Beware of a Disconnect Between the C-Suite and Sales
Why the craft of effective selling is misunderstood without the benefit of personal experience.
Are you a B2B business leader, C-suite executive, Board member, or Investor? Think your credentials qualify you to run a sales organization, or make decisions on their behalf? They don’t. Not even close. Disagree? Stay with me and read on.
It’s not uncommon in B2B industry circles to witness a disconnect between Business Leadership and Sales. Whichever terminology you prefer - salesperson, account manager, etc. - the role is the same: the man or woman on the front lines, in the trenches, responsible for closing deals and delivering purchase orders to ensure sustainability and growth of the business.
While you may be tasked with managing a sales team and possess a general sense of how they function, you will never master sales leadership without having spent time in the role yourself. Selling lemonade as a kid or running a yard sale to clean out your house doesn’t count. While sales can be learned, it is more of an innate talent reserved for those with the best qualifications, and I’m not talking about a good haircut or a firm handshake.
Effective selling requires working through the know/like/trust progression to gain an understanding of the customer and their needs, either acute or latent. Selling is an intricate process that requires time and patience to build relationships. Asking for a meeting and then walking in with glossy brochures or a sexy pitch deck smacks of the classic dog-and-pony-show, and is doomed to fail. Rehearsing your “value proposition” and talking through your “capabilities presentation” may sound good to you, but chances are equally good that you’re not listening to what the customer wants or needs. Engaging in conversation, making a connection, establishing trust, and then identifying the issue at hand are what define the opportunity. You must be a problem solver via (a) your existing product or and service portfolio, (b) development of a new product, or (c) a referral to a peer or competitor that may be better aligned with the customer’s requirements. In today’s landscape, solutions are often complex, and the success of high-value products requires lengthy selling cycles of evaluation/qualification/approval/purchasing. The best sales professionals understand all of these issues and become masters at relationship selling.
So as a business leader, does any of this resonate? Are you a cynic, always in doubt of your sales team, thinking that missed forecasts are simply due to your sales team’s incompetence? Don’t feel the need to mentor or provide feedback? Is firing and hiring your preference? Are KPI dashboards your favorite means of keeping score? Do you value softer human factors? All of these may sound a bit foolish, but are indicative of misunderstanding your team, their individual skillsets, and how to leverage them for success.
Most business environments draw from varied disciplines and backgrounds. Talented individuals with the strongest grasp of bread-and-butter issues - the standard playbook of operations, policies, procedures - form well-aligned leadership teams. In the case of sales leaders, they are most effective when selected from their own ranks. Elon Musk captured this sentiment well when he recently said of Boeing, “the CEO of an aircraft company should know how to design aircraft, not spreadsheets [1]”.
The shrinking tenure of sales leaders and ever-increasing turnover within sales teams have unfortunately become the norm [2], and while due to a number of factors, beware of the disconnect between the C-suite (and/or higher levels) and sales leadership. That’s your first clue of a dysfunctional business environment and other potential toxicity. Appreciate the value of a diverse sales team, ensure that they are led by a competent, experienced sales professional by hiring intelligently, remove distractions, and empower them to flourish.
Curious about building a winning sales organization? Reach out for an initial consultation today.