If you’ve worked on a B2B go-to-market team, you know the drill: sales, marketing, customer success, and product all want the same thing—growth. But getting everyone to actually pull in the same direction? That’s the hard part. Endless pings, siloed spreadsheets, and way too many meetings.
This guide is for anyone who gets stuck in the middle of all this—maybe you’re a RevOps lead, a team manager, or just the person everyone emails when they can’t find a contact. You want a clear, honest approach to making cross-functional work…well, work. And you’re probably eyeing Folk as a tool to help. Let’s get into what actually works (and what to skip) when using it with B2B teams.
Why Cross-Functional Collaboration Fails (and How Folk Can Help)
Let’s be blunt: most collaboration tools just add noise. Fancy dashboards and chat threads don’t fix the real problems:
- People work in silos and hoard contacts.
- No one knows who owns what.
- Updates get lost across email, Slack, and random Notion docs.
- Meetings become endless status theater.
Folk promises a different approach: one shared source of truth for contacts, context, and conversations. That’s great, but only if you set it up with a bit of discipline and get buy-in from the teams that matter. Here’s how to make that happen.
Step 1: Map Out Your Go-to-Market Workflows
Before you touch any software, get clarity on how your teams actually work together. Don’t just copy what you see in a slide deck.
- Write down the handoffs: When does marketing pass a lead to sales? When does sales loop in customer success? Map this out on a whiteboard or doc.
- List the key touchpoints: Where are things breaking down? Are people dropping the ball on follow-ups?
- Identify “weird” edge cases: Does product ever need to jump on a call with a customer? Is there some VIP account that everyone’s watching?
Pro tip: Get input from every function, not just sales. Otherwise, you’ll build a system that works for one team and annoys everyone else.
Step 2: Clean Up Your Contact Data (Don’t Skip This)
You can’t collaborate on junk. Before you bring contacts into Folk, do a little housekeeping:
- Consolidate contact lists: Export contacts from everyone’s spreadsheets, CRMs, email, and Slack.
- Remove duplicates: Folk has some deduplication, but manual review always catches more.
- Standardize fields: Make sure names, companies, roles, and notes are consistent. Decide on one format (e.g., “VP, Sales” not “Sales VP” or “VP Sales”).
- Decide what not to import: Don’t bring in old, dead leads or random conference badge scans. Less is more.
Mistake to avoid: Don’t try to solve this with a big-bang migration. Start with your active pipeline and expand later.
Step 3: Set Up Folk for Shared, Not Siloed, Collaboration
Here’s where Folk can actually shine—if you avoid the temptation to just recreate old silos.
- Use shared groups for real collaboration: Create groups around real workflows (e.g., “Active Deals,” “Customer Onboarding,” or “Lost Opportunities”) rather than by team (“Marketing Contacts,” “Sales Prospects”).
- Set clear permissions: Decide who can edit, comment, or just view. Folk lets you do this per group, which is handy.
- Add context—not just contacts: Attach notes, meeting recaps, and relevant files to each contact. This prevents those “wait, what happened last call?” moments.
- Integrate with your tools (but not everything): Folk can sync with Gmail, LinkedIn, and more. Pick a few integrations that matter; don’t turn on everything just because you can.
Ignore the hype: Folk isn’t going to magically make people collaborate. It’s just a tool—getting teams to actually use it is the bigger lift.
Step 4: Define Simple, Shared Processes
Tools don’t replace process. Make sure everyone knows how things should work:
- Set ground rules: Who updates contact statuses? Who adds meeting notes? Spell it out.
- Agree on what “done” looks like: For example, a lead is “qualified” when these three things are true. Write it down.
- Keep it lean: Avoid creating too many custom stages, tags, or fields. The more you add, the less people will use.
- Document in Folk itself: Use group descriptions and contact notes for key process reminders.
Reality check: If you need a 20-page manual, your process is already too complicated. People should be able to figure it out on their own.
Step 5: Make Collaboration Part of the Daily Routine
This is where most teams fall short. You can have the best setup in Folk, but if it’s not part of the daily flow, it’ll just gather dust.
- Use Folk as the “source of truth” in meetings: Pull up the relevant group, review updates, and make decisions right there—no more “let me check Salesforce and get back to you.”
- Encourage real-time updates: After calls or demos, add notes immediately. Don’t wait for end-of-week recaps.
- Keep everyone in the loop: Use @mentions or comments to flag issues or loop in other teams (without spamming everyone).
- Spot-check usage regularly: Every couple of weeks, take five minutes to see if people are actually using Folk. If not, ask why—not to blame, but to fix what’s not working.
Pro tip: Celebrate quick wins in Folk—a closed deal, a smooth handoff, a happy customer. It’s basic, but it helps reinforce good habits.
What Works (And What Doesn’t)
What Works
- Shared context: When everyone can see the same notes and history, stuff doesn’t fall through the cracks.
- Quick handoffs: Folk makes it easy to assign or tag someone else. No more “who owns this?” confusion.
- Lightweight process: The less friction, the more likely people are to keep things up to date.
What Doesn’t
- Overcomplicating your setup: The more custom fields, tags, and integrations you bolt on, the faster people will check out.
- Assuming the tool will drive behavior: Change management is 90% people, 10% software.
- Relying on Folk for reporting: Folk is great for collaboration, but if you want deep analytics or forecasting, you’ll still need a proper CRM or BI tool.
What to Ignore
- The “AI will do it all for you” pitch: Folk’s AI helpers can save you time with enrichment or deduplication, but they’re not going to run your go-to-market motion.
- One-size-fits-all templates: Every team’s workflow is different. Start simple, then tweak as you go.
Keep It Simple, Iterate Fast
Cross-functional collaboration is never “done.” The real trick is to keep your workflows simple enough that people actually use them, and flexible enough to adapt as your team grows or pivots.
Set up Folk to be your team’s source of truth—nothing more, nothing less. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Get started, see where things break down, and adjust as you go. That’s the only way any of these tools actually make your work life easier.