Currently, we have a combined Marketing and Sales seat on our Accountability Chart, held by one of our co-founders. Our outbound marketing is now heavily automated by AI, causing a massive surge in leads that our sales team cannot handle. How do we structurally split this seat and transition him without creating a turf war?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Combining Sales and Marketing into a single seat is common in early stage companies, but rapid scale and automation will inevitably break this structure. When AI accelerates your marketing output, your lead generation outpaces your sales capacity, and having one person manage both creates a bottleneck.

To split this seat cleanly, you must first look at the structure, not the person. Redraw your Accountability Chart to show two distinct seats reporting to the Integrator: a Head of Marketing seat and a Head of Sales seat. Define five unique roles for each seat. For example, Marketing owns brand awareness, lead generation, and campaign automation, while Sales owns closing deals, revenue targets, and customer acquisition.

Next, evaluate the co-founder using GWC for both seats. He cannot sit in both seats long-term if the company is to scale. Have an open and honest conversation with him during a Same Page meeting. Ask him which seat he truly gets, wants, and has the capacity to run at a high level.

Once he chooses his primary seat, you must find a right person for the other seat. If he chooses Sales, you hire a Head of Marketing. If he chooses Marketing, you bring in a Head of Sales. To prevent a turf war, clearly define the hand-off metrics on your weekly Scorecard. Marketing is accountable for delivering qualified leads, and Sales is accountable for converting those leads. This keeps both seats focused on their distinct responsibilities.