Are you a Sales Leader or a Sales Boss?

As a sales manager, you have a singularly tough job, for which you’ve received minimal training and support. I get it. I’ve been there myself.

However...

You have to make a choice.

What type of manager do you want to be?

You can be a sales leader.

Or you can be a sales boss.

You can't be both.

What are the Differences Between the Two?

Well, let’s start with the basics.

• Sales leaders know their success flows from helping their people become the best version of themselves.

Sales bosses think success is based on driving their people to do more stuff.

Being merely a sales boss isn’t helping your sellers. And it certainly isn’t helping you achieve the things in your career that are most important to you.

It’s time for a change.

No one is better positioned to help your sellers stop Selling Out and start Selling In than you.

There will be challenges. For instance, if you’re a sales boss, chances are that you work for a sales boss too. So, some of this behavior is probably being forced on you.

Again, I get it. But to be the solution, you need the courage to change.

Your Ambition

As someone who is responsible for the performance and growth of your sellers, your ambition should never be to make all of your sellers into clones of your “top performer.” It won’t work. It’s counterproductive.

Every seller is unique in their mental makeup, mindset, and capabilities, which means that their recipe for personal success is unique to them. You shouldn’t try to fit a square peg into the round hole that is your one-size-fits-all sales process.

As a sales leader, you should aspire to help every one of your sellers become the very best version of themselves.

This is what they want.

This is what you should want.

This is the express ticket to faster growth through improved sales performance.

And to a team of sellers that are more productive, less stressed, more fulfilled, and prepared to stick around and grow with you.

Also, if you read my book or hear my podcast, you’ll hear me tell sellers that they need to push back on orders and suggestions from you that aren’t helping them develop and grow.

If they want to become the best sales version of themselves, they need to be given the autonomy to experiment and fail on their own terms.

That may make you nervous because you believe that the certainty of your sales process is what enables individual sales success. Don’t kid yourself; it doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. Process is important. But your process works only to the degree that it supports the personal sales process of the individual seller. Sell Without Selling Out gives sellers the right tools and mindset to develop a successful process of selling that is in alignment with their strengths and with what their buyers need from them to make good decisions. That’s how they become the very best version of themselves.

If you support that, it’s a win for your buyers, your sellers, and you.

And you’ll find yourself evolving from a sales boss into a sales leader.