I had a brainstorming session with my team today. There were around a dozen people in the conference including people from HR, Product, Sales, Design, and Marketing. As the session progressed the most high leverage ideas came from the sales people. Their ideas beat everyone else’s idea based on quantity and quality.

I was unconscious about this pattern until it hit me that the ideas brought up by the sales guys were the ones other members of the team best understood and wanted to be a part

of. Why is that? I asked.

I think the reason is because the sales people interact with the customers so often that they understand their hot buttons, wants and frustrations better than everyone in the company. They know what will make the sale, they know how to position the product, they know what is value and what is not and they know the customer’s language.

Not everyone has to be a sales person to “get it”, we just need to interact with the customers more to be able to “get it”.