Chapter 15 - A Call to Action for CEOs on Selling

 

 

Chapter 15

A Call to Action for CEOs on Selling

“I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.”

Estée Lauder

 There is no more effective selling tool in a company’s organization than the company’s CEO. There are also, however, few tools less effectively utilized than this one. Sadly, this squandering of potential is because of CEOs themselves.

In one sense, this conundrum is simple, straightforward, and concrete. Sales are simply the oxygen of any business; without sales, any company will quickly suffocate. Thus, assuring the continued flow of oxygen is the chief’s chief job. But in another sense, this imperative is abstract. Because, unlike the flight attendant’s advice before the plane heads down the runway, “Put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting others,” you have to assist others before anything else when it comes to sales. The CEO’s job is to assure the oxygen is flowing to the sales team and all its supporting teams.

All too often, sales are seen as a function, one among engineering, product, marketing, et. al. All the units in this conception are linearly connected — Henry Ford’s famous assembly line with a post-industrial age twist. But sales in today’s world are better thought of as a symphony orchestra, with the sales team akin to the first violin which sets the pace for all to follow — the “corporate melody” as it were. But again, as with an orchestra where the hierarchy is led by the conductor who guides the assembled musicians to align strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion, it is the CEO who aligns the sales strategy — or corporate melody — with the corporate mission, the tactics with the strategy, and also the sales techniques with the tactics. In place of the symphony’s “musical score,” the CEO has metrics, “KPIs” — or key performance indicators — which form the feedback loop to keep the business thriving (or the oxygen flowing to continue with my metaphor). 

To make this all happen, the CEO must be selfless. Particularly in today’s business world, the “hero CEO” is dead. Today’s CEO is the connector, who leads not through command and control but through influence. They must adopt the regular practice of serving the rest of the organization. In assuring the flow of oxygen — the choreographed feedback loop — the selfless CEO needs humility and empathy. They need to carry the bird’s eye view of the company and marketplace into the sales strategy, tactics, and techniques to say “we” instead of “I,” to listen, and to inspire by example. Barking commands from on high is an all too common recipe for failure.

For example, the CEO must realize that their selling megaphone is larger than any other. This is not because they are better than anyone else in the organization. Everyone in the organization is just playing their role to their best ability. It is because the CEO possesses the company’s highest executive title, and the title signals several important responsibilities and distinctions:

First, the CEO is the synthesis point for the entire organization. No matter how flat the hierarchy, the CEO is the nexus of all the workflows that lead to sales. No other role can be the fulcrum to set the priorities and direction for the entire company as effectively, because no other role is tasked with the management of the entire organization. Every other role, such as the head of engineering, is functionally focused, as it should be. By contrast, the CEO is focused on the sum of all functions.

Second, while the selfless CEO must regard all on the team as peers, peers still must be organized in a hierarchy, a lesson learned from the very beginning of business education. As a result, everyone is trained on the CEO being the most powerful person in the organization. The CEO is the only one who can hire, fire, and promote the executive team, and these responsibilities set the culture and performance for the entire organization.

And third, if the CEO is also a founder of the business, then they embody the American dream that I discussed in the previous chapter. As I suggested there, selflessness is in the American DNA, as it is in other societies founded on teamwork such as Israel. The point I made there — that there is within all of us an entrepreneur — is equally the point that within all of us is selflessness. 

Selflessness is a large topic that transcends all aspects of the entrepreneur’s journey. My views on this have been deeply influenced by the study of the philosophy of Vedanta, beginning with a trip my wife Debra and I took to India. A book by our teacher there, Swamiji Parthasarathy’s Governing Business and Relationships, is another one I recommend. More on his work and the subject of selflessness is linked on the Digital Companion. But as in all areas, selflessness must be the guiding principle of the CEO when it comes to sales.

That said, it took me a while to realize the importance of selling as a CEO. Many successful CEOs, in fact, emerge from an experience in sales to rise to the top. Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, IBM’s Sam Palmisano who serves on data.world’s Advisory Board, Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, and “Shark Tank” investor Mark Cuban all got their start in sales. Their experience tells us a lot about the importance of the sales-savvy CEO. But their route was not mine.

At the start of my founder/CEO career, it was the technical skills I had developed, thanks to my mother allowing me to focus on my life’s calling from the age of seven that carried me to that initial milestone. At the outset of my career, I felt very comfortable programming and mastering the suites of technology that have been at the center of all the companies I’ve now founded and led. I was in the flow of the digital economy and marketplace from the beginning. But I hadn’t developed presentation skills. I didn’t know how to sell. However, I was lucky enough to be authentically living my calling — and that is the most effective sales tool of all. 

Knowing your calling is the essence of self-actualization, which is in turn the basis of authenticity. Authenticity is required to build trust. And people only buy from those whom they trust. So know your calling. Anyone to whom you are trying to sell will feel your energy and authenticity. This is the best foundation from which to build selling skills. And you have to learn selling skills just like any other: practicing, doing, reflecting, and refining. Because developing a new skill is difficult, and some CEOs shy away from it, making an excuse for themselves not engaging in selling. Examples of these excuses include:


Excuse #1: It’s all about the product.

The product is beautiful, some CEOs will argue. And often they are right. Some readers will remember Betamax, the video recording technology that debuted in the late 1970s and was considered superior to the rival VHS format that ultimately dominated the market. Only a few people remember the “Osborne,” the first portable computer rolled out in 1981, and even fewer people remember the inventor, Adam Osborne. Or Google Glass, the wearable computer, is a more recent example of a marvelous product that fizzled. Or Apple’s Ping or Google’s Google+, the social networks that never were. The cell phones of Nokia and Blackberry are further heads on the pikes that warn of these perils. The history of business is littered with failures, often caused by a CEO who believed the product should just sell itself. “I just need ‘coin-operated’ people to sell it for me,” is the attitude. If it isn’t selling, then the CEO’s attitude is usually some version of, “that is what I hired you for.” This is hardly selfless or effective.


Excuse #2: Selling is a “commodity skill.”

Yes, sales is a specialty but it's a basic one, something you can simply buy in the personnel marketplace. This is an attitude seen all too often. It isn’t as complex as the higher function pursuits, such as managing the strategy and priorities of the overall company. Or hiring, firing, and promoting the executive team. Or managing the Board of Directors and fundraising. These and other important CEO duties become excuses. “Selling is easy” in this view. No, it’s not. And it must be embraced and led from above.


Excuse #3: I don’t have time.

This is related to the devaluation of sales as a skill. It’s the excuse that a CEO’s time is too valuable to be spent on such mundane tasks as sales. “I’m too busy with more important activities,” a CEO might say. Or even worse: “It isn’t in my job description.” Sorry, but it’s at the center of your job description, and you should love it.

All of these excuses are terribly wrong. The attitude prevalent in them is a selfish one, not a selfless one. Because the CEO is the synthesis point of the entire organization, if they adopt these excuses and attitudes the rest of the organization will model them. Trenches deepen. Silos rise. The oxygen of the organization grows thinner and thinner. The head of sales will be left almost solely responsible for managing selling as a result. This is why some heads of sales complain about not being supported by the CEO. And why some CEOs go through many heads of sales, all while failing to meet their sales targets.


In place of these excuses, here are the top four convictions that should frame your attitude:


Conviction #1: The sales buck stops with me.

“It is my duty to the organization to leverage the CEO megaphone that I have been entrusted with by our investors, the Board of Directors, and all of our people, to learn how to sell. My team will teach me, or I can hire presentation and selling coaches to do the same. I will practice, do, reflect, and refine.”


Conviction #2: As CEO, I must align with my calling.

“Every human being’s fundamental obligation is to find his true identity in his lifetime,” wrote Parthasarathy, my Vedanta teacher whom I mentioned above. Said differently, this is your calling. And greatness will elude the CEO who is not in that job because it is a life calling. “This business is my calling in life,” the CEO must believe. “Everything I’ve done in the past has led up to this point. And from that point onward, there cannot be any excuse to not learn how to sell. I will learn to sell or I will fail and hold the entire organization back from the great success it can achieve.”


Conviction #3: I must strive for selflessness and change the world.

“To support the team who wants to change the world for the better through the mission of the company, it is essential that I not shy away from such an important activity,” you must tell yourself regularly. “It would be selfish to neglect sales. I must be better than that. I must be selfless. As CEO, I create my own job description and it starts with generous action.”

Now I realize this may seem a bit abstract. But as with the development of any skill, over time it starts to click. And with more success at doing it, it starts to become more fun. What is more important than bringing in revenue? Without it, your business doesn’t survive. What is more important than bringing in clients that are attracted to your mission? Without it, your collective dream doesn’t become a reality. What is more important than working as a collective and selflessly serving each other? Without it, you will not have the great culture you seek. What is more important than changing the world for the better? You will do so through sales.


Conviction #4: I must reclaim the power of whimsy.

“I will remember to step back in awe, engage with the team in a sense of whimsy that takes us out of our comfort zones in a spirit of adventure without fear of failure.”

Think back to when you were a child, whether learning to swim, playing games with friends, or being awestruck when discovering a new skill like, in my case, discovering programming in elementary school. It’s a spirit you need to rekindle in service of sales.

This isn’t something you can easily plan or contrive. It must be allowed to emerge. But you’ll know constructive whimsy when you see it. At Bazaarvoice, it began with our head of sales Michael Osborne, and a green soccer ball. As I recall, it was a commemorative ball from Mexico’s national team when it qualified for the World Cup. It started almost inadvertently after Osborne (he always went by his last name) showed up at a meeting with the soccer ball. There was a joke about touching it for good luck or something, a round of laughter. But then Osborne brought it to the next meeting, with approval from all.

Soon, the green soccer ball became a kind of talisman, like a lucky horseshoe hung on the door of a Texas barn. Or a “lucky number,” which we all have, mine being No. 7, which inspired the name of my blog. Soon, knowing that Osborne would be bringing his lucky soccer ball to sales meetings, members of the team began wearing green on those days. As the rite evolved, in the last three days each quarter, Osborne would never be without his green ball and no one on the sales team would be without some green-colored artifact or piece of clothing. Osborne’s mysterious green soccer ball became a whimsical, serendipitous rallying point as we all adopted the color green as a good luck charm on the final days of each quarter. It became as a symbol of, “We are all in this together, we will achieve our goals together, we are all selling.” As a result, we almost always beat our sales goals under his leadership. Osborne inspired all of us. At data.world, our team is regularly rallied by Ryan Cush, our Chief Revenue Officer, who learned from Osborne at Bazaarvoice before as one of his top performers. Ryan has also led us to consistently beat our goals, constantly reinforcing our OKRs and alignment amongst all of our teams working together to sell - and service - our customers. Most incidentally, I also need to mention here that 50 percent of our bonus at data.world is based on how well we sell together and 50 percent is based on how well we serve our customers together. I’ll have more to say on this in the next chapter, Selling to the “Cool Kids.”

Throughout my CEO journey, I have played and continue to play a part to the best of my ability when it comes to sales. I place calls, video conferences, record videos, and write emails to prospects that are on the fence. I walk the halls, or in these pandemic times walk the Slack channels, asking the sales team how I can be of service to them. I work with the executive team to ensure we can commit to delivering on a prospect’s unique request, and then I communicate our commitment to that prospect. I leverage my network to help us get higher in their organization and to affect more change in their company. When I was at Bazaarvoice, I sought opportunities to present to large groups of our prospects the power of social commerce — the voice of the marketplace. Today at data.world, I’m one of the chief evangelists for the power of data to remake commerce, health care, education, and society and I am almost constantly speaking, writing, and helping our team to execute their part in this grand ballet.

In summary, a CEO must learn how to sell. Failing to do so is to be selfish, and to shy away from developing a critical skill that will help the entire company. To not do so is to waste the most valuable megaphone in the company (again, not because CEOs themselves are important — there are no lesser or greater than any other person working at the company — but because they are the only ones entrusted with the CEO title). Once you develop the skill of selling, you will become a more effective CEO overall. You will be better at recruiting, better at raising money from investors, better at business development, and better at passionately tapping the energy of all of the great people that are in your company and looking to you to set an example. You will be better at leading the company to beat its goals. And when your collective of amazing team members and customers win, you’ll realize that the journey was the true reward, as I’ll discuss in Chapter 20, Capture the History of Your Amazing Journey.

“Remember, you are not in charge; you are responsible for those in your charge.”

— Simon Sinek, Author

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Chapter 14 - Seven Lessons Learned on the Journey from Founder to CEO

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Chapter 16 - Selling to the ‘Cool Kids’