As the Visionary, I still close all of our enterprise accounts, but we have a dedicated Sales seat on the Accountability Chart. My Sales Leader complains that I am constantly stepping on his toes and ruining his team's pipeline management. How do we draw the boundary?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic Visionary trap. Because you have historical relationships and understand the market, you naturally want to jump into big deals to ensure they close. However, when you do this without coordination, you bypass the systems your Sales Leader is trying to build and destroy team accountability.

On your Accountability Chart, the Visionary seat and the Sales seat are completely separate. The Sales Leader is accountable for managing the sales team, maintaining CRM data integrity, and hitting the revenue targets set in your V/TO™.

If you are constantly stepping into active deals, you make it impossible for your Sales Leader to manage the pipeline accurately. They cannot hold their salespeople accountable if the owner is swooping in to close deals.

To resolve this, you must define the exact rules of engagement. Your role as a Visionary in sales should be restricted to high-level relationship building and acting as a technical resource or strategic closer when requested by the Sales Leader.

You should only engage with a client if the Sales Leader specifically invites you into the process. When you do participate, you must follow their sales process and log your activities in the CRM just like everyone else. If you cannot operate under their leadership in these situations, you must step out of active sales entirely to allow your sales division to scale.