Tell me about a time you disagreed with a sales director on which metrics marketing should be held accountable for. How did you resolve the disagreement?

Situation

At a previous company, the sales director insisted that marketing should be measured solely on the number of leads passed to sales, regardless of quality. I believed we should be measured on lead-to-opportunity conversion.

Task

My goal was to find a metric that fairly reflected marketing's contribution while supporting sales' needs for actionable leads.

Action

I scheduled a one-on-one meeting to understand her perspective. She felt pressure to hit pipeline targets and blamed low volume. I shared data showing that a high lead count was overwhelming reps and reducing close rates. I proposed a compromise: we track both lead volume and conversion rate, with a joint target for marketing-sourced pipeline value. We agreed to test this for a quarter and review.

Result

After the quarter, pipeline value increased by 20%, and the sales director acknowledged that the combined metrics improved focus. She became an advocate for the new approach.