Interesting article by Jason Lemkin, from his SaaStr blog:
A little while ago, Amanda from Lattice Engines interviewed SaaStr on Sales and Marketing Alignment and related topics.
While I hate the term “alignment” from my days as a F500 VP, if the term every were to be used in a useful way in a SaaS start-up, it’s the way your VP Sales and VP Marketing should be joined at the hip.
They should be the Mom and Dad of marketing (no gender attribution intended). If they don’t worktogether like a well-oiled machine — and surprisingly, often they don’t — you’ll have a real problem on your hands trying to scale.
Full article at http://saastr.quora.com/Alignment-Your-VP-Sales-and-VP-Marketing-Should-Be-Your-Mom-and-Dad-of-Revenue
He also has a number of interesting points regarding the role and required qualities to be a great a VP of Sales. The topic of alignment between sales of marketing is definitely one of the key issues we're facing on a daily basis. The big question being: how do you go efficiently from relevant content on your website to qualified lead to closed deal?
This requires very close coordination between both teams so that nobody drops the ball and to avoid finger-pointing from one team to the other. A daily challenge :-)