Sales & Marketing: What Types of Organizations Need What Type of Leadership, And When?
As startups grow and established companies evolve, the powers that be must address their sales and marketing leadership needs. This article is the second in my five-part series about executive team building. Here is the link to my first article about when an organization should consider bringing on a COO.
If you’ve ever worked in a startup, especially a very young startup, you will have witnessed and experienced an environment where every employee must wear several hats. Typically, these companies are small, and the size of a company often dictates structure. There’s not enough capital to support both sales and marketing leadership, therefore, the smaller the company, the more likely it is that one person will head both functions. Keep this in mind: that person will be better at one function or the other—and that’s okay.
As companies grow, the functions of the roles in their organizations will demand more specialization and attention, and eventually sales and marketing leadership positions will need to separate. This time is an opportunity ensure that people with the right expertise are in the appropriate role.
Another defining factor in the development of sales and marketing leadership is a company’s customer relationship models. B2C companies, in general, are dominated by marketing, and they almost certainly will have a CMO or an SVP of Marketing. Sales teams in these companies, if there is a sales team, may not even have a VP. These organizations sell and market products and services that are highly transactional, and create relationships with their customers through their branding and direct advertising, and at times with thought leadership identity, think Virgin Airlines.
If a company is B2B or B2E, then the sales organization is central to customer acquisition and retention, and the business as a whole. In these organizations, sales leadership might oversee marketing and the marketing leadership would only reach director, or perhaps VP level.
Until a company can afford and justify separate sales and marketing C-suite level leadership positions, they tend to fall to one person. Dividing the leadership to sales and marketing tends to be evolutionary. In B2B and B2E organizations, sales is viewed as dynamic outreach with a professional devoted to managing prospective clients’ needs and conversion requirements. In the same types of organizations the marketing department is built to create sales enablement; give the sales teams the research and tools they need to understand markets, inform prospective clients of product and service features and value, and at some level, address technical product issues.
While many B2B and B2E companies have large sales teams, both in-house and in the field, some of these organizations do more than develop sales tools to support sales teams. These organizations depend on lead and demand generation for new client acquisition. Such organizations have marketing teams that employ integrated marketing strategies and tactics, and create a customer funnel that leads clients from awareness, to conversion, and even to advocacy. Leadership of such a team can be done with sales overseeing marketing, or with dual sales and marketing leadership roles. For lead generation, and all the touchpoints it creates to be successful, sales and marketing must work symbiotically. Whether an organization is small or enterprise, the marketing resources to reach customers are plentiful. Old-fashioned drip marketing (print and email), SEO/SEM, and proof-of-concept white papers and case studies are just a few ways to engage with customers. Also available today is robust and real-time customer information provided by marketing software automation platforms like Marketo and Hubspot.
No matter the size of your organization it’s never too soon, or too late, to review and consider your marketing and sales leadership growth and needs. And don’t think it’s too early to work with me, it’s not. I have experience helping all size organizations build their teams and find success.