A direct question to yourself: do you manage marketing and sales, or are you just reacting to emerging problems?
On the surface, everything may seem fine: departments are functioning, managers are in their positions, external contractors are engaged. But inside — there is an endless stream of assignments, correspondence, revisions, and urgent agreements. Everyone is busy, but no substantial changes are happening. Marketing and sales are working more intensively, but the business is developing slower than it could.
The secret is that the reason is not the incompetence of the marketer or the low motivation of the salespeople. The root of the problem lies in how you, as the owner or top manager, define priorities, decide which issues to take on yourself and which to delegate to the team.
In this article, we will look at how a leader's strategic approach directly impacts the effectiveness of marketing and sales.
Coming into a company from the outside, you don't necessarily need to study reports deeply to understand the management situation. A few days of observation are enough.
Symptom 1. The leader constantly operates in emergency mode
His workday looks like this:
There is no time for strategic questions — what we envision for marketing in a year, which segments and products we are focusing on, which sales processes are hindering development. All resources go to solving current crises.
Symptom 2. Priorities change several times a day
In the morning, the leader demands to urgently launch a promotion, in the afternoon — to work on reputation, in the evening — to focus on repeat sales. The team loses understanding of what's most important.
Tasks are not lined up in a sequence, there is no clear focus even for a quarter. Everyone pulls attention to their own areas, the leader gives instructions but does not control the task queue or their consequences.
Symptom 3. The leader takes on all complex issues
A very common situation: as soon as a task goes beyond the standard, it immediately lands with the owner or general director.
The team freezes waiting for the verdict. Speed drops. Employees get used to the idea: it's safer to pass it up immediately than to take responsibility.
Symptom 4. Meetings happen, but there is no management cycle
Meetings follow one after another. But in reality:
As a result, both marketing and sales exist in a mode of "many actions, but it's unclear for what purpose." This applies to other departments as well.
A leader's strategic thinking is not about pondering for weeks and "forming a strategy." It's about three purely practical skills that directly impact team effectiveness.
Skill 1. Seeing the system, not disparate tasks
Not a separate landing page, a separate post, or a separate increased discount, but:
When a leader keeps the system in mind, he asks questions of a different level. Instead of "what banner to create," it's: "how will this affect conversion from lead to sale." This automatically improves the quality of decisions and the team's speed.
Skill 2. Working with priorities, not a pile of tasks
A strategically thinking leader can:
It sounds simple, but in reality, it's one of the most difficult management actions. However, the effect is colossal: the team gains clear focus, less task-switching, more energy for the main thing.
Skill 3. Creating management cycles, not performing one-off feats
An effective leader doesn't move from one crisis to another. He:
And most importantly — he disciplinebly allocates time for this in his schedule.
To simplify, the transition to strategic management can be described as five shifts.
Instead of:
Formulate tasks like this:
This may seem like just a stylistic edit, but for the team, it's a 180-degree turn: from simple execution to joint problem-solving.
Instead of daily checking of all tasks, you:
Parallelly, implement a short monthly review: what was planned, what was done, what actually worked, what conclusions.
A strategically thinking leader not only decides what to do but also clearly defines what will not be done.
For example:
It's much easier for the team to move forward when there is not only a task list but also a list of what is out of focus.
Instead of taking all complex issues, you:
Yes, at the initial stage, this requires time. But later, the team's speed increases many times over: the number of "what should I do?" questions noticeably decreases.
Instead of frantic work before an exhibition, launch, or quarterly report, you build a sustainable pace:
In such a system, marketing and sales start working faster not through overtime but due to clarity: everyone understands what's important and what result they are responsible for.
Let's briefly describe a situation familiar to many.
A B2B company, revenue about 800 million. The leader is immersed in operational activities. Marketing and sales formally exist but are actually waiting for instructions.
Initial state:
What they did first:
After 3–4 months:
If you recognize yourself in the description above, start small. There's no need to immediately rebuild all processes.
Step 1. Honestly analyze your schedule
Take the next two weeks and look at what your time is really spent on:
Usually, this exercise alone is enough to make you think.
Step 2. Implement a minimal management rhythm
For example:
Yes, in the first month, something will get disrupted. That's a normal part of the process.
Step 3. Structure your work week
A simple tool helps here — a weekly template where you:
Absolutely, yes. You can learn to see the interconnections of all functions in the company, you can teach your leaders to interact so that everyone sees their department's place in the overall result and the impact of their metrics on related divisions. Because no strategy or procedures will work if the leader lives in a perpetual firefighter mode and is not ready to change his own management habits.
