Leadership and Sales are the Same Mindsets.

So, you want to be a leader? Lead a company, a branch, a department, a team...whatever? Cool. Here is something for you to consider:

The road to leadership runs straight through sales. Or to put it differently, with a sales mindset.

The mindsets required for leadership and sales are fundamentally aligned. You can't lead a company if you don't understand how to sell yourself, your company, and its products and services.

Take a deep breath. I am not saying that only sales professionals are leaders. To be a leader of people and a company, you must have direct and firsthand experience of how your customers perceive you, your company, and your culture and how they benefit from your products and services. You must have visited and taken the time to understand your customers to be an effective leader. Not now, not ever. You must be able to see your business from their perspective.

How can you have leadership cred if you haven't sold your own company's products?

This statement is not open to debate. While advanced degrees are valuable, leaders must possess more than just a grasp of facts, figures, and data. These skills are only useful if paired with understanding why and how customers trust and commit to a company. (Take a look at Boeing's current troubles – a classic case of financial management and a broken siloed culture masquerading as leadership.)

I have been saying for years that "silos kill companies, and silos keep the company from creating a robust sales culture." A culture where everyone can see, feel, and embrace how the customers are successful because everyones knows that they influence the customer experience. This is what sales professionals are responsible for learning, as everyone should. A culture where everyone can see, feel, and embrace how customers are successful because everyone knows that they influence the customer experience. This is what sales professionals are responsible for learning, as should everyone.

Leaders lead better and more profitably because they understand the business from a customer perspective - they have visited, handled objections, heard the "no," developed better listening skills, sharpened their emotional intelligence, developed empathy, allowed themselves to be vulnerable, and so on.

Leadership is about more than managing costs and expenses. Leadership is a mindset and a hunger to learn the entire business from every angle. This is where Boeing went terribly wrong.

The skills of successful sales professionals ARE the same as leadership skills. ?"Everyone's in sales".

Would you like to prove this? Here is a simple and effective way. Every employee must visit a customer and hear how their contribution impacts that customer's success. Every onboarding plan includes each new employee going on sales calls to see the other side of the business - the customer. This takes time, and yes, it could be expensive. But ya know what? The payoff in increased employee engagement, new ideas, energy, and crushing the silos is priceless. Oh, and MORE business, possibly, the first big payoff. If you have not chosen sales as a profession, it does not matter. Take the time to rise out of your silo and ask to see a customer. And, yes, customers are also internal. Ask Boeing about how silos can bring a company to its knees.

And, yes, customers are also internal ( see the point about Boeing's troubles.)

Here is another payoff: I can guarantee your company is not as easy to do business with as you may think. This will bring down those silos as well.

Test me. Test yourself. I promise you cannot lose.

Enroll in my "Everyone's in Sales" self-paced online course. Learn how you are a great salesperson and build your leadership credentials.