Nicky (00:27)
What do you think is the difference between sales leadership and commercial leadership? Is there a difference? Have you ever taken a pause to consider what each of these things could look like? It's something I've been thinking about a lot. I wrote an article, I've gotten some great feedback, and I've had some really good, deep conversations around this perspective shift.
Commercial leadership has been around for a long time. Sales leadership... ultimately, nothing has meaning except the meaning that we give it. However, we do need to pause and think about what meaning we're giving this, what expectation we have, and therefore what support we're providing to our leaders — whether they're leading sales leaders, or leading the coalface, the salespeople on the ground doing the grunt work.
I think it's really timely for us to have this conversation and consider: is there a difference, and what does that difference look like? Because if we think about sales leadership and typically what it has been up until this point, there's a danger it can become very transactional. It's about driving the target, hitting the number — we've hit it, what's driving the figures, up, down, keep going, next number, next, next, next. There's a danger of it becoming almost one-dimensional, a single-lens focus on hitting that number.
But the reality is that the world has changed so much in the last six months, three months, couple of years, and so on. And if our definition of holistic sales leadership — commercial leadership, in my world — doesn't change, if those expectations and, as I said, the support doesn't match and align with that, then the business is at risk of getting left behind. Because your sales leaders, whether they're leading the coalface salespeople or they're leaders of leaders, there's so much more in that role now, and so much more opportunity to expand that role and expand that perspective. Because we also now have accessible tools that we never really had before. So the world our sales leaders are working in has changed. If we think about that state of change and how quickly everything is evolving, our expectations — and therefore our support — of sales leadership need to evolve too.
It's no longer about chase the target, hit the target, onto the next one. When we're in that space, it's really easy for coaching to become a tick box — not deep, meaningful, and valuable. And by deep, meaningful and valuable, I don't mean it takes hours. I mean that the people doing the selling often feel the pressure, but not necessarily the support. It means there could be a culture of performance at any cost. And that cost does show up eventually.
This is the scenario where results can be reliant on a few high performers — and that is such a risky place for a business to be. Yet it's such a common place I see businesses in, where there's just a handful of people you can really rely on to live a values-led sales culture that goes beyond the one-off. People who show up every day and give their best without burning out — who have that balance of being able to perform and take care of themselves. The ones who are really great at having the conversations with clients, converting — there's an intrinsic internal locus of control and motivation. They're the ones really driving those results. But there's so much opportunity to expand what works for them to the rest of the team as well.
When we get too siloed, too focused on just hitting the number in front of us from a sales leadership point of view, we're actually missing out on so much scope and so much opportunity. And I really think the day has come where we need to evolve sales leadership to commercial leadership. Sales meaning it's just about the sales — and overall, of course, this is about the bottom line. But if you were to shift your perspective, regardless of where you are on the spectrum — maybe you're a bit more evolved, maybe you're a bit more old-school sales leadership — if you were to shift the perspective, expectation, and support of your leaders in your business, what could that look like if you leaned even more into the commercial leadership space?
When we think about commercial, we think about the commercials of the business — the numbers, the bottom line, the bigger picture around targets, if you will. But in my world, it's even beyond that. There are really three key areas you want to focus on if you're leaning into that commercial leadership space.
1. Building a high-performance, “high-vibing” culture
The leaders are building a culture of high performance — I like to call it a high-vibing sales culture. What I mean by that is there's high performance across the business, across the team, at all levels. Every person in the business is focusing on how they're contributing to that overall number. It's not just a siloed salesperson chasing a target — 'I'm a sales leader, so I have my hot target to hit.' It's how am I contributing to creating and building a culture with my team — top-down, sideways, across every angle — that is high-vibing, high performance, and where we're still all collectively focused on the goals, the mission, and the number we're here to hit.
It's not about values stuck on a wall. It's not about ping-pong tables — although that stuff is fun, it's so surface level. It's about intentionally creating something that people are motivated to rock up to work for, and are feeling the impact and the meaning in what they do, regardless of their role. This is really important to consider — not just the direct salespeople, but the support people, the marketing team, product and delivery — every area of your business. Are they all part of this cohesive, high-performance, high-vibing sales culture?
2. Upskilling leaders to become great coaches
The other thing you want to look at to make sure there's a commercial element to the leadership is that leaders are being upskilled to become great coaches. It's not just about training, development, mentoring — there's often a gap missing, which is the coaching piece that sits in between training and mentoring.
I was reading a Salesforce State of Sales report recently that said 75% of people surveyed said they're more likely to hit their targets when they have a coach or mentor. That's not surprising — but if you're not doing any coaching or mentoring... I'm going to focus specifically on coaching: 75% of people surveyed said they're more likely to hit targets with one. So if you've got a culture where hitting targets is a bit hit-and-miss, and you're not getting the team coached consistently, that's a big gap you could look at plugging pretty much straight away by focusing on developing your leaders to be great coaches.
Within that same survey, only 34% of salespeople said they receive regular one-on-one meetings. Less than 40% are receiving meaningful development support — things like training materials, personal development plans, action plans, skill building. And only 26% get role-play sessions to practice their craft.
So I just want to reflect that: 75% of people surveyed said, yeah, I'm more likely to hit my target if I have a coach or mentor, that development support. But really, less than 40% — as low as 26% — are getting regular one-on-one meetings, meaningful training and development, or role plays to practice before going out live. This is huge. And these statistics say to me that there will absolutely be a portion of you listening who fall into this bucket.
And I'm not throwing any shade, because I get it — we're all really busy, there's so much happening. It can be really simple and easy for it to be the last thing, particularly if you don't already have a cadence in place around coaching conversations. So think about where you sit within those statistics, because what this also tells us — and a big theme from reading this sales report — was that salespeople want this support. They want the development.
It's not just about a two-day training off-site anymore — I'd argue that was never the most effective way to do it anyway. But there are so many tools and resources available now, and it doesn't have to be War and Peace. They want it, they need it, they know they get better results — it makes logical sense, and they're often bought in and see the value in it. But there's a big gap in actually delivering it. And again, I bring that back to commercial leadership not just focusing on the numbers — it's focusing on: am I skilled as a leader to be able to coach my team, whether I'm a leader of leaders, a leader of frontline salespeople, or — not even sales — just a people leader.
I know that the biggest barriers to leaders actually doing the coaching are lack of time (38%), lack of training or expertise (37%), and insufficient leadership support. So there are some valid barriers and blocks. But again, if we think about it, we're redefining the role of the sales leader — we're broadening it to commercial leadership. Yes, it's knowing the numbers as well as creating that high-performance culture, knowing the goal and where we're going, bringing everybody along for the ride. It's facing these barriers and blocks when it comes to time, skill, or support to coach, so that you can chip away at it and actually start giving your people what they need and want. It could be a capability problem, but it could also be a capacity problem.
So whoever's listening to this — really face it. Whatever is resonating with you as I talk through this, think about what could be one small solution, one small step to crack the code and have the skill, the capability, as well as the capacity to coach.
3. Taking a holistic view of performance management
The other thing to really think about when we're looking at commercial leadership — yes, it's about the culture, the goals, and the numbers; it's about the coaching and development of your people — it's also having a holistic view of performance management.
Sales performance is not just about skill — it never has been. It's really about understanding that what's showing up in the numbers is a downstream result of what's happening within the team. There's confidence levels, clarity of role, quality of feedback conversations. Are you equipped, confident, and not avoiding the tough conversations? Are tough, hard, or even just awkward conversations being quietly avoided?
If you're a leader of leaders, I want you to really think about where the little pockets are that your leaders might be avoiding tough conversations. And if you're leading a direct team, let's think about it for ourselves as well. Because when performance management isn't consistent, when standards aren't clear, when underperformance is tolerated — and I'm even talking about the little things we let slide because it's not worth the tough conversation — it means follow-through can become really patchy. It doesn't just affect the individual you're maybe avoiding a conversation with — it affects the whole team. Everybody feels it, and it makes it even harder for you down the track. Standards drop, little things that you think don't add up to much fall through the cracks. These things build, and they can get a lot bigger.
So commercial leadership is also about absolutely holding that standard — making sure that performance is being managed holistically. Yes, it's things like KPI conversations, conversations about performance, the stats, the numbers — but it's equally important to have conversations about behaviours, and make sure we don't let things slide.
I recorded a whole separate episode on how to have tough conversations, so we'll link that in the show notes as well — really worthwhile listening to if some of these points resonated with you.
Bringing it together
The reality is that if you stay in sales leadership mode, as opposed to really branching out and expanding your perspective to commercial leadership, you stay in a single-lens approach instead of a multi-lens, multi-dimensional world. We don't want sales leadership to be transactional. We don't want you to just focus on numbers, targets, and short-term output, because that's where the success of your sales team — and the business as a whole — can become really fragile.
We want to talk about sustainable foundations of success for the long term, so you can navigate whatever's thrown at you around the corner — whether that's massive opportunity you're trying to keep up with, or risks and opportunities being missed, or negative impacts on your business. Really expanding from one-dimensional, single-lens sales leadership into that commercial leadership focus will set your business up for success down the track, regardless of what type of high-quality problem you'll be facing.
This is not about doing more, my friends. This is about leading differently — leaning into what might already be there, but you just haven't taken with both hands yet.
If we really think about this again, I want you to consider: are you — are your leaders — really focusing on one-dimensional sales leadership, the transactional numbers? Yes, you might be hitting targets, you might be getting good results. But how do we expand to commercial leadership — the bigger picture, the culture, the future vision, the visionary aspect, as well as the goals and the targets? The values that are being lived, the mission that's being brought to life, the meaning that's attached.
Commercial leadership: really bringing that coaching and development consistently to your team, to each other, to yourselves, and making sure performance is being managed — not in a siloed way, but in a holistic way — so that the whole sales engine is moving in the right direction. Not just today, but tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.
Think about what you've taken away from this conversation. What's the one key thing you think you could do a little bit differently? And I also want to share with you the link, which you can get in the show notes, to the Business Growth Audit. If you're unsure which of these levers — or which area is your strength and your potential weakness — jump in and do this free survey, because you'll get all the information you need. You'll get a score in the commercial leadership space, with some tips on exactly what to focus on. You'll get the results immediately too, as soon as you've done the survey.
If you have any questions, please reach out to me — I'm here to help you in any way possible.
As always, take yourself lightly. Pick one thing that you will action from this — it might be the Business Growth Audit, or it might be something you got a lot of clarity around while I was talking. Just make sure you do something with this information. I'll chat to you soon.
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