Bridging the Gap: Aligning Sales and Marketing at PlayCore’s Annual Summit
Industry: Recreational Facilities and Community Building
Location: Nationwide
Service: Team Development & Operational Improvement
Results:
Clarified shared customer lifecycle and lead handoff across sales and marketing teams
Generated new campaign automation ideas aligned with HubSpot tools
Created “Big Idea Briefs” to drive cross-functional collaboration and operational improvement
About PlayCore
PlayCore helps to build stronger communities all over the world by advancing play through research, education, and partnerships. The company comprises a family of brands, each with its own specialty, including outdoor & indoor play equipment, outdoor & indoor fitness, climbing equipment, bike storage, dog park needs, recreational surfacing, and aquatic services.
With a comprehensive collection of recreation products, PlayCore enhances play, creating solutions to match the unique needs of each community served.
The Challenge:
In fast-moving, customer-driven markets, alignment between sales and marketing is mission critical. That’s why PlayCore brought in Bridge Innovate to facilitate two high-impact sessions at their 2025 Sales & Marketing Conference. The goal? Strengthen cross-functional collaboration and activate the full potential of their new shared CRM platform.
PlayCore’s marketing and sales teams are deeply committed to delivering high-quality service across the customer journey—but like many growing organizations, they face silos in process, data, and messaging. With a recent push to unify data tracking and campaign automation in HubSpot, the company saw a pivotal opportunity: bring both teams into one room to define, align, and move forward together.
The Solution:
Bridge Innovate facilitated two interactive sessions—one focused on the marketing team’s campaign automation work, and another joint session with sales and marketing to align roles, language, and lifecycle ownership.
Day One: Defining the Marketing Engine
We kicked things off by helping the marketing team surface what’s working—and what’s getting in the way—when it comes to campaign clarity and consistent HubSpot use. Together, we explored the full customer lifecycle, clarified key touchpoints, and identified opportunities for automation. Small teams then wireframed real campaign journeys using HubSpot tools, tracking leads across key metrics like quote conversion, lead velocity, and source attribution.Day Two: Aligning to Achieve
In a joint sales and marketing session, we tackled the question: When does a lead feel ready for sales? Teams worked side-by-side to define shared lifecycle stages, assign ownership, and spotlight areas where program collaboration could make the biggest impact. From there, each table team developed a "Big Idea Brief"—a tangible concept to improve alignment through enhanced data hygiene, clearer handoffs, or better campaign design.
The Result:
By the end of the summit, PlayCore had achieved more than just alignment—they had co-created new pathways for collaboration, unlocked untapped automation potential, and established shared language and tools to move faster together. Sales and marketing left with clarity, commitment, and a toolkit to carry the momentum forward.
Need help facilitating an alignment session or introducing changes at your organization? Contact us to create your own custom collaboration workshop.