General News
The Foundation: Sales is Still a People’s Game, Even at Scale – Isoken Aigbomian
In every leadership role, one fact remains non-negotiable: the way you lead directly determines whether your teams deliver sustainable growth or not, whether your team will thrive or struggle.
Sales is not just about numbers on a dashboard. Strategy, process, and technology all matter, but people make the difference. At scale, your leadership style becomes the multiplier (or limiter) of your team’s performance.
Strategies matter, processes matter, but how you lead will always influence whether those strategies succeed. When I shifted my focus from simply managing results to leading with intent, I noticed a dramatic change in how my sales unit delivered.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to share my experience with other leaders about what it really takes to drive growth through sales and how managers can build teams that are both productive and resilient.
Here are five leadership principles that transformed how my teams performed:
1. Communicate Vision, Not Just Targets
It’s tempting to throw out numbers and expect people to deliver. But numbers alone don’t inspire.
Before I assign a target, I make sure my team understands the bigger picture: why the target matters, how it connects to the company’s growth, and what role they play in achieving it.
When people see the “why,” the work becomes personal. Hitting a target shifts from being “the company’s win” to “our win.” That shift builds ownership, and with ownership comes motivation.
Practical takeaway: Don’t just say “Here’s your quota.” Show how hitting it helps the whole team and organisation move forward.
2. Master the Art of Active Listening
Salespeople are trained to listen closely to customers. You listen to their words, nonverbal cues and uncover those needs they have not even verbalised: The same applies to leadership.
As a manager, you need to listen with intention: not just to hear concerns, but to spot opportunities. For example, one of my team members once pointed out inefficiencies in how we tracked leads. As soon as they broke down the gap they had detected, I reviewed that particular process, and we ended up redesigning: that course correction saved us from an inefficient system.
When people feel genuinely heard, they become more engaged and more committed.
Practical takeaway: Don’t just wait for your turn to speak. Ask questions, listen deeply, and act on what you learn. Also, encourage your team members to speak out.
3. Balance Accountability with Support
High-performing teams thrive on clarity and ownership, not micromanagement.
As a manager, it’s your job to set clear expectations and then provide the support needed to meet them. This means:
Explaining how each person’s role contributes to the bigger goals.
Being clear about rewards and consequences.
Giving your team a safe channel to share strategies or challenges, and offering guidance when needed.
Encouraging autonomy, so people can make decisions and grow.
When accountability and support work together, you create an environment where people take ownership and push themselves to succeed.
👉 Practical takeaway: Hold your team to high standards, but back them with the tools, resources, and trust they need.
4. Build a Culture of Curiosity and Continuous Learning
Sales is constantly changing: new tools, new customer behaviors, evolving customer requirements, new competition. If you keep using yesterday’s strategies, you will lead your team to redundancy.
I train my managers to remain curious, try out new approaches, and learn continuously. For instance, when we adopted a new sales automation tool, I made it a point to test it with the team and show how it could reduce manual work. Within weeks, adoption skyrocketed because curiosity and learning were already part of our culture.
👉 Practical takeaway: Create space for your team to experiment, share lessons, and explore new technology.
5. Lead with Empathy
Empathy in leadership doesn’t mean being “soft.” It means understanding your team’s challenges and guiding them through with clarity and confidence. Your can be firm and empathetic, these two words are not mutually exclusive.
I’ve found that incorporating empathy helps me inspire trust in my team members. And when people trust you, they’ll follow you through tough targets and difficult quarters.
👉 Practical takeaway: Show your team you’re invested in their success, not just their output. That builds the loyalty and collaboration needed for long-term results.
Overcoming Challenges: The Reality of Leadership
No leadership journey is smooth. I’ve faced moments when:
Motivation across the team dipped.
Targets looked unreachable.
Competitors gained an edge.
In those moments, my role wasn’t just to push harder. It was to reframe these setbacks as learning opportunities and build a strategy to overcome these setbacks. I often share my own past mistakes with my team: not to excuse failure, but to show how to bounce back stronger.
Encouraging a growth mindset and focusing on solutions helped us keep momentum even in tough times.
👉 Practical takeaway: Don’t shy away from failures. Use them as teaching moments and opportunities to build resilience in your team.
What Next? Invest in People
If you’re managing a team today, remember this: processes and tools can only take you so far. People deliver the results.
Improve your communication skills.
Balance firmness with empathy.
Practice active listening.
Create a culture of continuous learning.
The Bottom Line
Sales success is not just about chasing numbers. It’s about practicing genuine leadership.
That sometimes means making tough calls, even when you’d rather be liked. Many new managers struggle here but real leadership is about making those decisions that will help your team succeed long-term, not just in the moment.
Do your team members see your targets as their goals too? If not, that’s your first leadership challenge to solve.
Isoken Aigbomian is a consummate professional who serves as Regional Sales Manager, Enterprise Network Sales Division at Moniepoint Inc
Renewable energy firm Daystar Power Group has expanded its installed solar capacity across West Africa through a partnership with Nestlé, bringing total deployments to 6,884 kilowatt-peak (kWp), or nearly 7 megawatts (MW), in what the company describes as one of the largest commercial and industrial solar partnerships in the region.
Four manufacturing facilities across Nestlé sites in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Senegal are now operational, with installations located in Abidjan, Tema and Dakar.
Daystar Power has installed 3,447 kWp across two sites in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. In Ghana, a 2,547 kWp system powers Nestlé’s Tema factory, while in Senegal an 890 kWp installation operates at the Dakar facility.
The company said each system is designed to deliver measurable environmental impact, including reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved energy resilience.
The installations are tailored to local operational and grid conditions to ensure reliable renewable energy supply while supporting Nestlé’s net-zero ambitions and its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Nearly 7MW across four Nestlé facilities is a number we are proud of, but what it represents matters more than the figure itself. It means that one of the world’s most demanding manufacturers has tested our model, trusted it, and come back. Our job now is to keep earning that across every market where industry needs energy it can count on,” said Yischai Beinisch, CEO of Daystar Power Group.
Samer Chedid, CEO of Nestlé Central and West Africa Region, said: “This investment reflects our commitment to building a business that not only grows but does so responsibly.
“By advancing solar energy projects in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, we are embedding sustainability into our growth, reinforcing our role as a force for good, creating long-term value for communities and ensuring that our footprint actively contributes to a cleaner, more resilient future.”
The National Credit Guarantee Company Limited (NCGC) and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at supporting access to finance for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria.
The agreement was signed at the NCGC headquarters in Abuja and outlines areas of cooperation between the two agencies, including financial literacy programmes, credit guarantee support, capacity building, and other initiatives targeted at small businesses.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, NCGC Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Bonaventure Okhaimo, said the partnership is intended to provide a framework for expanding financing opportunities available to MSMEs.
According to him, small and medium-sized enterprises play a significant role in economic activity and employment generation across the country.
Okhaimo said NCGC has facilitated ₦32.78 billion in credit and provided over ₦13.09 billion in guarantees through its partnerships with financial institutions. He added that 1,478 businesses and entrepreneurs have benefited from the financing interventions, with 1,682 jobs reportedly created or sustained.
Also speaking, SMEDAN Director-General, Charles Odii, said the collaboration would enable the agency to connect more small businesses with available financing opportunities, particularly Nano and Micro enterprises that often face challenges accessing credit.
The two organisations said the partnership would also involve stakeholder engagement and awareness campaigns to provide information on financing options and the use of credit guarantees in lending arrangements.
The agreement forms part of ongoing efforts by both agencies to support enterprise development and improve access to financial services for small businesses across the country.
Observers say access to finance remains one of the major constraints facing Nigerian MSMEs, making collaborations between public institutions an important aspect of broader economic development initiatives.
Elon Musk is no longer a trillionaire after a sharp global sell-off in technology stocks wiped an estimated $500bn (£379bn) from his personal fortune.
Elon Musk
The billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk had recently become the first individual to reach the trillion-dollar milestone following a record-breaking listing surge for his rocket company SpaceX earlier this month.
However, shares in SpaceX have since fallen by around 30% from their peak, while Tesla was also caught in a broader technology market downturn on Tuesday, June 23.
His net worth now stands at $957.1bn, according to analysis by Bloomberg, while calculations by Forbes suggest his fortune previously peaked at $1.45tn last week.
The drop in Musk’s wealth over the past week exceeds the total fortune of Larry Page, whose estimated net worth stands at just under $297bn.
The decline comes amid two consecutive days of losses on Wall Street, with more than $89bn wiped from Tesla’s market value after its shares fell 5.8% on Tuesday. Chipmaker Nvidia also dropped 4.1% during the same session.
Traders have warned that further volatility may follow after memory-chip producer Micron Technology prepares to release its third-quarter results, amid concerns that artificial intelligence valuations may be overheating.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs cautioned that AI-linked stocks could be vulnerable if there are signs of slowing investment from major tech firms.
Ben McKeown, an investment manager at Dowgate Wealth, said Musk’s fortune remains highly exposed due to its concentration in two major holdings.
He said: “The old adage is, you concentrate to build wealth and diversify to keep it. Musk is the most extreme example of this.
Almost his entire net worth sits in Tesla and SpaceX, which have been extremely volatile, especially SpaceX as the shareholder base starts to be unlocked and becomes free to sell.”
Musk had briefly become the world’s first trillionaire on June 12 following the listing surge of SpaceX, which saw its shares jump as much as 67% in its first three days of trading after an IPO that valued the company at more than $1.8tn.
However, the stock later fell for three consecutive sessions, erasing around $928bn in market value from a peak of $2.9tn to just over $2tn, before a slight recovery.
The scale of his recent wealth decline is now considered the largest on record, surpassing his previous loss in 2022 when his fortune fell by an estimated $165bn amid a slump in Tesla shares.
Another billionaire affected by recent market turbulence is Larry Ellison, whose net worth peaked at around $400bn last September before falling to approximately $210bn following a major sell-off in Oracle shares.
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