Marketing and Sales: One Leader or Two?

Over the last couple of years, I have had numerous philosophical conversations about the leadership strategy where sales and marketing are led by the same person. Is the leadership a one or two person structure?

Marketing leaders who aspire to excellence often want to know if they will have a seat at the C-Suite table. Surprisingly, C-suite leaders want clarity and an explanation of the difference between "sales" and "marketing" in order to determine that approach.  The truth is that it takes BOTH disciplines to effectively accelerate growth. And—that is why this blog was created!

Marketing Defined

Marketing drives the greatest value for an organization through leadership of Brand to Demand by defining the audience, planning the go-to-market and messaging strategy, and executing campaigns to reach target segments. This is an important role for organizations of all sizes, maturation points, and industries. The ratio of brand or demand strategies employed to generate results for an organization will vary based on organizational criteria plus the volume of revenue needed.

What is “Brand” versus “Demand?” is often a secondary question. Brand is what attracts new customers all while building brand loyalty to retain existing clients for repeat and referral business. If you think it is not important, Google “Cracker Barrel” and you will quickly see how important “brand” is to recurring revenue of an organization.

Demand is the effort given to acquire new customers and may be achieved through digital channels, events, content marketing, direct mail, media, and more. It is what creates a “need” or a “want” in your target audiences and marketing is best equipped to lead the charge.

Similarly, sales and marketing have a shared end game goal-driving both growth and revenue for their shared organization.

It is important for marketing to be part of the overall growth strategy. “Marketing planning helps align key strategies with the business’s overall goals. It helps ensure proper allocation of resources, targets the right audiences, and provides an effective means of tracking performance.” Read more about marketing planning in this Gartner article now.

Sales Defined

Sales is best equipped to be visible, qualify leads, establish credibility and rapport, execute consultative selling of features and benefits, and ultimately convert a lead to a sale. They are focused on relationships and aligning a product or service to fill a gap for a prospect as well as identifying ongoing opportunities to strengthen relationships with clients or customers.

Many great sales leaders also have a marketing background and easily serve as the "connective tissue" between both disciplines and with product and operations teams.

The Notorious Winners

Traditionally, there are some key industries who have historically chosen to integrate sales and marketing as one functional structure and may operate that way today. These industries include:

Real Estate, Senior Living, Hospitality. Industrial/Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals & Medical Devices, B2B Professional Services, Franchises, Early-Stage Technology (SaaS), and beyond.

Does sales or marketing work best under one leader’s umbrella or two? In many cases, a “shared” structure may be advantageous for a period of time, but repeated missed opportunities may indicate a need for change.

The Distinction of Leaders

Is there a separation of power? The core strengths of a consummate marketing leader likely vary from that of a sales leader but there is also some overlap.  Marketing types are known for creativity, strategic thinking, analytical insights, brand stewardship, data-driven and ROI focus, innovation, storytelling, communication, and authenticity. Sales types offer inspirational leadership, talent development and coaching, a customer experience mindset, operational discipline, adaptability, and results orientation.

Bridging Two Forces for One Vision

Sales and marketing may play different roles, but they share the same mission — driving growth and creating value. Marketing builds awareness and demand; sales convert that momentum into relationships and revenue. Aligning your sales and marketing teams will triple your chances of beating your customer acquisition targets.

Read more about a game plan designed for coordinating both sales and marketing here.

Whether these functions roll up under one leader or operate separately matters less than how well they work together. True success happens when both teams share clarity, trust, and accountability — when marketing fuels the pipeline and sales brings the story to life.

In the end, it’s not sales versus marketing — it’s sales and marketing, moving in sync toward one goal: sustainable growth and customer success.

Let's Connect!

If you are seeking a marketing leader to partner with sales, connect with me on LinkedIn today!