“Bull” Work happens only on the ground & only “Bull” Shit falls from the Top

They say when you begin your career you should evaluate your potential Boss as much as you would evaluate the firm you are joining. For Bosses can make or break your careers especially in your formative years. Throughout my career, I had the opportunity to work under several type of sales leaders – some great, some good and some not so good.

So, what really makes for a good ‘Boss’ in a sales profession ? To begin with Sales is a different profession from other professions  mainly in two ways. Firstly, it is the  most visible profession.  There is no place to hide as you are evaluated based on numbers – real numbers. You can get away a few times with low numbers and your “future is bright” kind of pipeline. But it can only take you some distance. Secondly, sales is always ‘On the Job’ learning profession that cannot be taught in classrooms and through books. It’s a profession where your practical understanding of human nature matters more than your academic scores. Well, some may argue that is true  with any profession, but it is definitely truer in sales. Also, there isn’t much you bring to the table from your professional qualifications. It’s a career that is based on actual practical real life learnings. So, the role your Boss plays is extremely important in guiding you through the practical maze of selling. 

There are two types of sales leaders that you would come across - the “Bull” workers and the “Bull” shitters. “Bull” workers work on the ground along with their teams and remain firmly grounded in their markets with their customers. They remain in direct touch with every salesperson in the team and their customers and prospects without worrying about hierarchies. They get involved in the groundwork with their teams. On the other hand, “bull” shitters work at the top along with their Bosses and lose touch with the ground.  These leaders  believe that their role is to give mainly strategy & direction to the sales teams. After that they expect their teams to do the “bull” work. Strategy is an overrated aspect of selling. There are  Bosses who would spend bulk of their week preparing presentations and churning numbers for their Bosses. They would create jazzy presentations after taking inputs from the sales teams. I would never undermine the importance of strategy and direction in the Sales function. Off course, Sales needs strategy and direction. But the question is does that justify a full time high cost sales leader. After all, if you are doing strategy and direction daily you are going wrong somewhere.   So, the question is should  organizations be spending that much money on sales leadership roles ? Your real numbers come from your tactical application to the day to day activities and decisions you take on the field alongside your teams. 

Good Salespeople do not enjoy sitting in board rooms with their CEOs. They do not believe in doing strategy, they are excellent at execution. They prefer sweating it out in the markets and looking for the next deal. They do not believe in fancy vision and mission statements on PowerPoints. They believe in their XL sheets that have prospects and opportunities with clear actions. They look at L1, L2 and L3 funnels.  Their mind is on who they should call today, tomorrow and day after. This is what constitutes the true “Bull” work. And this doesn’t change with seniority. Good Sales Leaders are originally good salespeople. They believe in the “Bull” work that comes with sales. They do not believe in spending a lot of time with the Internal management. They do not believe in staying in offices and preparing for internal reviews. They like to spend that time with their teams and clients. 

I had the privilege to work under really good Bosses who would get into the daily challenges we would face. They would be helping us identifying target companies. They would help us us with navigating through the complex organization structures. They wouldn’t hesitate in making various messages for the propositions that we were selling. They actually made cold calls alongside us sometimes just to keep us motivated. Some of them actually helped with the search that we had to do to find the ‘right’ contacts. 

And there were some who believed that their role would come in only when there was a “Hot” opportunity where we would set up meetings for them. These bosses spent a lot of time in our board rooms defining the strategy for the CEO. I worked for a company where we were asked to make reports almost three times a week, in different formats. The Boss would then ask his PA to consolidate everything and send it to the CEO. (To make matters worse he had a dotted reporting to the  COO who would need reports in his own formats). This not just took away all of his time but also ours leaving us with very little time to do the actual BD activity. These are Bosses who would tell us to “open doors” but would never contribute to practically telling us how. These are Bosses who would put  a revenue number for each opportunity without even understanding any basics of the opportunity there. The main struggle in the sales cycle is in reaching out to the prospects. It is in navigating through the maze and reaching out to the right contacts with the right message. If your Bosses aren’t spending time with you guiding on these  things, they are of not much value to you and the organization. The advent of social media changed a lot of aspects of selling. We didn’t have LinkedIn back then. We had to refer to telephone directories, yellow pages, industry journals just to get the names of people. There are experienced sales Leaders who are still not adept at using social media. They aren’t the ones who can lead modern sales teams. A grounded sales leader would learn these new dynamics of selling much faster than a “strategy” thought leader. 

I do talk to a lot of Tech Founders who have raised their Seed,  Series A or B rounds  and want to go for the next round. When we  discuss their Sales plans it is baffling the amount of money, they allocate for Sales Leadership roles. Early to mid- stage companies  do not need this top heavy investment. You need a “Bull” work sales manager and not a “Bull” shitter thought leaders. Early stage companies  are better off investing  that money in on grounded salespeople with a mid-level sales manager who wouldn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and talk to prospects. As Founders you should be in a position to do strategy and look at the sales team to execute that strategy. You need execution leaders and not strategy leaders in sales. 

My motivation to start a sales outsourcing firm came from the  realization that organizations are spending  too much money on these leaders who add little value to day to day sales challenges. That is where I saw the opportunity to take the traditional Sales Team Structure head on especially for early to mid-stage companies. Most of our customers are early to mid-stage companies who cannot afford to invest in experienced sales leadership. I say they don’t need to. They need “on the ground” bull work of salespeople under the guidance of someone who is as hands on as the team should be.  That is where our Sales as a Managed Service (SaaMS) model of leveraging  the “hands on” sales experience has helped tech companies reach their customers much faster.  So, if you are in Sales learn to remain on the ground all through your career. 

If you are a sales leader be a  hands-on “Bull” worker and not a “Bull” shitting thought leader. 

Samrat Parasnis is the Founder of Nova Vente (formerly NatunaTech)- the Home of technology selling). After working in corporate sales for leading technology firms he set up NatunaTech offering Sales as a Managed Service (SaaMS) to technology firms all around the globe. Now branded as Nova Vente, the firm is  in its sixth year, offers SaaMS to companies across the world and across industries. Views are personal.