevOps team. Even if your operations are centralized, those in sales, marketing, and CS still see themselves as separate entities.  Coming together as one unified revenue team allows everyone to think differently about their roles on this larger team. It helps people see how everyone is accountable to one another. 

This has been helpful even for us internally. Entering difficult conversations with an understanding that everyone in the room wants the same things is a powerful way to decrease defensiveness and encourage collaboration. 

How to begin shifting mindsets? Center your North Star in your team meetings. Make a habit of pointing out where the overlapping functions add value and contribute to achieving the larger goal.