The Sales Revolution: Helping leaders unlock the future of sales

INTRODUCTION

IT’S TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH TO SALES

I love businesspeople.

I love those of us who create something out of nothing and make it successful, through working smarter, working harder and achieving what we didn’t even know we could. I love the people who join companies with a heart that seeks to contribute – to give. Their goal is to add, to make things better than before they were there.

I love leaders like you who wake up some days and ask, ‘Do I really have to go to work today?’ and then show up for their companies, teams and colleagues anyway. I love that on other days you are reminded why you’re in leadership when you see your impact, your team’s impact and their growth, knowing you had something to do with that.

You’re my tribe.

I love salespeople most of all. I love them because it is one of those roles in which you never pass go: you’re only as good as your last deal, month, quarter, year – your last whatever. Your results are everyone’s business, and without you there wouldn’t be a business. I love that you are the face of the brand, and I love those of you who are so damn good at what you do, it makes buying from you an actual pleasure.

We’re now facing a time we’ve never faced before. While we’ve certainly seen hard economic times and while we’re not necessarily in an official ‘recession’ – just a per capita one – it’s tough going in business right now. For the first time in a long time, companies are letting people go. They’re ‘restructuring’ as they look for efficiencies. Decisions have more scrutiny because there’s more at stake now. Costs of doing business have gone through the roof, and people are in that category too. Getting something wrong can mean there is no coming back from it. That’s where we are.

Now, as much as I love salespeople, they’re not equipped (for the most part) for the conflation of factors businesses currently face, and neither are the companies they sell to or work for. We have five generations in the workplace selling and buying and running companies. ¹ Go up or down more than one generation and it can be like talking to someone with a totally different paradigm. The truth is, that paradigm difference is probably very real. And conditions are tougher. There’s a weariness everywhere. People are looking for shortcuts when the long way around is actually the most direct path.

1  See chapter 6 for more on this.

As you’ll read throughout this book, it’s no longer enough for sales to be the only people in the company aware of the impact they have or actively working on their positive impact on customers. That’s simply not good enough anymore. Unless we change the way everyone shows up at work with a customer consciousness and with real commercial competence, we will end up in a commercial graveyard of businesses that woulda, coulda and most definitely shoulda.

It’s why I created The Sales Revolution. It’s a company-wide approach to ensuring everyone is commercial in the way they deliver value to those they serve. It goes deeper and wider than simply being customer-centric, or having a service mindset. Those topics make consulting firms rich and speakers booked but do little to help companies do things differently from the top down.

And they must. You must. You can.

I’ve written this book as a ‘how-to’ guide to help you understand, get those who matter on board, implement The Sales Revolution methodology, and overcome the inevitable scepticism and pushback you’ll encounter because it will require work. And I’ll show you how to make it stick and what’s in store once you do.

I’ve broken it down into five parts that you can work through to digest how we got here (because unless we understand that, we won’t understand the need to change and change fast), what The Sales Revolution is and isn’t, how to make the case to your business to go on this journey, things you must avoid doing that are tempting to do because we all love silver bullets, and how to embed the magnetic culture of customer you’ll have created.

All along the way, there are stories and insights from top business leaders, sales leaders and salespeople, as well as those who come at my philosophy from different perspectives to bring this to life for you. My goal is to have a conversation with you. To unpack the ‘how-to’s’ across each leg of this journey so by the end of the book, The Sales Revolution seems so obvious you’ll wonder why it took me to put pen to paper to bring it to life for you.

Above all, my goal is to make you glad I did, because if you implement the lessons in this book, your company, your customers and your people will have a passion for your business like they didn’t and couldn’t before.

Let’s go, folks.

Revolution is a strong word, isn’t it? I could have said we need an Evolution, but I didn’t. Because a revolution by its very definition means a complete transformation of the status quo. That is what I’m proposing. I strongly believe that the conflation of economic, social, psychological and – dare I say it – spiritual influences we’re experiencing in the world right now mean that treating only one of these aspects would be of little value. A paradigm shift in the way we think about our roles, how we approach our roles and how we deliver the results of those roles to the people we interact with matters so much more than it ever has.

The world has shifted. Those of us who lived through Covid and the lockdowns imposed on us knew that we emerged on the other side different somehow. Some of that difference is better and some worse. Businesses, households, families and workplaces everywhere changed forever.

For us to know that on one hand, and then to return to tinkering around the edges of old methodologies or even to not see the interconnectedness of everything we are and do is wilful ignorance, and in business, spells oblivion.

So, I use the word Revolution deliberately indeed. It is a totally different way of operating as a business towards all those we serve: internally and externally. The Sales Revolution forces us to think more broadly about the way we do what we do, so that we operate from the perspective of value delivery. And not just in a ‘fluffy’ way, but in a measurable way.

When everyone can see the measurable value they deliver and, in turn, receive from those who serve them, it changes the way we show up and the way we’re able to appreciate others.

True cost is understood and clarified. So is true benefit.

By focusing on that measurable value delivery, every person in every business knows their contribution to the total, and so is better able to focus on those elements that contribute to that value and expedite profitability.

It literally revolutionises a business’s results, culture and people.

Will you join me?

CHAPTER 1

‘SALES’ HAS BECOME A DIRTY WORD

The scenario I’m about to share is all too common. I invite you to see if you recognise your company, your people or even yourself in any of the following.

‘THAT’S NOT MY JOB. I’M NOT IN SALES.’

The only reason this customer was still trading with my client was because they trusted their account manager. Let’s call him Wally. The customer had even said as much in emails: ‘The only reason we’re still working with (my client) is because we trust you, Wally.’ Verbatim.

Why was it the only reason?

Because they had been waiting months (about four) for an API to link my client’s app to a payment app that is standard for many online retailers, which make up a reasonable amount of my client’s customers. Now, waiting is one thing, but when promises for a date when the configuration would be finished keep being extended, it wears a bit thin. Each time an expected date was given to Wally, he’d communicate that to this customer, only to later have to rescind that date, provide a new one – and then do this over and over. And over. Wally was always the one responsible for going back to the customer to tell them the news, and therefore he was the face of each let down.

‘It’s ruining my personal reputation with them,’ Wally said to me in frustration. He’s right. It was.

Despite apparently being an expert in this app’s integration my client’s IT manager did not seem to have any sense of urgency, nor an understanding of the business cost of not getting this done in the timeframe he was setting, and of a constantly changing timeline.

Now that would have been a hard enough barrier to overcome, but as happens so often in sales, these situations sometimes seem to ‘pile on’ at the exact times we really could use a break. This was one of those.

Because in addition to all of this going on in the background, that customer also recently appointed a new GM who may have something to prove. What makes me say that? Well, not only had he come from working for one of the world’s largest organisations to this smaller one, his attitude towards others was on the dismissive and arrogant side.

This little extract will tell you all you need to know.

Well – it did me!

Wally brought this man a coffee on their first meeting and took a punt on how he liked it. The response was: ‘I take my coffee black. Note that down for next time.’

So yes, you’re right – he was a dick. But he was a dick looking for a reason to put his stamp on everything in the business – including the area Wally managed. That made it very tricky for Wally given the already shaky ground he was on through no fault of his own.

Wally decided he needed to demonstrate that he took this issue seriously by setting up a meeting with their GM, Wally’s contact in the business who trusted him, and take a couple of people from the business to explain where they’re at with the app integration. His intention was to add some weight, deliver certainty, and set the account back on track.

However, what happened when Wally asked the IT Manager (the integration expert who had already caused a delay of four months) to come to that meeting along with the GM Sales? He was met with: ‘That’s not my job. It’s your job. I’m not in sales. You are. You deal with it.’

It’s not like there weren’t significant benefits for my client having this integration done either. In particular: it would enable them to make it super easy for new businesses (especially online ones) to come across and that integration adds to their stickiness. In the current market, these are big business benefits.

And yet: ‘it’s not my job’ was the response.

I wish this was rare.

Sadly, it is all too common.

It’s why I’m writing this book, folks. Because while sales has a lot of work to do in this tight (some might call it a ‘down’) market, it’s not the only factor contributing to the customer experience, to customer retention, to salespeople’s belief in what they’re selling, to profit, to shorter sales cycles or to improved conversion rates. Any other function that has an impact on the customer must also be aware of that impact and take action accordingly.

IT, finance, production and the like may not see themselves as ‘being in sales’. And while they’re technically right, it’s time for some relearning about their significant impact on sales today and in the future. Because the reality is that the customer is everyone’s job – either indirectly or directly. We all have customers, and everyone in the company has a responsibility to understand the impact their role plays in contributing to revenue, profit and growth. Unless that happens, companies will fail.

When any other function or a leader points to sales as solely responsible for customer-driven metrics, they may also know deep down – even if they can’t pinpoint exactly who or what – that the solution is much deeper than that.

The time has come for a sales revolution.

Will you join me?

WHEN SALES HAD PRESTIGE

One of my favourite mentors is a man named Jim Rohn. He was the first ‘thought leader’ I’d ever seen live. For those of you who might not know him, he was Tony Robbins’s mentor. So yeah, we’re going back about 30 years here.

Now, this man made his fortune being a salesperson. He too had a mentor, J Earl Shoaff, who taught him that to grow his income he must learn how to grow himself. The more Jim took on from his mentor and put into his life, the more success he started to have in his career, the more sales opportunities he was able to take advantage of and the bigger his personal wealth became.

I say this because he operated in the days when sales had prestige. It was widely understood and accepted in all organisations that those in sales were important. Without them, sales wouldn’t happen – and without sales, the company wouldn’t exist and therefore no one would have a job. Salespeople, especially good ones, were respected. They could command large salaries and earned commissions because they backed themselves and their abilities to generate the revenue their companies relied on.

The reality is that without sales, it’s pretty hard to have a company, organisation, club, business, not-for-profit … Every organisation needs sustainable revenue growth. And that revenue doesn’t generate itself. Even today with the best AI or online presence, it requires an iterative understanding and appreciation of customer needs to keep customers buying because they value the outcomes they receive. It seems to me that many companies and the people who work within them have forgotten this principle. I think they need reminding. These days it’s pretty normal to hear:

‘I don’t want to be too salesy.’

‘Do I sound like a car salesperson?’

‘Never trust a real estate agent.’

‘I’m in business development, account management, client services, partnerships … ’ – rarely sales.

Sales has literally become a dirty word. Is it a career to aspire to? Well, not anymore – it seems it’s become a stop gap until something better comes along, or something people ‘fall’ into. There aren’t many children these days who will even know that sales is a career, let alone tell their classmates that’s what they want to do when they grow up.

To me, this is a terrible shame, even though I understand it. There aren’t many positive role models we can even look to who might make us change our minds. And yet, when you stumble across someone who absolutely loves selling (yes, there are still people like us out there), they bring us along on a journey we’re delighted to go on and make us feel