I just raised my hand to take SDRs under marketing

Am I out of my mind?

Last time you heard from me I had just been promoted to VP of Marketing overnight. I was processing it over ramen and a beer, journaling about whether the team would be okay, whether I was ready. That was the beginning of April.

It's now mid-April, and I've officially taken ownership of our SDR team in addition to marketing. For those doing the math at home, that's going from managing a small marketing team to tripling my org size in the span of a couple weeks. As a first-time VP. Who is still finding my footing.

So yeah, am I out of my mind? 

Not in the slightest. 

Why I wanted this

Bringing SDRs under marketing wasn't some reactive, impulsive thing. I've seen it work at a previous company, Lessonly, where all top-of-funnel pipeline lived under one roof. The alignment between outbound and marketing there was strong, and the model stuck with me.

Here's the core of my thinking: one team, one goal.

When SDRs and marketing sit in separate orgs, you get split motivations. Inbound goals over here, outbound goals over there, and everyone pointing fingers when pipeline is light. Bringing it all under one roof means we're all driving towards the same number. Here are two big reasons I pushed for it now:

• We’ve already seen what closer collaboration can do: We just ran a play last week alongside our AI product launch. SDRs pushed prospects towards registering for our customer webinar instead of just asking for meetings. We re-engaged closed-lost deals, moved pipeline further in the funnel, and drove real pipeline. More of that, please.

• I’m the buyer: The other piece I'm genuinely excited about is my POV as a product marketer leading this team. I'm one of our personas. I know the buyer because I am the buyer. That's a unique position for a leader to be in, and I think it creates a real opportunity to sharpen our messaging, improve our targeting, and get the team closer to the voice of the customer.

One of my mentors framed the vision really well: SDRs are the selling arm of marketing. Not just an army of meeting-bookers, but a function that amplifies everything we're doing across brand, content, product marketing, events. A loud speaker amplifying the whole marketing motion.

There are big open questions I don't have the answers to yet, like incentives alignment and attribution clarity when we’re so intertwined. I’m also wrapping my head around another new functional area in my second month as VP, so the context switching is hardcore. But I’m confident this is right for our company and our group, and as I’ve found with other pieces of marketing so far, I’m enjoying the process of learning and leaning in with our team.

How I got the “yes”

“No surprises” is one of the most important learnings I’ve had so far as VP. Don’t surprise the founders, the board, other execs. Proactive communication, seeing around corners, and bringing people along in your decision making is critical in leadership. 

So I made sure to let Evan and Ray know it was on my mind, and teed up a conversation about it in one of our weekly marketing updates. I came prepared with a doc covering four areas:

1. The case for why. One team driving pipeline, stronger sales and marketing alignment, and me being a known quantity the SDR team already trusts. (Side note: I think PMM Office Hours have had a major impact here, likely another topic I’ll cover down the road.) 

2. The leadership mandate. I outlined two paths: full ownership with autonomy to make decisions, and stewardship where major calls still go through the co-founders. Since I’m a new VP and our founders are salespeople, it was important to get ahead of this and verify the scope of my ownership. Obviously hard decisions still get discussed. I’m not operating in a vacuum. But discussing this up front was good expectation setting. 

3. The tradeoffs. Taking on the SDR team means my hands-on PMM execution time drops to a couple of strategic projects per quarter at most. I didn't want to overpromise and burn out. This was the part the co-founders pushed back on most. Not because they disagreed, but because they value the PMM work we do. I took that as a big compliment and good problem to have. I did not recommend we backfill another PMM resource right away.

4. A phased plan. Decision and alignment in week one, transition the team in week two, deliver the Q2 plan by early May (we’re on February fiscal so this is beginning of Q2 for us).

The decision moved fast from this conversation. I think multiple factors played into it: strength of the business case, trust I’ve built with the team and founders, timing with us getting ready to start a new quarter.

Where we go from here + the biggest thing on my mind

Right now, I’m building the foundation before Q2 starts in May. I'm working closely with Amanda, our SDR manager, to get up to speed on performance data, team dynamics, and day-to-day operations. Together, we're building an initial decision plan and Q2 OKRs that reflect both the accountability basics and the strategic experiments I want to run.

I’ve also already learned something about myself from when I first took over as VP: I can come in a little hot. I shared ideas for every function and opinions on things I hadn't owned before. In reality, I like to share ideas with the hope people push back and challenge me. But I didn’t communicate that so it made the team feel like I wasn’t happy with their work. 

So now when I share ideas with Amanda and our SDRs, and yes I have ideas, I'm putting them on the table with an explicit invitation to push back. My ideas are framed in curiosity instead of authority. I can already feel the difference in these conversations versus my first conversations when I took over marketing (sorry, team). 

I'm not going to become a sales development expert overnight. But I do think a product marketer's lens on messaging, story, and buyer empathy will be valuable for this team. And genuine curiosity (not just opinions dressed up as questions) is how you earn the right to eventually make the bigger calls.

Two weeks into VP life and I've already tripled my team. Let's see what month two brings.

Talk soon.

—Al

Caught a baseball game with the GTM team during our Denver offsite this week. Evan’s selfie skills are elite.

3 things I’m digging this week:

• Lane 8 Spring 2026 mixtape - One of my favorite artists delivers seasonal playlists. Listening is a 4x a year tradition for me and they’re long enough for a half day of work. Great for my heads-down time. 

• How to Navigate the Pipeline Crisis - Mark introduced me to Kellblog and this post from November is one that I’m referencing again since taking over marketing. 

• My conversation with 4 marketing leaders on how they’re actually using AI to surface customer proof - Probably the realest conversation I’ve had on how AI is being used by customer marketing teams today.

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