Why a Director of Marketing Should Never Be Your First Marketing Hire

If I could give growing advisory firms one piece of hiring advice, it would be to avoid making a director of marketing your first marketing hire.

I’ve watched the same story play out again and again. A firm hires a director and a year later nobody is happy. In most cases, the person was capable but the firm hired the right role at the wrong time.

How It Usually Unfolds

It starts with a firm that has been operating with little or no marketing strategy. They’ve tried a new website, some social media, a newsletter, maybe a paid campaign, and they can’t tell what’s working. Frustration builds until someone says, “We need to hire someone who can figure this out.”

Because the need feels big, the title does too, so they look for a director, someone senior enough to decide what to do and then do it.

That person arrives with high expectations on both sides. The firm is hoping for magic, but it usually hasn’t provided the experience level the job requires, a supporting team, a real budget, or the leadership support to make change stick. Within months, the executive team is frustrated that nothing is moving, and the director is frustrated because she’s being asked to make magic happen without any of the ingredients.

Eventually someone gives up, and the firm decides marketing doesn’t work for them, when the real problem was the order in which they built it.

Why Strategy Has to Come First

A director of marketing usually combines two jobs: strategy, which is deciding what to do, and execution, which is doing it. Most candidates in the director of marketing talent pool are strong, experienced executors who have never been asked to build a growth strategy from scratch. That gap is common, because our industry hasn’t built many career paths or mentors that develop marketing leaders.

Accountability matters here too. An owner or executive must own growth, because you can delegate the work of marketing, but not the responsibility for it’s results. When a firm hands growth to a new director and expects it to be solved, accountability lands on the person with the least authority to act.

This is why I encourage firms to complete the strategy first, as a defined project with a clear finish line. Our strategy sprint takes two to three months and ends with ideal client clarity, a documented plan, and messaging your advisors can use. That foundation tells you what kind of marketing talent you need and gives whoever you hire something concrete to execute against.

With strategy in place, the smartest first hires are usually doers. A strong coordinator, copywriter, designer, or someone who loves data can build capacity quickly when they know what they’re building toward. Outside contractors can fill the gaps while you learn what the work requires.

When You're Actually Ready for a Marketing Leader

Firms that are ready for a director of marketing tend to share a few traits.

These firms are growing with a clear business strategy already in motion. They have built real marketing experience, often by succeeding with junior talent or outside contractors, and they’re ready to do more because of what that scrappy team proved. There’s a small group of internal doers ready to level up under the right leader.

They also have the ability to manage senior marketing talent and the patience to let a new leader learn the business, the advisors, and the clients before the work starts to compound.

Finally, they’re ready to make the financial commitment. The compensation of your marketing team is management labor, so it belongs in operating expenses rather than client acquisition costs, and it makes sense once the business can support it. Your management labor efficiency ratio can show you when that moment has arrived.

The Sequence Is the Strategy

 A future director of marketing will be far more successful walking into a firm with a documented strategy, a team that’s already producing, and leaders who know what they’re measuring. Momentum takes time, usually around 18 months, and getting the order right helps you get there without burning out a good hire or losing your belief in marketing along the way.

 If you’re weighing a marketing hire right now, I’d love to talk.