By Nhlanhla Nkomo, Head of Sales: SPM
Sales is often spoken about in numbers. Targets, pipelines, win rates, quarterly forecasts. Those metrics matter, but they only describe the surface of the role. Beneath them sits a quieter, heavier responsibility that few outside the function fully see. The burden of sales is not persuasion. It is accountability.
In senior sales roles, you become the point where expectations collect. Client ambition, operational capacity, financial pressure and strategic intent all converge at the same place. When revenue softens, sales is asked why. When delivery strains, sales is asked what was promised. When strategy shifts, sales is expected to translate it into certainty for the market, often before certainty exists internally. You are holding the organisation’s risk profile in every conversation you have.
In capital-intensive, engineering-led businesses, the weight is amplified. These are not impulse decisions. Clients are not buying products. They are buying continuity, safety, reliability and trust. A signature can commit resources years into the future. A misstep can damage reputation beyond a single contract. Sales becomes the steward of long-term consequence, long before consequence is visible.
There is an assumption that experienced sales leaders thrive on pressure. That assumption misses the point. Pressure is not the challenge. The challenge is carrying responsibility across systems you do not fully control. You negotiate terms while understanding that delivery teams will carry the operational reality. You pursue growth while knowing capacity is finite. You manage optimism without slipping into overcommitment. The burden is not closing the deal. It is protecting the organisation from its own overconfidence.
Sales leadership also absorbs uncertainty so others can focus. Markets shift faster than planning cycles. Clients change scope midstream. Procurement environments harden without warning. Internally, cost pressures rise, resources thin, priorities compete. Sales sits at the centre of that turbulence. The role becomes one of translation. Turning ambiguity into clarity. Turning hesitation into forward movement. Turning complexity into something a client can trust.
This is why mature sales leadership looks different from the caricature. It is quieter. More deliberate. Less reactive. The work happens long before proposals are submitted or negotiations begin. It happens in deciding which opportunities not to pursue. In asking hard questions early. In pushing back when timing, readiness or risk are misaligned. Saying no carries as much responsibility as closing yes.
There is also a human load that rarely gets named. Sales leaders are expected to project confidence even when the ground is moving. Teams take their cues from that steadiness. Clients rely on it. Executives depend on it. You cannot outsource that emotional discipline. You hold doubt privately so that the business can move publicly with conviction.
The irony is that the better the sales function becomes at doing this work, the less visible it is. When sales is effective, operations run smoother. Delivery looks effortless. Growth appears organic. When sales falters, every crack shows. That asymmetry is part of the burden. Success is shared quietly. Failure is owned loudly.
This is why organisations that treat sales as a volume function struggle with resilience. Revenue built on pressure rather than judgment erodes trust over time. Sales maturity is not about chasing every opportunity. It is about alignment. Between promise and capability. Between ambition and infrastructure. Between short-term targets and long-term credibility.
For engineers, operators and technical specialists, sales can look deceptively simple. A conversation. A pitch. A contract. In reality, those outputs sit on top of layered risk assessment, contextual awareness and strategic filtering. Sales leaders carry a responsibility to protect technical teams from unrealistic expectations, even when clients push hard. That advocacy often happens quietly, behind closed doors, without applause.
The burden of sales is not something to be removed. It is something to be recognised and carried with intention. When sales leaders are trusted as stewards rather than pushers, organisations gain stability. When they are brought into strategic conversations early, risk decreases. When their role is understood as connective tissue rather than transaction engine, growth becomes sustainable.
This is not an argument for sympathy. It is an argument for realism. Sales is one of the few functions that touches every part of the organisation and the market at the same time. That position carries weight. It should.
In strong businesses, sales does not promise the impossible. It commits to what can be delivered with integrity. It carries pressure so the organisation can move forward with confidence rather than bravado. That is the real burden of sales. And it is also its value.
