In an era of accelerating buyer self-education and AI-powered decision-making, one truth has become clear: the traditional sales-first model is broken. CEOs clinging to a rep-heavy sales structure are leaving millions on the table—and the fix starts with marketing.
In our recent webinar, we made a bold claim: marketing should be responsible for closing 30% of your revenue. Not just generating leads, but owning revenue. Here’s why, and more importantly, how.
The Growth Problem CEOs Can’t Ignore
Most CEOs still default to a legacy mindset: revenue growth = more sales reps. But scaling headcount doesn’t scale your business, especially not in B2B.
We’ve worked with dozens of companies where sales teams were expected to prospect, nurture, and close, while marketing was siloed into brand and awareness. The result? Burnt-out salespeople chasing cold leads, bloated CAC, and sluggish pipeline velocity.
Fact: In B2B, up to 70% of a buyer’s decision is made before they speak to sales. That means marketing isn’t just supporting sales—they’re shaping the deal outcome before your AE ever picks up the phone.
The Revenue Blind Spot
Gartner reports that companies with strong marketing and sales alignment grow revenue 67% faster. Yet in most organizations, marketing and sales still operate with disconnected KPIs and zero joint accountability.
Even worse, sales teams waste up to 50% of their time on unqualified leads—leads that marketing should have filtered out. This isn’t a people problem. It’s a structural one.
Ask yourself:
If not, you have a blind spot—and it’s costing you.
From Lead Gen to Revenue Gen
High-performing companies are no longer satisfied with marketing that generates clicks and MQLs. They’re shifting toward a revenue-generation model, where marketing owns measurable pipeline contribution and sales focuses on what they do best: closing.
This modern model is built around a few critical capabilities:
One client we worked with had zero CRM system, no integrated marketing ops, and minimal lead tracking. In 13 months, we helped them grow marketing’s contribution from 4% to 23%. Another firm, with a stronger MarTech infrastructure, hit 30%+ within six months.
The bottom line: when marketing stops chasing vanity metrics and starts driving revenue, the entire commercial engine runs faster, leaner, and smarter.
Why 30%? And Why It Works
At BT (British Telecom), Jean led a team responsible for 30% of revenue, not just leads. It was a radical idea at the time, but it worked. With clear revenue targets, shared accountability, and the right infrastructure, marketing became a critical driver of business growth.
Today, companies that allocate 30%+ of pipeline responsibility to marketing are seeing:
These are not vanity metrics. They’re bottom-line results that shift how CEOs view marketing—from a cost center to a P&L generator.
Building a Revenue-Centric Marketing Organization
To realize this transformation, CEOs must embrace a new commercial model. Our framework includes:
This shift isn’t cosmetic—it’s foundational. It requires rethinking org structure, upskilling teams, revisiting your MarTech stack, and creating a culture where marketing performance is measured in revenue, not reach.
What CEOs Need to Change—Now
We get it. Change isn’t easy. But continuing with the old playbook won’t deliver new results.
If you want to grow—and scale—you must:
Final Thoughts
Your sales team isn’t broken. Your growth model is.
If marketing isn’t being asked to deliver revenue, then you’re underutilizing one of your most powerful engines for growth. The organizations that succeed in today’s market are the ones that rethink marketing’s role, not as a support function, but as a primary driver of revenue.
We’ve done it. We've helped companies increase their revenue from 4% to 23%, and others surpass 30%. It’s possible—and it’s profitable.
Ready to Get Started?
Book a 1-on-1 pipeline diagnostic with us at The CMO Syndicate. We’ll help you uncover inefficiencies, identify gaps, and build a marketing organization that delivers revenue.