When budgets tighten, revenue teams need to prove every dollar spent drives real pipeline. That's why efficient growth matters: you get more revenue from the same resources.

Revenue alignment works because when marketing, sales, and CS target the same accounts with coordinated plays, you convert faster and waste less effort.

Clare Corriveau, Sr. Director of Demand Gen at Cobalt, shared how her team aligned marketing, sales, and CS to drive efficient growth and boost pipeline. The result: their former champions playbook generated $1.79M in new business pipeline.

In fact, Cobalt’s former champions playbook has generated $1.79M in new business pipeline. Here's how Cobalt built their playbook and why these market trends make it work.

Market trends that make this a now-or-never playbook

Three market shifts explain why revenue alignment matters now. Without it, you get weaker lead gen, lower win rates, and higher churn.

Three trends are reshaping how B2B SaaS teams sell:

Buyers are more skeptical

As budgets get tighter but revenue goals remain the same or climb higher, every dollar spent is precious for B2B buyers. This means they only want to invest in the products that bring the most value to their business.

B2B buyers ask their network first. Before they talk to vendors, they check with peers about what actually works. Your champions are already in those conversations.

Track your champions. When they change jobs, you get a warm intro to a new account—someone who already knows your product works.

You skip the awareness stage entirely. They already know your product, so you convert faster.

Larger buying committees

Buying committees are getting larger. Now more people than ever have a say in which product stays and which one is eliminated from the budget. This makes it more important for marketing efforts during outreach to be aligned with sales to ensure that the messaging is targeted at all known contacts in the buying committee.

Having a champion inside the buying committee means you have someone who can answer questions, share their experience, and defend the deal when you're not in the room.

More contacts in the buying committee means faster deals and higher win rates. They answer questions, share their experience, and address concerns—without extra budget or effort from your team.

Single-threading doesn't work with larger buying committees. You need multiple contacts so the deal doesn't stall when one person leaves or shifts priorities.

Increased job changes

20% of your customers change jobs every year. When they move to a new company, they become warm leads who already know your product works.

Former customers who move to new accounts already know your product. You skip the pitch and close faster.

Job changes create warm, qualified leads. Your sales team gets contacts who are ready to talk, not cold prospects who need convincing.

When revenue teams share goals, marketing generates leads that sales actually wants to call.

Cobalt’s strategy for revenue alignment

Cobalt faces the same challenges: skeptical buyers, large buying committees, and frequent job changes.

Revenue alignment helped them fill their pipeline with quality leads and hit their revenue goals. Here's their playbook:

1. Align sales and marketing

“In Cybersecurity, buyers are skeptical and suspicious by nature,” says Clare Corriveau, Sr. Director of Demand Gen at Cobalt. “They're highly technical. Their job is to keep people out, so getting them in from a marketing perspective is really, really hard.”

Cobalt's sales and marketing teams target the best buyers together. Here's how they align:

Working in pods

“For every region and segment, we have a CSM, AE, and BDR who work together to tackle the segment in that territory,” says Clare. “Then they have demand gen marketers that are aligned by segment. They meet weekly and have shared tactics they go to market with.”

Weekly meetings

“My team joins and kicks off the Monday BDR call. We share what happened last week and what’s coming this week and get feedback from them. They are an extension of our team and vice versa.”

Shared numbers

“With a shared number, teams have every reason to work well together,” explains Clare. “When you give sales and BDRs leads they believe in, they invest more effort. UserGems has done that for us.”

UserGems helps Cobalt track their champions, so they can focus on buyers who are readyto talk. “We focus our prospecting efforts in the best place possible,” continues Clare. “BDRs work these leads because they convert faster. They're calling someone who already knows our brand, so it helps them hit their targets.”

2. Align marketing and customer success

Cobalt focuses on two things: winning new business and preventing churn in existing accounts.

The CS team gets alerts when champions move, so they can maintain relationships and prevent churn. Marketing supports customers after the sale, not just during it.

When a champion leaves or a new executive joins, the CSM gets an alert. They can build a relationship with the new contact and multithread with other stakeholders to prevent churn.

Shared goals mean both teams target the same accounts with coordinated plays.

How Cobalt runs the former champion playbook

Job changes account for 75% of pipeline for many sales teams (internal UserGems data). But if marketing nurtures these leads and sales ignores them, you waste budget and miss deals.

Here’s how Cobalt’s revenue team runs their former champion playbook to get great results:

• Cobalt tracks current and previous customers (churned accounts) that moved to new jobs.

• If the new company meets Cobalt’s ICP, UserGems alerts the BDR and triggers a Salesloft sequence based on the customer type.

• The first email starts a sequence designed to book a meeting. Don't ask for a demo right away. Instead, reconnect with the executive and offer to help them in their new role.

Here’s a sample email you can use:

Subject: Your experience with Cobalt

Hi [Name],

I heard that you just started a new role at DroneUp. Congratulations!

We’re excited about your next chapter and hope that Cobalt can continue helping you achieve your goals in this new role.

Congrats again!

P.S.: You might hear from our team in the future hoping to partner again, but if there’s anything I can assist with, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly.

Ben

Cobalt also prioritizes outreach to leads based on the following scale:

1. Job changes within the last 30 days get a higher lead score.

2. Existing customer accounts get priority over churned accounts.

3. Leads that meet Cobalt’s ICP, changed jobs in the last 30 days, and came from a current customer become MQLs with higher scores.

Other leads go into a suspect bucket. Work these after you've followed up on all your MQLs.

Why this playbook works

The former champion playbook benefits every team: sales, marketing, and CS.

Sales closes deals faster. Marketing proves ROI by targeting the same accounts as sales. CS prevents churn and finds upsell opportunities.

“UserGems helps us focus sales on the right leads,” says Clare Corriveau, Senior Director of Demand Generation at Cobalt. “They work these leads because they see the results.”

Among their many successes, Cobalt closed a $95K deal in three weeks by tracking customer job changes with UserGems—nearly double their average deal size and 6-8x faster than their typical 5-6 month enterprise cycle.