Why CEO’s Care About This Skill

It’s no secret that CEO’s have a lot to be concerned about in 2020. There are different business issues at every organization. At a high level, every leader needs to grow, live their purpose, and remain relevant in their marketplaces.

PWC recently released their annual survey from top CEO’s with almost 1500 top CEO's represented. One section asked them to list their top threats to growth. Their top threats were over-regulation and policy uncertainty coming in at 35% followed closely by “availability of top skills” at 34%.

There could be a lot of factors for this. The shrinking unemployment rate, rising talent costs, and the rapid pace of technology causing all organizations to re-think the skill sets of their people.

What skills do they value the most?

I started thinking of universal skills that span industries, education levels, experience levels. The skill sets that require people to be very proficient at multiple “human skills”. 

I believe there is one skill that is timeless, checks off all these boxes, and we all do it throughout our careers. We use this whenever we try to get the attention of our team, when our co-workers give us their time, when we build trust with our team, and when we influence our leaders. It’s something I notice people being excellent at without realizing it. That skill is:

Sales.

Some of you may have just shook your head or maybe you want to stop reading all together, but I urge you to read on.

The definition of sales I’m referring to isn’t about sleaze. It’s NOT being done by the guy in a checkered coat with dark classes and gold rings. It’s NOT being done by the girl crushing your inbox with random job offers not matched to your background and it’s NOT being done by people messaging you blindly on LinkedIN repeatedly asking you for some time to “learn more” about you.

Sales is not about telling, taking, pushing, badgering, or co-ercing.

It’s about collaborating, giving, listening, teaching, and discovering.

If we do a high-level overview of the top sales methodologies, they all have elements of these things. If you really boil it down, essentially sales skills are communications skills. The skills that make people successful salespeople start with the soft skills just as much as the technical skills training.

I’ve worked with people that think they’re not “in sales” just because the word doesn’t show up anywhere in their job description. Yet, they are some of the best pure salespeople I’ve known. Maybe you can relate. 

What do these people do so well if they’ve never sat in a formal sales training course or even read a single sales book?

They lead with their human skills. They end up selling by being human.

People with great sales ability move others to take some type of action by working with the other party. They don’t sell to or at them. They walk right next to people while they discuss problems. And both parties learn from each other. A teammate might give us more of their time because they feel like we care. 

We didn’t just sell them a box of girl scout cookies. Well maybe some of you slung some Thin Mints recently as a result of these relationships. But I’m going to assume your whole relationship doesn’t hinge on a one-time transaction each year.

What’s really being built is trust. When we trust the people we work with, we’re willing to try new things because we’re both connected by a higher purpose. We’re family members trying to help each other.

No matter what your job title is, you’ve been in a situation that required you to move someone to change. When you were at your initial interview you had to convince the hiring manager of your value. 

After a few years, maybe you had a review where you discussed a promotion. You may have had to get buy in from your team on an idea. If you’ve ever trained someone at work, you had to teach a process but also give people the freedom to bring ideas into the process. These are all “sales situations” where we realize it or not.

Many top CEO’s started out as salespeople and they have a lot of insights about what it taught them. Their advice isn’t what you might typically learn from a singular methodology. The CEO’s tend to focus on the soft skills or “power skills” they picked up along their journeys. 

Howard Schultz, former longtime CEO of Starbucks, started from humble beginnings and sold XEROX copiers. He focused on social consciousness and knowing your purpose. He grew up in Brooklyn from a working-class family. He’s said if he was ever in the position to make a difference, he would never leave anyone behind. A just purpose that served him well in sales.

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and legendary entrepreneur started out selling garbage bags before he sold software and became owner of the Mavs. When he came on as owner of the Mavs he had to convince long time season ticket holders to stay on even after long losing streaks. He knew his customers were people who connected to experiences not a product. He made sales calls himself. In his words, “We weren’t selling basketball it was more like a wedding”.

When you ask CEO’s skills they want in any employee, they tend not to focus on technical skills. Those can be taught. I agree with HR analyst Josh Bersin in his article that we need to rethink how we refer to hard and soft skills.  I can learn a step by step sales process but behavioral skills are tougher to pick up.

Methodologies are awesome for trained salespeople, but I have news for the rest of the workforce. You do sell and can become great at the essence of what makes salespeople great.

Think about when you’ve had a great experience buying something. You felt better after the interaction. The person you met with was an asset to you. The person selling you wasn’t trying to “win the conversation”. They didn’t steamroll your opinion. You didn’t think they were only “out for themselves”. You valued them being there because you felt like they “had your back.”

The next time you have work conversations requiring you to create change, take your “thing” you’re changing out of the room and focus on the person. 

Just practice genuinely getting to know people and listen. People don’t care about what you want or need. They do care when people help them discover things about a problem. Those come with questions and being willing for those questions to lead you to no problem. Even if you think your idea solves one. Never lead with your idea. Remove the idea and discuss the problem together. When you lead with your idea, you’re telling and not listening. Talk less, listen more. 

Give attention to get attention. Any great relationship starts with putting in the time. When you show up, they will as well. 

Try picking up on subtle things your co-workers say. The foundation of any great sales conversation is not just built on information but what we do with it. When we don't keep our antennas up when our internal teammates speak to us, the frequency of our relationships gets fuzzy. We start driving away from the listening area of the person.

Ask people about what they think before telling them what you think. I’ve learned this the hard way. It’s better to ask someone their opinion on something before “offering yours”. People like when people hear their ideas. Sometimes your idea can be created by hearing theirs. 

The best teams I’ve been on or that you’ve ever worked on are where people feel heard. When we feel like our voices aren’t discarded and we build trust.

We shouldn’t forget the human skills that make people great at sales. The workforce of tomorrow needs people who listen, build trust, and care about others. All things that help us get attention and help ignite innovation. Whatever your job title is, try focusing on these things. 

You don’t need to get a PHD in sales, you have the skills inside of you. Sometimes we just don’t focus on developing them on our own. If you do, the next time your CEO evaluates the availability of your company’s key skills, you’ll stand out by having an abundance of them.