Bridging Sales and Marketing: 10 Lessons from a CMO
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Sales and marketing often feel like they live in separate worlds. Sales is out in the field, shaking hands and building referral relationships, while marketing is behind the scenes, managing campaigns and building digital engines. But in behavioral health, the best results come when those worlds collide.
Former Summit Behavioral Healthcare CMO Daniel Krasner knows this firsthand. After leading both business development and marketing, he shared what he’s learned about aligning the two. Here are 10 key lessons from his journey—along with quotes straight from the conversation.
1. Shifting from Relationships to Repeatable Systems
Business development is about showing up in person. Marketing is about building engines that connect at scale.
“When you’re over business development, it’s very much in-person relationship building… Versus a digital-first footprint, where it’s about building an engine that makes other people show up.” — Daniel Krasner
2. Agencies Can Help, But In-House Teams Win Long-Term
Agencies can fill technical gaps, but internal collaboration creates the strongest system.
“Control, for me, I prefer to have it all in-house… when you have the ability to hire specialty positions. You can coordinate all those people, and I think it makes a stronger system.” — Daniel Krasner
3. Weekly Feedback Loops Beat Monthly Meetings
Waiting a month to compare notes creates bottlenecks and frustration. Frequent touchpoints keep teams aligned.
“We talked about these things every Monday morning… what’s next, what projects are we doing, what’s the return going to be. We didn’t have a lot of those challenges because we kept the loop tight.” — Daniel Krasner
4. Attribution Isn’t Perfect—But It’s Essential
Track what you can, even if you can’t track everything. Dynamic numbers and call tracking are non-negotiable.
“Every sort of piece of marketing we did was trackable… we know what’s working and what’s not working. Based on call volume, inquiry volume, conversion—we know where to invest.” — Daniel Krasner
5. COVID Proved Sales and Marketing Must Align
When reps couldn’t meet in person, Summit created a joint sales-and-marketing campaign with drip emails, swag, and local outreach.
“It really showed me the power of these two departments being aligned. You couldn’t have two different complete messages out there.” — Daniel Krasner
6. Local-First Marketing Builds Trust
Patients don’t want a “big-box” treatment center. They want providers who feel part of their community.
“I’d much rather go to my animal hospital with a local name. That same principle applies to healthcare—people want treatment centers that feel like they’re part of the community.” — Daniel Krasner
7. Balance Storytelling with Performance
Effective campaigns balance empathy with urgency. Too much storytelling feels soft; too much performance feels transactional.
“Marketing is really about making people understand that we care—and making it easy for them to act.” — Daniel Krasner
8. Treat Sales and Marketing as Co-Architects
The biggest mistake providers make is treating sales and marketing like separate handoffs instead of co-designers.
“Oftentimes marketing is built in a vacuum. Instead, sales and marketing should be co-architects of what we’re building.” — Daniel Krasner
9. Don’t Forget Operations
Marketing can’t promise what operations can’t deliver. Clinical and operational teams must be part of the process.
“We’re out there marketing, but operations has to be able to actually do what we say we do. Making sure all those things are tied together is key.” — Daniel Krasner
10. The Future is Persona-Based Campaigns and Alumni Engagement
The next big opportunity is creating campaigns tailored to parents, teens, referral sources, or patients—and building powerful alumni programs.
“I think it’s going to get much more specified—very much geared towards the audience, like persona-based marketing… And alumni, that’s your most powerful tool right there.” — Daniel Krasner
Want to Connect with Daniel?
Daniel is a certified interventionist and seasoned behavioral health leader who now consults with organizations on patient acquisition, brand strategy, and aligning sales with marketing.
👉 You can learn more and reach out through his website: dk solutions group.
