CEO's column March

In Sweden, analysis, strategy and development are celebrated – but the skills that actually determine whether something becomes a deal end up at the bottom of the hierarchy. This article is about why sales is still undervalued, what it costs us in growth and why the ability to influence people is the most crucial skill in every company.

It's strange that Sweden's most crucial skill is also the one with the lowest status. We celebrate analysis, strategy and model building – but when the conversation turns to sales, we screw up. Even though sales is what determines whether everything else matters. In a country full of brilliant ideas, strong technology and world-leading skills, it is often the ability to influence, convince and create business that is missing. The result is seen in growth that stops and innovations that never take off. Maybe it's time to talk about the skills that build companies – not just the ones that analyze them.

It's nicer to analyze than to sell.

It's something that doesn't really add up.

In Swedish organizations, it's nice to work with strategy, analysis and development. The titles are getting longer, the models more advanced, the presentations more stylish. But say you work in sales and you almost feel the need to explain yourself. “That's not how sales is,” they say. “It's more about relationships.” As if one excludes the other.

Without sales, there is nothing to analyze.

At the same time, it is precisely sales that determines whether any of the other things matter. Without business, there is no company. Without revenue, no investments. Without growth, no jobs. It is not an opinion. It is an accounting issue.

We organize away what drives the business

Yet sales is treated as something peripheral. A function. A department. Something some people work on while the rest do the “real” work. It’s a strange way to organize a business whose sole purpose is to generate business.

The data says the same thing, but we don't listen

That view persists despite data pointing in the opposite direction. In Google's Project Oxygen study, which analyzed what separates successful managers from others, it was not technical competence that was decisive. What stood out was the ability to communicate clearly, build trust and influence others. In other words, the ability to get people to understand, want and act. In many other contexts, we would have called it sales.

The same pattern is visible in the labor market data. When LinkedIn lists the most in-demand skills, communication, relationship building and influence recur. In other words, exactly what determines whether an idea becomes a deal or stays on a slide.

We believe that sales are a final step

Despite this, we continue to treat sales as a final step. First we think, then we build, and finally we try to sell. The problem is that reality works the other way around. It is only when someone is willing to pay that we know if something actually has value. Everything else is hypotheses.

The consequences are not theoretical. Sweden is full of companies with strong technology, high competence and weak commercial ability. This is visible in growth that stops, margins that are squeezed and innovations that never really leave the drawing board. We are good at developing solutions. Worse at getting the world to choose them.

This is a system error.

This is not an individual problem. It is a system failure. We train people to become experts but almost no one to create deals. We build organizations where it is nicer to be right than to be right, where analysis weighs more heavily than execution, and where responsibility for revenue can be delegated but the cost is always shared. The result is the same. There are plenty of insights and significantly fewer deals.

Ultimately, it's all about impact

In a world where information is available to everyone, it is no longer the one who knows the most who wins. It is the one who makes something happen. The one who can translate knowledge into decisions, decisions into action, and action into business. That doesn't require more analysis. It requires the ability to influence people.

Maybe it's time to say it out loud. Sales is not the least qualified thing you can do in a company. It's the most crucial.

We teach our children that it's great to become engineers, economists and lawyers. But very few say they should become really good at selling. It's strange, considering that it's precisely that ability that determines which ideas become reality and which ones stay in a meeting.

Organizations that look down on sales don't have a worse self-image. They have worse results.