Interviewing Rob Elliss, CRO,
Cybersecurity Products at Thales
The relationship between marketing and sales has changed in the last few years. At its most basic, it used to be sequential: Marketing would build awareness and deliver a warm lead, sales would take it from there. That’s an outdated model we need to move on from.
Marketing has to be involved into what used to be sales territory, and sales has to understand the thought leadership story well enough to actually tell it. The two functions aren’t handing off to each other anymore. Increasingly, they’re operating in parallel, on the same accounts, at the same time.
So, what does this shift mean for the day-to-day reality of a global operation? I sat down with Rob Elliss, CRO, Cybersecurity Products at Thales, to find out. And, in my opinion, Rob offers some of the clearest explanations of why traditional sales and marketing siloes are losing their relevance.
Helen Kensett (HK): How important is it for marketing and sales to work together?
Rob Elliss (RE): “We’re not two different functions, one that does a great job of telling the world what we do, and then the other one that translates that into revenue. It’s got to be all the same process.”
Rob sees the two functions as inextricably linked and part of what he calls “a sales play” that begins with the very first brand touch and runs all the way through account-based marketing, lead qualification, and ultimately attributed closed revenue.
It’s not a relay race, with one team handing off to another somewhere in the middle. It’s one continuous motion; everyone seeing the whole play, not just the leg they happen to own.
“Random acts of marketing” are the enemy.
Rob is blunt about the version of marketing he doesn’t want, turning up and asking sales ‘what campaigns do you want us to do?’ and running activity that’s disconnected from anything repeatable or trackable.
His fix is structural, not aspirational: a formal, repeatable sales play – marketing, intent signals, ABM, BDRs, sales, sales ops, all mapped as one sequence – that can be measured end to end, adapted, switched off if it isn’t converting, and reused wholesale the next time there’s a new product or customer outcome to sell.
The test isn’t “did we do a campaign.” It’s “can we point to a specific opportunity and closed deal that traces back to this effort.” If you can’t, you don’t have a sales play. You have activity.
HK: How is your sales function using thought leadership?
RE: “Thought leadership is the platform sales stands on”
Without thought leadership, Rob argues, “you’re just a ‘me-too’ player, and you will get ‘me-too’ results.” The danger of that is that you become a commodity, competing on price and features – a position no marketer wants to put their sales team in.
The analogy he uses is simple and clear: thought leadership works like seeing someone who looks fit and capable. First, you notice they’ve mastered something. Then you start thinking, “How did they do it?” “What steps did they take?” “What methods did they use?” That’s where the message takes root. Thought leadership isn’t the sales pitch. It’s what earns you the trust to be listened to before you ever make the pitch.
Done well, he argues, it doesn’t just protect against commoditisation – it lets you command a premium. You’re the thought leader, not the follower with a similar solution being baked off on price.
HK: How hard is it for your sales reps to build trust with customers?
RE: “Trust and credibility are not the same thing”
Credibility can be built fast, Rob points out. Solve a real, live problem a customer didn’t even know they had, and you’ve earned it in one interaction.
Trust takes longer, and it’s built differently: “often the good things can build credibility, and the challenging situations or crises can build trust, as long as you deal with them appropriately.” It’s not the wins that build trust. It’s what you do when something breaks, and you show up for it properly.
HK: If you had a silver bullet to make marketing more commercial what would it be?
RE: “Channel can’t be an afterthought”
His “half silver bullet” for marketing: whatever campaign goes to market, the channel-friendly version – same message, translated into channel language – should launch to partners on the same day, not bolted on weeks later.
It’s a small operational point with a bigger implication: channel partners aren’t a distribution afterthought to loop in once the “real” campaign is done. They’re part of the same launch.
HK: Should marketing’s measurement change?
RE: “Pipeline contribution still wins, but attribution is genuinely hard”
Contribution to pipeline remains the metric with the biggest priority. But he’s also candid that attribution is a real problem, not a marketing excuse – “you’ve got to find ways of [pinning outcomes to specific marketing effort], or at least a consistent way of doing it.”
The right response to “prove your ROI” is pushing for the tracking infrastructure that makes consistent attribution possible in the first place.
HK: And of course, how is AI impacting sales and marketing?
RE: “AI is levelling the field”
“If you don’t rapidly leverage AI, you’re going to be a dinosaur,” Rob argues. “Early movers get a real, temporary edge – research that used to take hours now takes seconds, and reps can simulate and rehearse sales calls before they happen. But once adoption is universal, that edge disappears. Everyone’s back on a level playing field.”
The implication for marketers is important: AI-driven research and personalisation buy you a head start, not a durable advantage. This loops straight back to thought leadership and brand – the argument for doing more of the things that don’t get commoditised the moment your competitors catch up on tooling.
The thread running through Rob’s thinking isn’t about new tactics. It’s about proximity. The organisations that stop treating marketing and sales as separate functions will be the ones that win.
About Grounded
Grounded is a specialist agency that helps marketing make a sales impact. Through marketing led, sales enabled playbooks.
Media Contact: Julieta Hollevoet julieta.hollevoet@thinkgrounded.com