Throughout my career, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some amazing evangelists — charismatic, passionate people who could move hearts and minds.
Founders, product leads, industry marketers, even solution engineers.
From time to time, I’d hear people say they were “the greatest salespeople!”
But I didn’t agree.
Oh, they could sell — brilliantly, in fact — but they weren’t salespeople. To call them that is to misunderstand what enterprise selling really is.
Make no mistake: being persuasive matters. Creating an emotional response, moving hearts and minds…it’s essential. But it’s not enough.
Necessary, but not sufficient.
When I talk to my team about this, I ask them to remember a time they had a “magical meeting” — that pivotal session where a powerful internal evangelist turned the room in their favour.
Then I ask:
• Who made that meeting happen?
• Who identified the people who needed to be there, from both sides?
• Who pulled together the briefing and tailored the talk track to each stakeholder’s priorities and biases?
Whoever that was — that’s the salesperson.
If you’re lucky enough to be both the strategist and the evangelist, that’s a gift.
But you don’t need to be the most impressive voice in the room to be the one who wins it.
When you’re the conductor, you can let someone else play the solo.
