The top salesperson at your company should be…

If you’re the founder, president or CEO, it’s you.

If you’re the founder, you’re the first salesperson.  You need to be in front of customers and prospects, gathering direct feedback that not only improves the products & services you sell, but how you sell it.  There’s no way you can hire and teach new people how to sell for you if you don’t already have direct experience doing it yourself.

If you’re the president or CEO, you have a sales team that sells for you all day, every day.  But make no mistake, you’re still the company’s number-one sales rep.  Not by volume, of course, but you need to know the customer and the sales process just as well as if you were doing it every day.

You need to be close to the customer, be in front of your biggest customers, directly gathering feedback on current and future solutions.  You may still gather second-hand customer and industry feedback to help guide your decisions, but there’s no replacement for hearing those insights directly.

If you aspire someday to start or run a business, remember that sales is a key part of your job.  And the better you do it now (whether or not you’re in a direct sales position), the more likely you’ll make better and better decisions that align with the way your customers and prospects think, act and buy.