Question

Topic: Career/Training

What Should A Vp Of Sales And Marketing Do?

Posted by lathans on 12/6/2010 at 12:24 PM ET 250 Points
So here's the scenario:
A Marketing Director and a Sales Manager report directly to the CEO. Currently, the Marketing Director is responsible for direction, creation and execution of plan, budget, and lead gen opportunities and metrics, and manages the Marketing Coordinator. The Sales Manager carries a quota, reports on pipelines, sales, and revises pricing and manages the other salespeople.
If a VP of Sales & Marketing is brought in as a tier between the aforementioned and the CEO, would they take over any of the responsibilities currently done by the current Marketing or Sales person?
Specifically, I'm trying to ascertain what parts of Marketing the VP picks up, as the Director has done everything in the past with only the CEO to report to.
Looking forward to your feedback.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 12/6/2010 at 1:15 PM Accepted
    The answer depends. A good leader will look at the situation and use their time to provide the greatest return to the company. For instance, if the Director of Marketing has everything under control and the sales manager does not - they should spend their time fixing sales.

    Now eventually when all has settled down, here would be marketing activities for the VP
    Marketing Direction (Strategic with input from others)
    Budget oversite (who gets what money)
    Goal setting for entire marketing group
  • Posted by michael on 12/6/2010 at 1:56 PM Accepted
    Clearly it depends on the strengths of the new VP. I merely question the need to add another layer.

    Is the CEO too busy or does he not trust the current employees? I've seen this many times and it's and excellent way to lose 2 good employees.

    Michael
  • Posted by mgoodman on 12/6/2010 at 6:05 PM Accepted
    It depends on the needs of the business, the strengths/weaknesses of the incumbent Sales and Marketing leaders, and the new VP's interests and strengths.

    Ultimately the VP would be responsible for setting strategic direction, ensuring that Sales and Marketing are pulling in the same direction, and resolving any issues that cause friction between the departments (and/or with other departments in the company).

    One obvious example: Sales forecasts and their impact on the activities and budgets of not only Sales and Marketing, but also on Manufacturing, Finance, etc.

    Again, this will depend on individual strengths and weaknesses and the company's needs. There is no stock answer to your question.
  • Posted by telemoxie on 12/6/2010 at 8:10 PM Accepted
    we do not have a lot of details here, and so we are all shooting in the dark.

    who knows, possibly the CEO is tired of refereeing turf battles between sales and marketing, and spending his time dealing with issues like this one.

    Maybe a vice president of sales and marketing could pursue strategic relationships with other firms, mergers and acquisitions, large strategic accounts, international sales and marketing, staff training and development, and perform business development functions.
  • Posted by lathans on 12/7/2010 at 5:26 PM Author
    Thanks for all your input thus far. A few clarifiers, and telemoxie actually identified one of these: "...pursue strategic relationships with other firms, mergers and acquisitions, ...and perform business development functions." This will be part of what this VP will potentially do.
    I think neither the Sales or Marketing person has been offered the postion because independently they're good at and needed in their current roles. We're also dealing with a rare instance where Sales and Marketing are very aligned, so there's no referee issues.
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