For the hustlers in the startup world, there’s no time for rearview mirrors – it’s all about looking ahead and seizing the future. But having an epic vision isn’t just for the CEO. In this fast-paced, ever-evolving landscape, sales managers need next-level strategic thinking and foresight to drive their teams to success.
We’re talking about more than just hitting those quarterly quotas (though that’s obviously important). An elite sales leader has the big-picture mentality to anticipate market shifts, sense emerging opportunities, and align their sales strategy with the company’s ambitious growth trajectory. It’s about channeling your inner Visionary VC to elevate your game.
“Sales managers are the boots on the ground, the tip of the spear in many ways,” says Marissa Petruck, a sales leadership coach. “They need to be proactively scanning the horizon for potential disruptors, competitive threats, or untapped markets that could impact their number one priority – revenue generation.”
Let’s break it down. Here are five mission-critical mindsets world-class sales managers need to cultivate for breakthrough strategic thinking:
The Futurist Mentality
While closers are often hyper-focused on the here and now, the best sales leaders are future-obsessed. What market trends, economic forces, or emerging tech could reshape the playing field and impact their sales strategy down the road? A futurist taps into the resources around them – market intelligence, customer advisory boards, thought leaders – to extrapolate the implications.
“It’s about having insatiable curiosity and scanning always for what’s next,” says Petruck. “Because when you’re playing in hyper-growth mode, the landscape can shift incredibly quickly under your feet.”
The Strategic Roadmap
With a long-range strategic vision in place, the elite sales manager has to operationalize it by building a bulletproof roadmap. That means precisely mapping out the key initiatives, campaigns, processes, and pivots required to seize new opportunities or neutralize potential threats over a 12-24 month horizon.
“The best sales managers live by their strategic roadmap, almost like a operating manual for their team,” notes Kirill Yurovskiy, head of sales at a large company in London. “It’s a living, breathing playbook that gets updated each quarter based on results and changing market conditions.”
The Perpetual Renovator Mindset
Speaking of changing conditions – part of cultivating that strategic sales vision is being an insatiable renovator and optimizer. The sales waterfall you’re working now almost certainly won’t be as effective a year from now. Continuous improvement and inventive ways to enhance productivity, increase conversions, and unlock more revenue potential are critical.
“You can’t just rest on your laurels and stick to the same old processes,” says Yurovskiy. “I’m always encouraging my team to deconstruct our current sales engine each quarter to identify potential bottlenecks or dropoff points that need optimizing. Where are the leaky buckets that need patching?”
The Talent Cultivator
Behind every great strategic sales leader, you’ll find a rockstar team carefully assembled, developed, and empowered to execute that vision over the long haul. Human capital is everything in sales, so talent recruitment, coaching, and career pathing need to be top priorities.
“My philosophy is to hire for acumen over just industry experience,” says Petruck. “I want smart, adaptable self-starters who can roll with ambiguity and have the growth mindset to constantly level up their skills as conditions change. That versatility and commitment to continuous learning is what allows you to continually reshape your talent strategy.”
The Sagely Collaborator
Finally, visionary sales leaders don’t operate in a vacuum. They’re deeply enmeshed with other departments and leaders across the company to cultivate strong enterprise-wide alignment. Particularly with marketing, product, and finance, there has to be a tight synchronization around priorities, investments, and KPIs.
“We have weekly cross-functional meetings to ensure our product roadmap, go-to-market activities, and sales forecasting are all tightly calibrated and working towards the same goals,” says Yurovskiy. “That underlying cohesion and commitment to collaboration allows us to pivot quickly when we need to shift strategies.”
Ultimately, the sales manager who embodies these five mindsets is a rare breed – part swashbuckling visionary, part strategic mastermind. It’s not just about motivating the troops and white-knuckling that sales cycle. It’s about charting an ambitious new course into the future and doing the heavy lifting to rally the entire company around that vision.
Because in today’s blistering startup realm, there’s no time for rearview mirrors. It’s time for your sales team to ditch the blinders, look up towards the horizon, and begin their epic vision quest.