Written by Jon Miller, author of the Modern B2B Marketing blog and VP of Marketing for lead management software company Marketo.

I recently wrote about why sales and marketing can’t get along. Here are some practical tips to start bridging the gap!

1. Model the entire revenue cycle. As opposed to a standalone sales cycle, focus on an integrated revenue cycle that starts from the day you first meet a prospect and continues through the sale and beyond to the customer relationship. This helps each team understand what the other is doing, and how their actions help facilitate revenue.

2. Develop a common vocabulary. Part of an integrated revenue cycle is common definitions for each stage. When marketing sits down with sales and says, “what is the definition of a good sales lead, and how can we help?” the dynamic between the two departments changes. With the definition of sales-ready in hand, marketing can begin rebuilding trust by delivering leads that meet that definition. This common language and metrics is essential for communication between the functions.

3. Look for operational disconnects. Too often, sales energy and promotions are focused in a different direction than marketing’s most recent campaigns. In some cases, they can even be in conflict! In one example, the sales team had an incentive to sell a product that marketing was planning to discontinue in the next month. Make sure that initiatives and promotions are aligned by developing plans jointly and meeting monthly or at least quarterly.

4. Create a closed-loop reporting process. Marketing needs to have a way to follow-up with sales to see how well leads are performing. This can be a field in the CRM system, a regular call, or even an automated survey. Just make sure it’s easy for the rep to respond. It can be as basic as sending the rep an email two weeks after receiving a lead with the subject “Was lead ABC good?” This way, they can simply reply “Yes” or “No”, which they can easily do on their Blackberry or in a hotel room. Closing the loop like this can help tune lead generation efforts, and is an important way to take qualified prospects that are not yet sales ready and recycle them back into marketing for lead nurturing.

5. Share accountability between the teams. Marketing is a very measurable process, but the results are head to measure; it’s easy to measure Sales outcomes but Sales activity is hard to measure. As a result, compensation and rewards tend to be very different, which creates further problems. So be sure to review how each team is compensated and rewarded to ensure alignment. (One typical disconnect: marketing focuses on the number of new deals while sales is focused on the amount and size of the total pipeline.) The better your ability to measure marketing ROI, the easier it is to bridge this gap.

6. Foster respect and trust. Perhaps most importantly, in particular, building alignment between marketing and sales organizations starts with a common set of values and shared beliefs. If the two functions don’t fundamentally believe the other has the same set of goals in mind, it will be much more difficult to drive alignment. This is rooted in good and regular communication, but it can be challenging to repair years of miscommunication all at once. Start by focusing on small wins (for example, look for a particular rep who closed a big deal because of a marketing lead) and promote the result aggressively. By having a “victory parade” for small wins, you will begin the process of better communication and trust.