Here’s an oldie but a goodie, The Secret of My Success, starring Michael J. Fox at the height of his powers just coming off the success of Back to the Future. Brantley Foster, a recent business school graduate struggles to find a corporate job and contacts a distant relative who is the CEO of a major corporation that lands him a job in the mailroom. Desperate to climb the dreaded 80s corporate ladder, shenanigans ensure the true secret to his success.
In the modern era, there isn’t exactly “keys” to the executive washroom anymore, and business has changed quite a lot, but career aspirations are still real and growing your sales career takes a lot of discipline, a strong work ethic, a bit of luck, and a great mentor, just to name a few.
Moving to a Chief Sales Officer (CSO) or Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) position is a common career ambition for sales leaders. But should you focus on specific titles, seeking to follow a predefined course, or is it better to remain open to uncharted territory? Does every good sales leader follow the same path?
To answer such questions, we sat down with Grayson Morris, our CEO at Performio, who has led numerous sales teams to victory, to learn his perspective on moving through leadership positions.
CRO vs. CSO: The key differences
The chief sales officer and the chief revenue officer are two sales leadership positions with some similarities and overlaps, but a distinct difference in scope. While the ultimate aim of both is to generate revenue, the CSO is most directly focused on enabling the sales team, whereas the CRO manages revenue growth and client retention across the whole customer lifecycle.
CSO responsibilities include:
- Directing the sales team
- Overseeing all sales activities
- Developing sales strategies
- Generating new sales opportunities
- Building relationships with customers
CRO responsibilities include:
- Overseeing various departments to ensure proper alignment
- Developing growth strategies and marketing strategies
- Conducting market research and analyzing data
- Managing customer success
- Mitigating financial risks
Based on the nature of the business, some sales organizations will employ one or the other or both positions. Either role offers aspiring leaders the chance to make a difference for their teams and their organization. Which path you pursue will depend on the scope of leadership you wish to take on, as well as available opportunities.
Career growth principles for sales leaders
Grayson’s experience as a sales leader and the insights he’s gleaned from it revolve around four key principles about growth, scope, uncertainty, and what true sales leadership looks like. Whether your path takes you to a position as a CSO or CRO or another role, these principles can guide you to success on any journey as a sales leader.
Figure out what growth means to you
There is no single “dream” career path for sales leaders. It’s going to look different for everyone based on your own ambitions, skill sets, and opportunities. But the throughline for any successful career path is growth. So the first thing you need to do is figure out what growth looks like for you.
What is it you really care about? What do you want to accomplish in your career? What would make you feel most fulfilled—both professionally and personally? The answers to these kinds of questions are far more meaningful than any specific titles you might aspire to.
Maybe it will take the form of a CSO or CRO position, and maybe it won’t. Either way, what’s important is that you’re experiencing the kind of growth you want to see in your life. Growth could mean upward mobility, or it could just as well mean building out your skill set, making more sales, expanding your relationships, or leading a prosperous personal life.
But if you aren’t experiencing growth—whatever metrics you may use to measure it—that’s the sign to start looking for different opportunities.
“If you aren’t happy with what you’re doing right now, do something else.” —Grayson Morris
Broaden your scope
A key difference between CSO and CRO is that the latter has a much broader scope of responsibilities. If aiming for the latter, you’ll need to think beyond closing sales and growing revenue, and be able to own the entire customer lifecycle—ensuring that it’s healthy, intact, highly adopted, and successful.
Beyond the sales teams, you’ll be responsible for and have to work cross-functionally with channel teams, customer success, corporate development, account management, pricing, marketing, operations, and more. You’ll be focussed on making clients successful, securing their renewals, and promoting new products.
“It's a circular lifecycle versus just trying to sell somebody something. That to me is the big difference between a chief sales officer versus a chief revenue officer. Revenue officers are thinking about the entire lifecycle, the health, the adoption, the growth, not just the first sale.” —Grayson Morris
Whatever metric you’re using for your growth, it will always be beneficial to broaden your scope from wherever you are right now. Look beyond your immediate responsibilities to gain a fuller picture of organizational processes. Establish good relationships with leaders from a wide range of teams, and take time to understand what they do and why. Learn their needs and start doing what you can to help.
Wherever your career may take you from here, your broader perspective, expanded knowledge, and diverse relationships will serve you well.
Develop an appetite for uncertainty
In life and throughout your career, there won’t always be a clear-cut reason for the “right” decision you should make. In such cases, it can be worth it to embrace the uncertainty and lean into choices that may feel uncomfortable.
Grayson shared his story of uncertainty with us. “I graduated from a good business school (Stanford) and many of my classmates took prestigious, high-paying jobs in private equity, consulting, or at hedge funds. I knew I wanted to run a company one day, so I took what might be the lowest-paying job anyone with an MBA from Stanford has ever taken. A job that paid $35k + commission, selling solar panels to homeowners. Virtually no one I talked to thought it was a good idea. I spent many evenings sitting around the dining room table with a husband and wife trying to persuade them to put solar panels on their house. When you’ve got kids crying in the other room and the family dog licking your leg you learn to close quickly. I did it for a year and didn’t make much money. But I learned all about the craft of selling and it laid the foundation for me to be successful leading sales teams and eventually running a company. When you’re running a company you’re selling about 75% of the time - so that year was time well spent.”
“The world of opaque is good. There isn’t necessarily a clear path to achieving things. There’s no perfect step-by-step understanding of how to develop your career, and that’s a good thing.” —Grayson Morris
Developing an appetite for uncertainty will lead you to exciting opportunities, and if you’re open to new possibilities, you may discover a path to greater growth.
Put your team first and yourself second
Far too many aspiring sales leaders go into their careers myopically focused on themselves and their own career aspirations. While it’s obviously important to have goals, if they’re entirely self-centered, it can actually hamper your ability to grow and develop as a leader.
The best sales leaders are focused first and foremost on serving their team. They truly care about their people and want to see each individual reach their full potential. Their aim is to help their team become more effective, and to equip them with the skills, knowledge, and tools to succeed. Toward this end, they put themselves and their own aspirations second to the needs of the team.
Grayson likens it to becoming a parent. The ultimate goal of any parent should be to see their children grow, learn, and thrive in the world. If you’re having children in order to somehow benefit yourself, then you’d be better off not being a parent. Likewise, if you’re entering into sales leadership purely for your own personal advancement, then you shouldn’t be in that role.
“If you root yourself in individual ambition—if your motivation is all around you and your own success and your career progression—then you shouldn’t want to go into leadership roles or operational roles. Because the best leaders truly are selfless. They put themselves second, and they serve their team.” —Grayson Morris
Acting as a true leader—selflessly giving of yourself for your team—is the true foundation on which your own growth can occur. By investing in your team and always aiming for their success, you will naturally advance yourself at the same time, growing in ways you otherwise never could have.
Recommended leadership resources for further reading
There are an overwhelming number of books about leadership, which can make it hard to find the ones that are actually worth your time. Here are the resources Grayson recommends for sales leaders, along with a bit of his commentary on each.
- How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie: You can’t go wrong with smiling, becoming a good listener, and of course, making others feel important. The most impactful thing anyone can hear is their own name during a conversation.
- The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard: This classic is all about adopting the three secrets to management success—one minute goals, one minute praisings, and one minute redirects. In any situation, you should be quick to offer praise, then quick to provide guidance on what someone could do better.
- Faster by James Gleick: Just about everything we see or experience continues to accelerate and advance at a more rapid rate. Using this concept, Gleick explores everything from the human condition itself to more concrete business topics. The book is full of stories from the bull run of the late ’90s to the rise and fall of Netscape and more.
- Good to Great by Jim Collins: This book examines what it takes for ordinary companies to become great and outperform their competitors. Collins analyzes dozens of companies over three decades, including some great case studies and process takeaways.
- Leadership & Self Deception by The Arbinger Institute: Through a story everyone can relate to about a man facing challenges on the job and in his family, the authors expose the fascinating ways that we can blind ourselves to our true motivations and unwittingly sabotage the effectiveness of our own efforts to achieve success and increase happiness.
Navigate sales leadership trends for the new year
The sales landscape has gone through dramatic changes over the past few years. The pandemic pushed us into remote selling, inflation caused buyers to become more cautious, everyone started spending way more time online, and generative AI entered the mix, creating no end of debate about what role it should play in sales.
As we enter into a new year, things are finally settling into a new normal, but it’s vital for sales leaders to understand how today’s sales environment will be different than before.
In Sales Leadership Trends 2024: Navigate the New Normal, a free Performio ebook, we’ve identified five key trends that sales leaders should expect to define 2024’s new normal—along with ways to handle them.