This is What Sales Teams Actually Need From Marketing (Ep 63)

What does it actually take for marketing to earn influence inside a business?In this episode of The Marketing Share, Alec Cheung and Barb VanSomeren talk with Saurabh Kothari about one of the biggest challenges modern marketing leaders face: proving impact while building alignment across sales, product, and leadership teams.Drawing from his experience leading marketing across enterprise organizations, agencies, and high-growth companies, Saurabh shares why marketing cannot operate in isolation anymore and why the best CMOs know how to combine data, storytelling, and persuasion to move the business forward.The conversation explores the tension many marketers still feel with sales teams, why attribution alone rarely tells the full story, and how marketing leaders can better communicate their value internally.They also unpack the balance between creativity and analytics in modern B2B marketing, what makes certain marketing leaders more influential than others, and why strong communication is often the difference between a marketing team that gets ignored and one that drives strategic decisions.If you work in B2B marketing, lead generation, demand generation, or marketing leadership, this episode offers a practical look at how modern CMOs think about growth, influence, and business alignment.Timestamps00:00 Introduction02:17 Meet Saurabh Kothari05:12 Why marketing and sales often misalign09:46 The challenge of proving marketing impact14:03 The balance between creativity and data18:27 Why persuasion matters in marketing leadership22:41 Building stronger alignment across teams27:18 What modern CMOs need to prioritize31:54 The role of storytelling inside organizations36:22 Why attribution alone is not enough40:11 Final thoughts and advice for marketing leaders🎧 Subscribe to The Marketing Share Podcast to get unfiltered conversations with marketing leaders about growth, strategy, and the future of digital.Connect with our guest: 👉 Sourabh Kothari: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sourabhkothari/Connect with the hosts:👉 Barb VanSomeren: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbvansomeren/👉 Alec Cheung: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleccheung/Connect with the Podcast Manager 👉 Cinthya Zeledón: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cinthyazeledon/Explore the video content of each podcast episode on YouTube Want to be a guest on The Marketing Share Podcast?  Send us your bio and proposed interview topic to [email protected], and our Podcast Manager will get back to you.