CURATED CONVERSATION
We have leads. We have deals. Why aren't we growing?
Dave Slovin, Partner at Big Wheel Performance, and Sebastian Polacek, CEO of Cactus, look at what can still get in the way of growth.
Dave Slovin — Growth & Operations, Big Wheel Performance
Sebastian Polacek — Marketing & Brand, Cactus
Marketing can generate plenty of leads. Sales, or the professionals responsible for bringing in new business, can close plenty of deals. The team can deliver good work. And the business can still fall short of its growth goals. That’s where Dave and Sebastian picked up their second conversation. They followed what happens across marketing, sales, and client experience when each team focuses on its own part of the process, and what leaders can do to connect what those teams see and learn.
Three Teams, One Business
What happens when marketing, sales, and client experience are only focused on their own part of the business?
CH.1 DAVE
Dave sees this pattern often. Marketing focuses on the messages that generate the most response. Sales or BD professionals focus on converting those leads into clients, but they aren’t always the right clients. Then the team responsible for the client experience may struggle to deliver what marketing and sales promised. Each team can appear to be doing its job while the business as a whole isn’t getting the expected result.
CH.1 SEBASTIAN
Sebastian doesn’t think the breakdown is about company size. Big companies can get lost in layers, while small companies run into different communication challenges. What stays constant is that alignment is an organic, constantly moving process. Each team needs to focus on its own work while still looking at the bigger picture: Are we bringing in the right clients? Are they profitable? Are they happy? And are they referring new clients?
Key takeaway: Marketing, sales, and client experience can each perform well on their own without producing the growth the business needs. Leaders need to look across all three.
Inject Reality Into Your ICP
Who decides what an ideal customer actually looks like, and how do you keep that definition current?
CH.2 DAVE
Dave sees the ICP as a starting hypothesis the whole team tests. Leadership brings the company’s growth, revenue, and profitability goals. Marketing learns who responds and what gets attention. Sales learns who converts and why. Client experience learns whether the company delivered what it promised and whether those are really the clients it wants more of. Together, those perspectives keep the ICP grounded in what’s actually happening. The companies he’s seen do this best revisit it regularly.
CH.2 SEBASTIAN
Sebastian sees the ICP as a way to connect teams with very different tools, metrics, and conversations. Without that shared view, each team can end up working from its own definition of the right customer and looking sideways when results fall short. The business has to keep testing its assumptions, measuring what happens, and adjusting based on what it learns. Keeping the ICP current gives everyone a common reference point for that process.
Key takeaway: An ICP starts as a hypothesis. Marketing, sales, client experience, and leadership test it against what is actually happening in the business and use what they learn to keep improving it.
Before AI, After AI
What changes when businesses can actually use the information they’re already collecting?
- 01 — Systems come first. A CRM can show what attracted a prospect and what happened during the sales process. Client communications and recorded calls and meetings add another layer: what prospects and clients are actually saying.
- 02 — AI makes much more of that information practical to analyze. Businesses can look across sales and client conversations to understand why people buy, why they don’t, where promises are being kept or broken, and what the experience looks like from the client’s perspective. Your clients are already telling you how to market, sell, and serve them.
- 03 — One company Sebastian works with combines quantitative business data with recorded conversations and uses AI to summarize what is happening across the business each day. Information that previously required someone to find, combine, and interpret can now be analyzed together and shared across teams.
Key takeaway: AI makes it practical to learn from far more of the information businesses already have about their prospects and clients, then use those insights across marketing, sales, and client experience.
What a "No" Can Teach You
When a prospect says no, how much do you really learn from it?
CH.4 DAVE
A lost opportunity is a chance to learn. Ask why, then probe a little deeper. Price may be the first answer, but it may not be the real reason. Instead of defending your company, approach, or pricing, listen and give the prospect room to open up. You already paid to generate the lead and invested time trying to close it. Learning why you lost gives you some return on that investment.
CH.4 SEBASTIAN
Sebastian extends that thinking to competitors. When you consistently lose business to the same companies, look at what they may be doing differently. Are they explaining their value better? Is their pricing more effective? Are they following up faster? Sales and marketing can compare what they’re seeing and use those losses to identify where the business may need to adjust.
Key takeaway: Don’t waste a “no.” Understand why you lost, look for patterns, and use what you learn to improve your ICP, marketing, and sales approach.
Encourage Disagreement
What happens when marketing, sales, and client experience see the same situation differently?
CH.5 DAVE
Some leaders try to avoid friction between teams. Dave sees value in bringing the disagreement into the open. Marketing, sales, and client experience see different parts of the customer relationship, so they won’t always reach the same conclusion. Put those perspectives together, use data where possible, and let people challenge each other. Use the disagreement to make better business decisions.
CH.5 SEBASTIAN
Sebastian sees pricing as a good example. Sales may resist a promotion or discount because it makes the next conversation harder when the price goes back up. Marketing may see the same offer as a useful way to generate demand. Both perspectives can be valid. Getting them into the same conversation helps the business weigh the immediate opportunity against the longer-term impact.
Key takeaway: Disagreement between teams can be useful. Leaders need to create an environment where different perspectives are heard, tested against the available data, and used to make better decisions.
Ask, Don't Guess
When a client tells you something, good or bad, are you sharing it?
CH.6 DAVE
Don’t wait for clients to volunteer feedback. Ask for it through surveys, NPS, client interviews, advisory councils, or simply regular conversations. Then make sure what you learn gets back to marketing, sales, and leadership. Over time, that feedback can improve the client experience, sharpen your ICP, and help you decide which clients you want more of. It’s okay to say no to an opportunity that isn’t a good fit.
CH.6 SEBASTIAN
Sebastian sees reviews as another source of client feedback, but cautions against overreacting to one strong opinion. Look for patterns before changing your offer or approach. And when a negative review does appear, how the company responds matters. Addressing the issue thoughtfully and publicly can build trust with the people who read the review later.
Key takeaway: Ask clients what they think, share what you learn, and look for patterns. Client feedback should inform decisions across marketing, sales, client experience, and leadership.
Five Questions, One Team
By the end of the conversation, the same theme kept coming up: marketing, sales, and client experience each see something different. The opportunity is to connect what they’re learning and use it to make better decisions about growth.
- Who gets to decide whether a customer is actually “ideal”: marketing, sales, client experience, or leadership?
- What does sales learn about prospects that marketing never sees, and does it make its way back?
- Is the marketing and sales promise still true once someone becomes a client?
- Are the easiest customers to attract and close actually the ones you want more of?
- When different parts of the business disagree about a customer, are you putting that disagreement to use?
Someone in leadership has to own the feedback loop. Give the teams opportunities to communicate, use data to challenge assumptions, and put systems and AI to work where they can make more information useful. The goal is to keep learning from prospects, clients, and each other so the business can make better decisions about who to attract, sell to, and serve.
About the speakers
Dave Slovin
Growth & Operations, Big Wheel Performance
Helps organizations build scalable growth systems by aligning marketing, sales, operations, and client experience.
Sebastian Polacek
Marketing & Brand, Cactus
Helps companies simplify complex offerings into marketing that attracts fans, followers, and clients.