Sales-to-Marketing Job Transitions

Abstract

Careers evolve over time and can take many paths as they develop. Within marketing and sales, a common variant of career progression is to begin in a sales position and then advance internally into a marketing role. Doing so provides employees with unique but complementary sets of skills, experiences, and perspectives that may increase their efficacy as marketers. However, sales-to-marketing job transitions (SMJTs) can also be suboptimal and result in adverse outcomes. Although the sales–marketing interface literature has examined how the two functions work together, the SMJT process is unclear. To provide an understanding of this phenomenon, the authors conduct in-depth interviews across a host of different companies and industries with 56 informants who successfully transitioned intraorganizationally from sales to marketing, informants who transitioned but did not remain in marketing, and executives. They develop a theoretical model consisting of transition motivation, acquisition, preparation, and encounter. They also advance individual and organizational facilitators of SMJTs and discuss SMJTs’ potential positive and negative effects on the organization.