The problem
When agents take on the repetitive work, a marketing team’s job descriptions go stale. The campaign manager who used to spend much of the week assembling tickets and first drafts now spends it differently. The manager who used to review output now reviews output that a person did not write.
The hard part is not finding a new kind of hire. It is taking the marketing professionals you already have and moving them into this way of working. The skill set can be built. The expertise that used to set a person apart is now a commodity. What still matters is experience, and where you put it. On the decisions. On the gates. Those calls can define success or failure.
- SkillIt can be built. Do not treat the new work as a gift a few people are born with.
- ExpertiseThe old craft is now a commodity. An agent can draft it.
- ExperienceIt belongs on the decision and on the gate. That is what can define the outcome.
I have led teams of up to 60 people over my career. This guide is about how I think about moving a team I already have, and about hiring, organizing, and developing people when agents do the repetitive work. It is a method, and I have written it so you can use it whether your team is five people or fifty.
The system
The lane and the number each person owns
Every person gets a lane and one number. The lane says what they own. The number says how we know it is working. Both go in writing, along with what is out of scope.
The out-of-scope list is the part people skip, and it is the part that prevents the most trouble. When two roles can both reasonably claim the same work, they will, and the work either gets done twice or not at all. Writing down what a role does not do is how you find the overlap before it becomes an argument.
The number should be one that the person can move. If it depends mostly on someone else’s decisions, it is not their number. Pick the closest thing they actually control, and say what it feeds.
The role I am hiring, and running, is a growth engineer for expansion inside the existing customer base. The lane is to turn product, lifecycle, and engagement signals into qualified expansion pipeline. Expansion means a sales opportunity with a customer we already have, for a product they do not already license. The work runs continuously. It is not a campaign that starts and ends.
This role owns the play. The signal, the persona, the content inside the messaging tiers, the channel, the outcome, and the name of the person in the region who will run it. Field owns that regional execution. The growth engineer brings the play, the signal, and the assets. Field does the work in the region.
The number they own is that expansion pipeline. Not a new logo. Not retention, and not a saved renewal. If the number moves because someone else saved a customer, it is not their number.
- In the laneThe signal, the play, the assets, and the expansion pipeline.
- Out of the laneNew logos, regional events and channel mix, positioning, retention, references, roadmap, and pricing.
A play has a signal, a persona, content inside the tiers, a channel, an outcome, and a regional owner. If it does not produce, it is retired. If the instrumentation is not ready, the work runs by hand. It does not wait.
Around each role, the structure is a hybrid. One group owns the what and the why. Another owns the how and the where. For this role, the shared accountability is the expansion pipeline. Field is accountable for the execution in the region. Whoever builds the systems the others plug into is judged on whether the engine is getting faster, cheaper, and more repeatable.
Hire and rate for judgment
When agents draft, the scarce skill is no longer the draft. The skill of checking, of designing a play, of shutting one off, can be built. The expertise that used to be the job is now a commodity. What the tool cannot supply is experience on the decision and on the gate. Someone who catches a wrong claim, a stale number, or a promise the product cannot keep is worth more than someone who is only fast with the tools. I will take a candidate who is average with the tools and sharp on the gate over the reverse.
For hiring, that changes the interview. I want to see someone look at a draft and find what is wrong with it. Give the candidate a real draft with real mistakes in it, and watch what they catch. I will take a candidate who is average with the tools and sharp on checking over the reverse.
The open role is the growth engineer above. I am not hiring for a tool. I am hiring for someone who can say which signal deserves a play, design that play, and shut it off when it does not produce.
What coaching changes
Before, I coached on the output. Was the brief good? Did the campaign hit target?
Now I coach on the gate. How did you decide that claim was safe? What did you change from the draft, and why? Which step did you hand to an agent, and which did you keep? The people already have the experience. The transition is teaching them to spend it on those calls, instead of on the draft an agent can now write.
Two habits help. Rate people on evidence from real work, and form your own view before you read how they rate themselves, so you are not anchored on their story. And do not rate anyone highly on a dimension without evidence you could show someone else.
Each person gets a short written plan: where they are, the one thing that would move them most, a target for the next quarter, a few named actions, someone to learn from, and a date to look again.
What ready means
Ready is the question I most want to answer before I step back. I use a simple test. A person is ready to work without me when someone else on the team has adopted their workflow, and there is a measured result. Not when they are fast. When their work travels.
People who are ready should coach someone. That is part of the definition of ready, not a reward for it. If you can do it but cannot explain it to a colleague, you are not yet ready to be left alone with it.
The numbers
There is no cleared headcount for this guide, and I am not claiming one. I am not giving a count of people hired, promoted, or now in senior roles.
The number on the page is the one the expansion role owns. Qualified expansion pipeline. Opportunities to existing customers for products they do not already have. I am not publishing a baseline or a target for it.
The other figure in this guide is the one in the opening, a career span. It describes the scale of teams I have led. It does not describe any one company or any one role.
What you can take with you
The role is written so two failures do not get to settle in. A play that does not produce keeps running. And the work waits because the instrumentation is not ready. The fix is in the lane. Retire the play. Run the work by hand until the instrumentation catches up.
I also see a risk ahead for any leader doing this. If people learn later that an assessment fed a reorganization, trust drops. Tell the team up front what the results will and will not be used for, and keep to it.
What I would change is the order. Write the lane, the out-of-scope list, and the number first. That is the charter. Then hire. Then assess.
Here is the checklist.
A team where agents handle the repetitive work still runs on good people. It needs people who are clear on their lane, sharp on checking, and trusted to work without me in the room.