One of the first things I do when I take over a marketing organization, or build one from scratch, is refuse to hire anyone until I've mapped the function itself. Not the org chart. The actual work that needs to happen, broken into distinct job functions, before a single title gets attached to it.
Why job titles are the wrong starting point
Job titles carry baggage. "Marketing Manager" means something different at every company, which means when you hire against a title, you're really hiring against whatever mental model that candidate, or that recruiter, happens to have. I've seen companies hire three "Marketing Managers" who end up doing completely different work because nobody defined the function first.
Instead, I start with a functional map: the six to eight core capabilities a marketing organization needs to operate, independent of who eventually owns them.
The six functions I map every time
- Brand and positioning: the story and the proof points behind it
- Demand generation: paid, organic, and outbound pipeline creation
- Content and creative: the assets that fuel every other function
- Marketing operations and technology: the systems that make everything measurable
- Analytics and reporting: turning activity into a trustworthy number
- Product marketing: translating what's built into what's sellable
Mapping coverage before mapping headcount
Once the functions are laid out, I map who's covering what today, even informally. Almost every time, I find one function with three people circling it and another with nobody covering it at all. That gap is usually more urgent than whatever open requisition is sitting on the table.
This is where I built out a Marketing Function Framework as a working document, essentially a matrix crossing each function against current coverage, gaps, and dependencies. It sounds like overhead. It's actually the fastest way I've found to stop hiring reactively.
Why this changes the hiring conversation
When I bring a hiring plan to leadership built on a functional gap analysis instead of "we need another marketer," the conversation changes completely. I'm not asking for headcount. I'm showing exactly which function is uncovered, what it's costing the business in missed pipeline or slower execution, and why this specific hire closes that gap. That's a fundamentally easier case to make, and it's a fundamentally better hire once it's approved.
One hire, mapped correctly, beats three hired reactively
I'd rather make one well-mapped hire that closes a real functional gap than three reactive hires that duplicate coverage in the areas that were already easy to staff. Mapping the function first is slower at the start. It's dramatically faster once the team is actually built, because everyone knows exactly what they own and why.