Should your sales forces have an entrepreneurial mindset?

Richard Branson, Xavier Niel, Sam Walton, and Ingvar Kamprad founded iconic companies: Virgin Group, Iliad/Free, Walmart, and Ikea. They all started their careers as salespeople. Often, top sales reps also share the same strengths as those attributed to successful entrepreneurs: boldness, flair, grit, tenacity, interpersonal skills, autonomy, nimbleness, and decisiveness.

Should your salespeople have an entrepreneurial spirit?

To answer this, we look at how Professor and entrepreneur Saras Sarasvathy defines the entrepreneur in her theory of effectuation.

According to her, best entrepreneurs use a set of decision-making principles. These 5 effectuation principles do not refer to the qualities usually attributed to the successful entrepreneurs.

Are these entrepreneurial principles beneficial to the salesperson’s activity? It depends on the context:

• Within an established and performing business, which enjoys significant assets in terms of clients, processes, and know-how, it is of little use, even counterproductive, to foster entrepreneurs within the sales force. Operational efficiency through process improvement, maintaining professional skills, digitalisation, and automation are paramount.

• However, when the business badly needs to grow, conquer markets, innovate, or transform, effectuation provides an extraordinary lever. A lever reserved for leaders who believe in the human factor to achieve the improbable.

Effectuation reminds us that personal attitudes are root causes in the project’s make or break. They shape the way we approach risk, make decisions in foggy times, form alliances, react to the unexpected, or believe that our actions and decisions make an impact on the future.

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