Sales is leadership

Sam Harrowfield

My entire career has been in form of interfacing with clients and partners, marrying up needs with solutions.

My dad reckoned early on that would suit my nature, and he was right.

What I have come to realise in all my work is the importance of leadership in the customer conversation.

And I am cognisant of it more and more when I am sitting in the customer seat. When I have a need and some money to throw at it, the best people to talk to are the ones who take the lead.

That’s what I believe matters most of all in client interactions – it doesn’t vary based on what kind of product or service is on offer. When I am sitting with a customer, I must take the lead in the conversation. It’s not about being pushy, it’s about coaching them along to work out what’s best for them. If they don’t like where we are heading, they’ll say so and I’ll listen, adapt to their revised expectations and recommence leading from there.

If you’re client-facing in your work and you shudder at the thought that you are ‘in sales’, I encourage you to see it differently – You’re simply there to lead while the customer works out what they need, contributing your insights and empathy, to make sure they arrive at a conclusion.

If you have the right type of value to offer, it’s likely the customer will engage you with a version of it.

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We’re in the training business – human skills to be precise. We help people to understand themselves, understand others and therefore communicate in a more effective, meaningful way.

I’m Sam Harrowfield, and together with my partner Ruth, we run Harrowfield People Development, a strategic learning agency based in Auckland, New Zealand.

We draw on the disciplines of organisational and behavioural psychology to provide fit-for-purpose experiences that build capability and confidence.

We help business leaders to bring out the potential that they see in their people by shaping habits of thinking, communication and action in the workplace. Talk to us today.