Should my sales team “just” sell?

Dear Aunty B,

I have just started as sales director of an entrepreneurial company and have hit a snag with the CEO.

He insists the sales team should just sell. I think that the sales team should also be in charge of delivering the product so that the whole relationship with the client stays with our team and we can make sure the sales team delivers the results to a very high standard.

He argues that this is fine in theory but it doesn’t actually happen, as most sales people are really focused on the sale, to which I reply that I think I can train them to be customer focused and sales focused at the same time.

I have had good success doing this in my previous roles at large companies and so it should be even easier to do it with a smaller team.

How do I convince him he is wrong and that it is time to try something new and proven?

David D,
Brisbane

Dear David,

Let’s get this straight. You have trained sales people to be customer focused in large corporations and had “good” success.

Well, guess what? “Good” success is not good enough in an entrepreneurial company. A fast growth entrepreneurial company has to take a completely different approach to sales and marketing than a large business.

First, it has far fewer resources. It doesn’t have the big company brand name in the marketplace. It can’t afford to throw money at expensive marketing and advertising campaigns.

What it does have (and without it the company won’t grow) is an obsession with customer service and providing more customer value, often through new and highly specialised products. That magical combination leads to repeat business and customer referrals, which drives faster growth and fatter margins.

So the emphasis in a fast growing firm is on the customer relationship, not the sale. Now, that is not saying that you don’t need to focus on sales transactions. Far from it. You need enough sales transactions to provide strong profits that can be reinvested back into the business. So you need a highly skilled, passionate sales team ploughing the fields, looking under every rock, understanding your strategy, the strategy of their customers and feeding back intelligence from the marketplace, while always looking for new customers and sounding the alert on any potential problems with existing ones.

Should they then also be able to focus on creating and delivering products and services so that the customer is delighted with the response, sees the ROI on their investment and keeps returning, with the knowledge that the same level of service and innovation is going to be delivered?

Well, in a perfect world, yes. But in my mind, it is impossible. I want my sales people thinking of sales and relationships. I want my sales delivery people thinking about relationships and sales. That way you have the security of nothing falling between the gaps.

So David, I reckon you should pull your head in and do a lot more listening and watching. Understand that a fast growth company is a very different animal from a low/no growth business or a large conglomerate, and structure it accordingly.

Be smart,
Your Aunty B

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