Sales ≠ Swiss Army Knife: Focus Drives Results

Open your kitchen drawer. Look at where you keep your knives, forks and other utensils. Do you have Swiss Army knives? When you want to cut a good leg of lamb, do you take a Swiss Army knife? I suppose not? Because you know perfectly well that they're not doing a good job. That you risk spending a lot more time and getting poorer results. And that for you, it's important to put the means behind a good cut of this leg of lamb.

Is that a reasonable assumption?

Well, sales are no different. Swiss Army knives don't work. Having people doing several things is a recipe for failure. Having one person in charge of both sales and marketing is bound to fail. It's as simple as that. I recently saw an open role on Linkedin recruiting for a "Head of sales and marketing" who had to manage 10 people. Managing sales AND marketing. For 10 (TEN!) people. Unbelievable.

Sales and marketing need different muscles. Stop hiring “Swiss Army knives” and start structuring your team for performance - not chaos.

I couldn't help but launch into a rant. And if you coach your teams, you can download the 7 rules for effective coaching alongside this post.