What is Sales Leadership

I had a conversation with a guy the other day, who should have known better. He told me that his client was looking for a “top notch sales leader”, and had to have specific industry experience. He asked where I had spent the most effort over the recent past developing my skills, and in reality, I’ve been focussed on General Management, Strategy and Officer and Director skills. He became quite dismissive of me when I said I felt I didn’t have a lot to learn about sales (obviously I didn’t fit his brief, but then why did he call? did he not read my profile). I’ve held sales roles and sales leadership roles for more than 25 years, and sales is after all a set of skills, not unlike being an accountant, or electrician or a plumber. Yes, there are things to be learnt around the peripherals of sales, like the various CRM tools, specific product knowledge, or the analytical tools available, but selling has not changed. As a good plumber friend of mine says, all you have to know to be a plumber is that sh!t flows downhill, and pay day’s Thursday. Oversimplified perhaps but the same principle applies.

So, what is sales.

Selling is a skill set that can be learnt. In a B2B setting, it is simply a matter of matching (or creating) a value proposition that is compelling to your customer, and presenting that value proposition to the customer in a sound logical and structured way. In a B2B setting, often also negotiating the details of the value proposition to close the deal.

However, selling is first and foremost just one option in the fruit salad mix of marketing choices within the promotional strategy of your marketing plan. In a B2B setting, a direct external sales force is often a good choice, because of the small target market, ease in identifying the target, and often the need to tailor every campaign to an individual client or company. However external sales teams are expensive, and having a clear strategy is a critical starting point. Other options might be a dealer network, or distributor model, or a direct on-line model. Can you bring clients to you, or do you need to go and find them?

In the scenario above, I suspect, the consultants’ client wants to grow sales, and doesn’t want to have to invest too much time or effort in bringing the new recruit up to speed about the industry or product. And would like to find someone that will walk into all of his competitors’ clients, where they have an existing relationship and sell them his companies product. Logical, lazy and short sighted, and probably a consultant not sufficiently engaged with his client to help them find the best outcome for the business, rather than a quick fix, give the customer what he asks for, invoice and move onto the next.

So, how do you sell more stuff.

There are only 2 ways to sell more. You either sell more stuff to the customers you currently sell to. Or you sell to more customers. Each has its own unique set of challenges, and needs a different type of sales person. And while the skills they utilise are the same, the motivation of the individual is quite different. In the industry, one is known a “farmer”, while the other is known a “hunter”, and each has to be managed differently. Some industries need hunters, (think Recruiting), while others need farmers, (think industrial consumables), and even product types may have specific sales team member types, such as high volume low value engineering (say fasteners), versus long sales cycle, high involvement products (such as aircraft or ships). Some businesses need a few of each, or a couple of all-rounders.

And so, a sales manager needs to understand what is required of the business, what type of sales person is required for the task, and what will motivate that person to achieve their (and the companies) goals. The skill of a sales manager is not to be a great salesman, but to be a great coach for the team you need.

So how will you brief your recruiter next time you’re looking for more sales?

Andrew McKinna January 2018