The Infectious Nature of Successful Sales
Chris Duddridge, VP of Sales, EMEA at Soroco
Joining James on a recent episode of Tech Salescraft was Chris Duddridge, VP of Sales, EMEA at Soroco. A conversation that centres around teams and leadership, Chris shares his experience in creating the perfect sales team, and how his role as a sales leader evolved to become a sales coach — and why this evolution was so important.
“If you have a caring, coaching mindset, then you have the key attributes required of a sales leader.”
Should a Sales Leader be called a Sales Coach? This has been a hot debate on Tech Salescraft, marking a vital shift in how people are opting to manage their sales teams. For Chris, being a coach underpins the job description of a sales leader. This means being selfless; having a natural inclination to help others and support their growth. Working in sales can often be an isolating experience. You have individual targets to meet and your own pipeline of work. But as Chris mentions, the sales coach should be encouraging collaboration within the sales team, ensuring everybody’s work serves to elevate the team, not just the individual. Empathy and care often aren’t seen as skills demanded of a sales leader — but their importance in generating sustainable success should not be understated.
“Don’t turn up, sit back, and wait to be fed.”
What’s crucial, as a sales coach, is you don’t allow individuals to fade into the team; they must understand their contribution personally, how that feeds into wider success, and the support they need from non-sales teams to get there. A successful sales function is one that collaborates, that uses marketing, product, customer success and the likes; then translates all the latter into business. There must be individual awareness that sales isn’t selfish nor is it as easy as simply receiving guaranteed business in your inbox. For Chris, it is the job of the sales coach to embed this mindset into the culture, and ensure new hires are aware of this from day zero.