Week Notes: Vol. 3 – № 15

Why is a design leader doing sales?

I manage a design department. But this year, the most important part of my job has nothing to do with pixels, tools, or even AI.

It’s sales.

Why? I want to grow a team. That’s been my mission ever since I landed at P3+Uplift. But how do you grow a team at an agency? Find more work.

How do you find work? Sell more projects.

Like winning, sales cures everything. The more projects that come in, the bigger the team can get.

Growing a team also means creating a space where exceptional talent can thrive. Challenging problems, standards for craftsmanship, and a say in the work – those are magnets for attracting the right people.

You can't have any of that without sales.

This isn't just true for agencies.

Even design and product leaders who feel insulated from the pressure to sell would be better served thinking this way.

Most enterprise executives see our departments as a cost center. One way to change this is knowing how the business grows, where the money comes from, and what is actually measured by the people who fund it.

McKinsey's research is clear: companies that treat design as a true differentiator outperform their peers.

Yet for all the talk of “fighting for the user” and being human-centered, there remains a disconnect between believing that and actually operating that way.

Most companies want to see themselves as design-led. Few actually are.

I hear from experienced designers who struggle to transition from making things to managing people who do. One way to bridge that gap is to shift your focus away from the work itself and pay attention to the outcomes that matter beyond the screen.

Sales teaches people in UX and product to align their mission with what someone else wants. This goes beyond influence or calculating ROI.

Forget the 'Always Be Closing' mantra. That’s manipulative.

What I’m talking about is a form of research. It's a crash course in negotiation, testing your value proposition, and building empathy.

Ask better questions and pay attention to the signals.

After a pitch you could easily walk away defeated, telling yourself and others that “they just don't get it.” And you'd be 100 percent right.

But it's not their fault. It's yours.

You didn't try to put your message through their lens. You didn't find a way to dovetail your wants with what they care about.

So why do I do sales? Because I know what I'm building toward.

It’s like the parable of the stone cutters.

A man comes across three stone cutters and asks each one what they're doing. One says “cutting stone.” Another says “earning a living.”

The third says “building a cathedral.”

Each doing the same work but with a completely different perspective.

Some days I hate the messages, the rejection, and most of all, the silence. But when I pause and ask, “what is the most valuable thing I could be doing right now?” it's always sales.

A cathedral doesn’t build itself.