The Role of Senior Sales Leaders in the Sales Process: A Strategic Shift

The Evolution of Senior Sales Leadership

Throughout my career in sales organisations, I have worked with exceptional sales leaders who have risen through the ranks by accumulating invaluable experience. As these leaders ascend to roles such as VP of Sales or Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), their focus naturally shifts from direct market engagement to broader organisational responsibilities—team structuring, messaging, and process design, rather than execution.

This shift in priorities means that senior leaders spend less time in direct market-facing activities. Their engagement typically becomes limited to:

• The final stages of high-value deals.

• Ambassadorial roles designed to inspire confidence rather than drive value creation.

Our data from Jointflows indicates that VP/CRO involvement in sales processes typically occurs 65% of the way through the sales cycle, with ‘Review’ being the most common descriptor in the task names our system captures. This means that senior sales participation is primarily in a safeguarding rather than a value-creating capacity, and usually at late stage in the commercial process.

Interestingly, this pattern mirrors buying behaviours. CXOs evaluating solutions often enter the process late, after their teams have filtered potential options.

Sales leaders see this arrangement as the norm, but this conventional approach may be costing sales organisations significantly.

The Problem: Over-Investing in ‘Closed Lost’ Deals

Consider a high-performing sales organisation that closes 1 in 4 qualified opportunities. In this scenario and across four opportunities,

• Before a Senior Seller is introduced, 2.6 full Sales Cycles worth of effort have already been invested,

• The appearance of the Senior Seller often leads to 'course correction' with a revised approach to the deal (based on their extra experience) leading to additional work, even in the ultimately successful Sales Processes.

While some deals are destined to fail regardless of senior leader participation, many are lost precisely because their experience is introduced too late in the process. By the time senior sellers engage, their expertise often confirms why an opportunity should be lost, rather than how it can be won.

Sports teams rarely leave their best, most experienced players off the field.  Why do Sales teams?

A New Approach: Engaging Senior Leaders Earlier

We advocate for shifting senior leadership participation from late-stage intervention to early-stage engagement. By reallocating time spent on reviewing large, late-stage deals to actively engaging in initial discovery and qualification phases, organisations can drive better outcomes.

The Benefits of Early Senior Sales Involvement

1. Gatekeeping for Efficiency

   • Senior leaders can identify weak opportunities before they enter the pipeline, reducing wasted effort and improving sales efficiency.

2. Reciprocal Seniority Effect

   • When a VP or CRO participates in early meetings, senior buyers are more likely to engage, elevating discussions and increasing deal momentum.

3. Market Intelligence for Competitive Edge

   • Early engagement provides firsthand insights into what prospects truly value, allowing the organisation to adapt and tailor offerings in real-time rather than too late in the process.

Recommendation: A Quarter of ‘Early and Everywhere’

Sales leaders should commit to a 90-day pilot programme where they prioritise early-stage engagements over late-stage interventions. The objective is to measure the impact of this shift on pipeline quality, win rates, and sales efficiency.

We will continue gathering data on this approach and look forward to sharing further insights.

Happy selling!