[nullspace]

I don't know... I might be having a reverse-survivor bias seeing, being in and contributing to failure, but I've _never_ seen a case where "let's increase our sales headcount" strategy actually did anything (EDIT: i.e. when things are bad. Of course, if things are good, sales is a key driver to growth)

If you need "more sales" to fix it, the problem often lies somewhere else.

[skeeter2020]

>> I've _never_ seen a case where "let's increase our sales headcount" strategy actually did anything

no one said hire sales people; rather if you've got a problem, first look at increasing sales before you put your efforts elsewhere. This will either fix the problem or explicitly identify it.

[nullspace]

Yep! Totally agree. This is good advice.

[tnolet]

I meant “sales” as transactions, not “sales” as in the department or role.

[samatman]

The commenter with the advice clearly mean "sales" as the department or role.

To a founder or CEO the word "revenue" is used where you're using "sales", it isn't wrong except in context but the intention was unambiguous to me.

[lostcolony]

So in the comment chain we have -

The original comment which said "more sales"; I've never heard someone in business refer to salespersons with the cutesy "sales" so I don't think it's reasonable to think "more sales" refers to people, and if they meant a larger department they would have said "larger department", not "more (department)".

The comment below that also says "sales fixes everything", which, again, same logic as the original (and has the same author as two below where they clearly say "we're talking sales of things").

The comment below that is the only one clearly confusing sales people/department, with sales of things, "I don't think you can solve it with more sales people".

The comment you're directly responding to said "We're not talking about sales people or the department, we're talking about actual sales of things".

And you're saying someone, other than the person being corrected, 'clearly' meant the department or role? Nah.

[a4isms]

It's ambiguous, and not that clear-cut.

Expressions like "A 20% increase in sales" are almost never used to describe an 20% increase in the sales department's headcount or budget. Most people would interpret that as a 20% increase in revenue from sales.

"Cost of Sales (COS)" in finance refers to the cost of making a sale, including all the costs required to produce the good or service sold, not just the compensation and other expenses associated with a sales department.

"Sales" as a noun does often refer to teh sales department, but there are times when it absolutely unambiguously means that, times when it almost never is interpreted as that, and times when it could go either way and a word like "revenue" would be clearer, but that doesn't make using the word" sales" to refer to revenue wrong.

[otterley]

I believe the word revenue was simply elided in this case. i.e., parse as “sales revenue.”

(I’m noticing elsewhere in this thread that others are interpreting “sales” as sales departments or salespeople. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing, where the meaning of the plain word varies depending on where you live.)

[rileyphone]

IMO "sales" in OP referred to revenue generating transactions.

[armc]

OP here... I didn't realize how literally the words would be taken, so:

Few problems (a/k/a most problems) can be solved with more sales (a/k/a sales as a P&L line item equating to revenue); but OF COURSE its what you do with the increased revenue/sales that matters. Buying a Bentley isn't going to solve the business problem.

[marcosdumay]

"Sales fixes everything" means that when you look at any random problem like "turnout is really big, how we can keep people for longer?"¹, often the fastest solution is to answer "hey, how can we increase sales?".

Answering that later question can lead you into any direction. Maybe you need more sales people, maybe your product sucks, maybe you must spend more on marketing. The point is not on how, the point is that the later one is the one goal you can have more impact on, and it will lead you into solving the former.

1 - On this case, with higher salaries, but there isn't enough money to increase them, thus the actionable question.