Your Company is a Premier League Side, and Your Salespeople Are Your Strikers

I like to think of BigChange as a football team. We are top of the league, bringing new talent to the pitch, delighting the fans, and scoring more goals than any other side.

We are Manchester City.

Bear with me. This analogy is going somewhere…

Over the next few months, I want to shine a light on all the departments within BigChange that work so tirelessly to make our business and platform a success. Today, I want to start with sales.

To build a successful team, you need a balance of attacking and defensive players. This is the same in business: you need your goal scorers and your sweepers. The strikers are your salespeople. They are focused on hitting targets, driving growth, and maintaining momentum. Your defensive players are your customer service people.

Sales sometimes gets a bad rap. I posted about this a few years ago. We are always selling, whether we are leading a meeting, wowing a client, explaining an idea, or even trying to get a better deal on a purchase. I love this quote from Estee Lauder, the founder of the eponymous beauty empire: “I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.”

Great salespeople are extraordinary individuals. They are driven, tenacious and self-motivated. They refuse to lose. The traits are so valuable in business – and in life. I have always invested in a topflight sales team across every business I have founded. My advice to other entrepreneurs: make great salespeople your first priority, not your last.

You can have the best product in the world, but without salespeople, who is going to hear about it? Sales drive a business forward. Sales generate cash. Without sales, you don’t have a company at all.

I’m immensely proud of our sales aces here at BigChange. They are committed, smart, and proactive individuals. Led by our very own Pep Guardiola, Charlie Bartfield, this team is truly in the Premier League. They relentlessly practice their craft by reviewing performance – just like players who watch reruns of matches. They graduate the BigChange University as gurus, so they understand the platform and features inside out – just like top footballers know the game plan and tactics for a match.

We are very lucky to have extremely high retention in sales at BigChange. In 10 years, we have probably lost about three people. I like to think that says a lot about our culture, our remuneration strategy, our incentives, and the way we promote from within.

An example of how we do things differently is our generous holiday package, our commitment to the local community and supporting charities, and the fact that we don’t cap what salespeople can earn.

Thank you to my Manchester City strikers – you are Erling Haaland, Riyad Mahrez, Julián Álvarez, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gündogan.