Leadership is sales…

Last week I was working with one of my clients in preparation for a new training programme we were rolling out to their sales team. During the meeting the Head of People and Culture made the comment that sales is something he could never do. The thought of selling just didn’t appeal to him.

I then shared my view that selling is inherent in all leadership roles. When we explored this idea further, he conceded that he’s constantly selling the company and job vacancies to prospective candidates, he’s heavily involved in salary negotiations and he’s always pushing for a bigger training budget. This is selling.

The best leaders I know are great salespeople. Even if they have never been a salesperson in the traditional sense, where they have sold products and services in exchange for money, they're still great salespeople. They are fantastic at selling their vision, ideas, strategies and projects and getting buy-in from others.

Leadership is all about getting results indirectly through the efforts of others, rather than through your own direct actions. In order to get results through people, you need to get their buy-in. To get people to buy-in to your vision, idea, strategy or project, you need to sell it to them. That is what great leaders do.

Like leadership, sales is not a role. It’s a set of capabilities that are transferable from one role to the next. Once you have these capabilities, they will serve you throughout your career in whatever you find yourself doing. If you resist developing your sales capabilities, you will limit your success. If you embrace your inner salesperson, you will tap into your potential and reach greater heights.

Mark Windust is an influential Thought Leader in the areas of Sales Strategy, Sales Leadership and Sales Performance. Since launching his consulting practice in 2007, Mark has worked with 1000's of business leaders, salespeople and entrepreneurs’ to help them transform their sales results.