Rethinking the Sales & Marketing Manager

A couple of months ago, I shared some thoughts on Go-to-Market (GTM) and whether it has a place in Commercial Interiors and Design & Build.

And just recently I was also thinking about a traditional role I still see in many organisations, which may need a rethink: the Sales & Marketing Manager.

On the face of it, the title makes sense, one person responsible for building brand awareness and turning it into revenue, keeping everyone aligned (if there is a team). In practice, though, Sales and Marketing have become highly specialised. They use different tools, require different skill sets, and measure success through entirely different lenses.

Meanwhile, the broader strategic decisions still need to be made:

Which sectors should we actually be prioritizing?
What profiles yield the best margins?
How are we positioning the business before an RFP even lands?

In many D&B firms, those decisions sit with the MD or owner. In others, they’re shared across Sales and Marketing. GTM offers a different perspective, bringing overall commercial strategy and its execution together, rather than treating each function in isolation.

Does that mean the traditional Sales & Marketing Manager role is obsolete? Someone in that position may already be doing much of this work. But managing two separate functions is very different from taking true ownership of how they work together to drive growth.

This feels particularly relevant in Commercial Interiors and D&B. Relationships remain crucial and the route to winning a project is often long. Strong marketing establishes credibility, but it won’t build the relationships that lead to work. Equally, a great salesperson can develop opportunities, but their efforts are far more effective when the business is clear on which markets it wants to pursue, and why.

Perhaps the question isn’t whether we should replace the Sales & Marketing Manager with a “GTM Manager.” It’s whether the responsibilities we traditionally associate with the role still reflect what a growing business needs. For some, that might mean broadening an existing remit. For others, it could mean separating Sales and Marketing into specialist functions while clarifying who owns the commercial strategy.

When we’re hiring to support growth, perhaps we need to pay as much attention to what we’re asking someone to take responsibility for as the title on their email signature.