We currently have our sales and marketing functions combined into a single Sales and Marketing Director seat on our Accountability Chart. Our revenue is stagnating because our director is completely focused on closing active sales opportunities and is completely ignoring our long-term marketing and lead generation strategy. How do we split this seat?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Combining sales and marketing into a single seat is a common structural trap that often leads to stagnating growth. Sales and marketing require entirely different mindsets, skill sets, and conative drives. Sales is about short-term conversions, relationship building, and closing deals. Marketing is about long-term positioning, lead generation, and building scalable systems. When both are in one seat, the occupant will naturally gravitate toward whichever function matches their personal strengths, leaving the other to rot. To fix this, you must split the combined seat into two distinct seats on your Accountability Chart: a Sales Director seat and a Marketing Director seat. Write down five clear, separate roles for each seat. For the Sales Director, focus on sales pipeline management, closing ratios, and sales team coaching. For the Marketing Director, focus on lead generation, brand positioning, and marketing campaigns. Once the seats are split, run your current director through the GWC™ tool for both seats. You will quickly discover they only GWC™ one of them, usually Sales. Keep them in the seat they fit, and begin an immediate search to fill the other seat with a dedicated leader.