How To Become A Senior Sales And Marketing Manager: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior sales and marketing manager and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Tobias Sellier,

Richard Tate

A senior sales and marketing manager is responsible for leading and motivating the sales and marketing team in innovating and implementing effective strategies to meet business goals and expand business opportunities for an organization.

Their responsibilities include overseeing the daily business operations, monitoring the company sales, and producing game-changing methods to improve the performance of the company in the market. They direct and motivate their personnel to increase their productivity and contribute to the organization's profitability. They carry and represent the company in establishing and maintaining client partnerships.

People working in this position are excellent and persuasive communicators. They are goal-oriented and highly-intelligent, qualities that help them make forecasts and analyze the market trends.

Pursuing a career as a senior sales and marketing manager requires a bachelor's degree in business or any related field. However, some employers prefer candidates with a master's degree. A minimum of five years of experience in a managerial position is also needed to land this job. Certifications in business field are a great advantage.

What general advice would you give to a senior sales and marketing manager?

Tobias Sellier

Senior Director, American Public Power Association

There are exciting opportunities to work for community-owned, not-for-profit, hometown public power. From engineers and customer service representatives to lineworkers and administrative professionals, there are many opportunities. And utility employees, being essential workers, even during these challenging times, there are still many jobs that will need to be filled.

ScoreSenior Sales And Marketing ManagerUS Average

Salary

8.3

Avg. Salary $125,688

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 39.66%

male 60.34%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior sales and marketing manager

Explore senior sales and marketing manager education requirements

Most common senior sales and marketing manager degrees

Bachelor's

79.1 %

Master's

12.2 %

Associate

5.7 %

Start to develop specific senior sales and marketing manager skills

Skills	Percentages
Sales Process	32.88%
Account Management	22.21%
Channel Marketing	19.39%
B2C	6.19%
CRM	3.14%

Complete relevant senior sales and marketing manager training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior sales and marketing managers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a senior sales and marketing manager based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior sales and marketing manager resumes.

Research senior sales and marketing manager duties and responsibilities

Develop and manage customized patient education programs for nationwide distribution through healthcare nonprofit associations by securing third-party pharmaceutical sponsorship.
Analyze data for each program to maximize ROI and performance.
Analyze direct channel ROI through consistent brand strengthening for both domestic and international markets.
Coordinate the creation of PowerPoint presentations and relate material to support the organization's marketing efforts to external and internal customers.

Get senior sales and marketing manager experience

Generally, it takes 8-10 years to become a senior sales and marketing manager. The most common roles before becoming a senior sales and marketing manager include marketing manager, account executive team lead and sales manager.

Prepare your senior sales and marketing manager resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior sales and marketing manager resume.

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