We have always had a combined Marketing and Customer Success seat on our Accountability Chart run by one person. As we prepare for a major scaling phase, we are noticing that marketing campaigns are failing because our leader is too busy handling customer onboarding. How do we know it is time to split this seat, and how do we transition without causing friction?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A combined seat is a natural and necessary structure when you are small, but it becomes a major bottleneck as you attempt to scale. You know it is time to split a combined seat when one or both of the functions consistently fail to hit their metrics, or when your leader is forced to constantly neglect one area to fight fires in the other.

In your case, marketing is proactive and customer success is reactive. Reactive work will always hijack a leader's time because clients are screaming for help right now, whereas a marketing campaign can always be delayed until tomorrow.

To transition without causing friction, sit down with your current leader and use the Accountability Chart to show them the bottleneck. Explain that the business has grown to the point where both marketing and customer success require full-time, dedicated leadership to succeed.

Split the combined seat into two distinct seats on your chart: a Marketing Director seat and a Customer Success Director seat. Define five unique roles for each. Now, run your current leader through the GWC filter for both seats. Which one do they truly get, want, and have the capacity to lead at a high level? They cannot do both anymore.

Once they select their preferred seat, you must begin the search to fill the vacant seat, either by promoting from within or hiring externally. This clean split removes the internal conflict of interest and allows both departments to focus entirely on their core objectives.