Oddly enough, they’re related.

Because both raise the same question: How much should a leader know about what is really happening inside the organization they lead?

Every episode I have seen of “Undercover Boss” is basically the same. A leader of some organization dons a disguise and takes a frontline job at the company she or he leads. And, it never fails, there are a multitude of sins happening on the front line of which the executive is blissfully unaware. The leader has what some would call a “come to Jesus” moment where they realize what’s been going on, gift some overlooked but dedicated team members with cash or more to improve their lives, and make sure those who were closest to the sins the leader claims not to know receive their just deserts, discipline or termination.

If you must put on a costume to discover what it’s like to work for your company, the disguise isn’t your biggest problem.

Compare that to (and I’m paraphrasing) what Irsay-Gordon said on this afternoon’s broadcast. Last season she was critiqued—in some cases, lampooned—for wearing a headset and walking the sideline during the Colts’ games. Yet today, she opined words to the effect of, “What kind of owner and leader would I be if did not know what my managers and employees were encountering as they were competing?”

She mentioned one instance last season where coaches were blamed for a bad decision during a game. Irsay-Gordon knew why: the headsets they used to communicate with each other were inoperable. She knew because she was on the field with them. She’s there every game.

There’s an important distinction here. Being close to the work isn’t the same as interfering with the work. Great leaders don’t need to make every decision. But they should understand the environment in which those decisions are being made.

Proximity is not micromanagement. Proximity is intelligence.

She also emphasized that she’s not a football expert or controlling manager. She’s hired people to do their jobs, and she lets them do it. However, she is in the building every day meeting with coaches and players to offer ownership support and creating a culture with everyone from star players to the workers in the cafeteria.

Irsay-Gordon isn’t merely trying to make herself visible. In fact, visibility is what got her criticized. She is demonstrating something about what she believes ownership means.

Ownership isn’t the luxury box. Ownership is responsibility.

It’s easy for leaders to talk about what their organization stands for from the executive suite. It’s much harder—and much more meaningful—to get close enough to the work to discover whether employees and customers are actually experiencing it.

It doesn’t ensure the Colts will have a good season this year by any means. But the question for today is, wouldn’t you want to play for an owner like that? Wouldn’t you want to work for a leader like that?

Here’s a prediction: you’ll never see Carlie Irsay-Gordon on “Undercover Boss.” She knows too much about what’s happening in her company.

What’s this mean to you? You don’t have to wear a headset. You don’t have to walk a football sideline. And you certainly don’t need to put on a disguise. But if you lead an organization, you should be close enough to the people doing the work—and the customers experiencing it—to know what they are encountering.

The best leaders don’t go undercover to discover the truth about their organization. They stay close enough that the truth never has to find them.

“Are you a ‘sales bad-ass’? I hope not.”

I had seen a self-proclaimed sales guru touting a course while wearing a T-shirt that read, “I’m a sales bad-ass!”

Something about it bothered me. Actually, a lot about it troubled me.

Aggression was the foundation of an increasingly popular strain of sales advice in those days. Close harder. Objections? Annihilate them. Beat the competition. Take control of the dialog. Never accept a no for an answer.

My point in 2009 was pretty simple: Is that really the person any of us wants to buy from?

I wrote: “One way to sell more is to become the person you’d like to buy from.”

I still believe that. But seventeen years later, I would modify it slightly: Become the person you’d trust to help you decide.

That distinction matters more today than I could have ever guessed when I wrote the initial post. Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the game for sales professionals. And, oddly, it has made the concepts I wrote about in 2009 all the more crucial.

What I Got Right — and What I Couldn’t Have Foreseen

In that original article, I wrote: “The type of sales these ‘bro-sales’ guys are proclaiming is based upon a time when the salesperson had more information than the customer.”

That was becoming a reality in 2009. Today, it’s undeniable.

Back then, customers were discovering that they could go online and research products before talking with a salesperson. Now? Your customer may investigate you, your company, your competitors, your pricing, your reviews, your shortcomings, and your alternatives before they ever know they are considering a purchase.

They can watch YouTube reviews. Read Reddit threads. Study customer complaints. Compare features. Ask colleagues. Examine your executives on LinkedIn.

And now they can ask AI to synthesize all of it.

They can ask:

• “Compare these three products for my particular situation.”

• “What complaints do customers have about this company?”

• “What questions should I ask this salesperson?”

• “What am I missing before I make this decision?”

• They can even ask AI to help them negotiate with you.

The information advantage that salespeople once possessed isn’t merely disappearing. It’s gone.

And here’s the fascinating part: that doesn’t mean the salesperson has become irrelevant. It means the wrong kind of salesperson has.

AI Hasn’t Made Great Salespeople Obsolete. It Has Made Mediocre Salespeople Easier to Avoid.

Recent Gartner research provides an extraordinary snapshot of what’s happening. In 2026, Gartner reported that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a sales-rep-free experience, and 45% had used AI during a recent purchase.

If you sell for a living, those numbers ought to get your attention. But another Gartner finding is even more interesting. The firm subsequently reported that 69% of B2B buyers prefer to validate AI-generated insights with a sales representative.

Think about those two findings together.

1. Buyers increasingly don’t need salespeople to get information.

2. But they still value excellent salespeople to make sense of information.

That’s a hell of a difference. And I think it says something crucial about the future of selling.

• Yesterday’s salesperson controlled information.

• The bad salesperson controls pressure.

• Tomorrow’s great sales professional creates confidence.

Stop Trying to “Crush” Your Customer

Scroll through social media today and you’ll still encounter some of the same language I was complaining about in 2009.

• Crush objections.

• Dominate your market.

• 10X your pipeline.

• Close anyone and everyone.

• Become a killer.

• Be relentless.

Notice the language. Crush. Dominate. Overcome. Close.

Here’s the question I was really asking in 2009 — although I don’t think I articulated it quite this way: Where is the customer in any of that?

• If an objection is something to be “crushed,” what does that make the person raising it?

• If a prospect needs to be “closed,” whose interests are driving the conversation?

• If your primary objective is to 10X your revenue, what are you helping the customer accomplish?

Language reveals mindset.

And when our vocabulary always speaks of selling as winning, conquering, overcoming, dominating, and closing, we shouldn’t be shocked that customers think our interests may not be aligned with theirs. Great selling isn’t something you do to someone. It’s something you create with someone.

Sometimes The Best Salesperson Is The One Telling You Not to Buy

Here’s where my thinking has evolved most since 2009.

As mentioned earlier, I used to say: Become the person you’d like to buy from. Today I’d go further. Become the person you’d trust to help you decide.

Those aren’t necessarily the same thing. Because sometimes the most valuable thing a salesperson can say is, “I don’t think we’re the right solution for you.” Or: “You don’t need the more expensive option.” Or even, “Based on what you’ve told me, I think one of our competitors may actually be a better fit.”

That sounds like terrible advice if your only objective is closing today’s transaction. It sounds like exceptionally good advice if your objective is earning tomorrow’s trust.

There’s also a powerful test embedded in this: What do you stand FOR when standing for it costs you something?

It’s deceptively simple to claim that you put the customer first when doing so also maximizes your commission. The real test comes when the customer’s best interest and your immediate financial interest diverge. What happens then? That’s when your values stop being marketing language and become evidence.

The Sale Isn’t the Finish Line

There’s another sentence from my 2009 article that I’d change today. I wrote that sales were moving “from a transaction model to a subscription model.” That certainly happened in many industries. But the larger transformation is even more important.

The economics of selling have moved from winning transactions to earning relationships.

Even when there’s no literal subscription involved, today’s transaction can produce — or destroy — enormous future value.

• Reviews.

• Referrals.

• Renewals

• Upgrades.

• Introductions.

• Reputation.

• Advocacy.

• Future purchases.

The sale isn’t the finish line of the customer experience. It’s the starting point.

However, many are still teaching salespeople to celebrate “the close” as though the customer relationship has reached its ultimate objective. Yet, imagine proposing marriage and thinking the wedding ceremony represents successful completion of the relationship. That’s essentially what we’re doing when we treat “closing” as the ultimate measure of sales success.

The signature on the contract doesn’t tell us whether we’ve created a great customer. It merely tells us we’ve acquired one. What happens next determines whether we’ve earned one.

And Now We’re Selling to a Different Buyer

There’s another change we couldn’t have fully anticipated in 2009: The buyer has changed.

Forrester reported in 2024 that Millennials and Gen Z represented 71% of B2B buyers.

Think about the implications. We’re increasingly selling to generations that grew up with instant access to information, online reviews, social proof, digital purchasing, comparison tools, and algorithmic recommendations. Now add generative AI.

Imagine educating a salesperson in 2026 to sell to a consumer who researches with AI, checks Reddit, watches YouTube reviews, evaluates competitors online, and consults colleagues digitally, all with a sales philosophy born when the salesperson controlled access to the product brochure. That’s not tradition. That’s malpractice.

There Are Still No Secrets

One of the three principles in my original article was this:

“There are NO secrets to sales success that ‘they’ — whoever ‘they’ are — don’t want you to know.”

Seventeen years later, I might believe that even more strongly.

• There is no magic phrase that makes someone buy.

• There is no psychological trick that guarantees the close.

• There is no “secret objection destroyer.”

• There isn’t some hidden sequence of words that transforms a reluctant prospect into an eager customer.

And if someone tells you there is, notice that the person making the claim usually has something they’d like to sell you.

There are certainly skills worth learning.

• Great questions matter.

• Listening matters.

• Preparation matters.

• Understanding the customer’s business matters.

• Communication matters.

• Negotiation matters.

• Follow-up matters.

• Product knowledge matters.

But those aren’t secrets. They’re disciplines. And discipline isn’t nearly as easy to sell online as a secret.

So What’s the Sales Professional For?

This is the question AI forces every sales professional to answer.

• If AI can provide information...

• If websites can provide specifications...

• If algorithms can provide recommendations...

• If customers can compare alternatives without speaking to you...

What are you FOR?

I believe the answer is increasingly clear. Here are seven aspects you’re there to provide:

1. You’re there to provide judgment.

2. Context.

3. Empathy.

4. Perspective.

5. Experience.

6. Courage.

7. And, ultimately, confidence.

Your job isn’t merely to make the customer confident in your product. Your job is to help the customer become confident in their decision.

Sometimes those two things will produce exactly the same outcome. Sometimes they won’t. And the customer’s ability to trust you may depend upon whether you’re willing to acknowledge the difference.

Seventeen Years Later, I Still Don’t Want to Be a Sales Bad-Ass

Looking back at what I wrote in 2009, there are phrases I’d change. There are examples I’d update. There are predictions I’d expand on. But I wouldn’t change the central belief.

The future doesn’t belong to the salesperson who can pressure someone into saying yes. AI can provide information. Websites can provide specifications. Algorithms can provide recommendations. Customers can compare alternatives without ever speaking with you. So when a customer finally chooses to spend their increasingly precious time with a human being, that human being had better provide something the technology cannot.

Judgment. Empathy. Context. Courage. Trust.

Don’t become a “sales bad-ass.” Become the person your customer is relieved to have in the room when the decision really matters.

Because the best sales professionals aren’t defined by how aggressively they stand out.

They’re defined by what they stand FOR.

I don’t know who originally wrote it, but I immediately thought about business, because every organization eventually encounters a storm.

• A recession.

• A disruptive competitor.

• A technological transformation.

• A public mistake.

• The loss of a major customer.

• A crisis no strategic plan anticipated.

• Or, increasingly, the kind of turbulence where several of those things seem to arrive at once.

And when the storm hits, it’s tempting to focus on the leaves.

• What can we do to get noticed?

• How can we generate more attention?

• How can we make more noise than the competition?

• How can we prove that we’re still relevant?

• In other words: How can we stand out?

But storms don’t really test your ability to stand out. They test what you stand FOR.

You can still be loud during a storm. You can launch a clever campaign. You can cut prices. You can issue statements. You can increase your social media activity. You can chase the newest technology or copy whatever your competitor appears to be doing successfully.

Those are the leaves. And leaves can look impressive right up until the wind starts blowing.

But, roots are different. Your roots are the convictions that determine what you will do — and what you won’t do — when doing the right thing becomes difficult.

• They’re the promises you’ll keep when keeping them becomes expensive.

• They’re the customers you’ll take care of when the spreadsheet suggests there’s a cheaper alternative.

• They’re the employees you’ll treat with dignity when you’re under enormous pressure.

• They’re the standards you refuse to compromise when compromising them might improve this quarter’s numbers.

• They’re the reason your people can make good decisions when there isn’t a policy telling them exactly what to do.

A value isn’t really a value until it costs you something.

Until then, it might simply be marketing copy. That’s why I believe turbulence is such an important test of distinction. (I write about this in my latest book, “Beyond Distinction: How Leaders Transcend the Turbulence of an AI-Transformed World.”)When everything is going well, almost every organization can claim to be customer-focused. Every leader can talk about integrity. Every company can put impressive values on the wall. The storm asks a more difficult question:

Do you still believe it when believing it becomes inconvenient?

That’s the test of the roots. And customers notice. Employees notice. Partners notice.

Perhaps most importantly, you notice, because the decisions you make under pressure become evidence of who you really are.

There’s another aspect of the metaphor I find fascinating.

Healthy roots aren’t grown during the storm.

By then, it’s too late. Roots are developed quietly, consistently, long before they’re desperately needed. The same is true for organizations. You don’t suddenly manufacture trust during a crisis. You draw upon the trust you’ve already earned.

You don’t invent a culture when business gets difficult. You discover the culture you’ve actually created.

You don’t decide what you stand for when the winds begin to howl. The storm reveals whether you knew what you stood for all along.

This is why I’ve become increasingly convinced that the future of distinction isn’t merely about becoming more visible, more different, or even more innovative. I certainly realize that those things matter, but they aren’t roots. In a turbulent marketplace — especially one being transformed at extraordinary speed by AI and technological change — tactics will change constantly.

• Competitors will copy your innovations.

• Technology will erase advantages.

• Customer expectations will evolve.

• What worked yesterday may become irrelevant tomorrow.

Tactics depreciate. Conviction appreciates.

The organizations that endure won’t necessarily be the ones with the most leaves, they’ll be the ones with the deepest roots.

So perhaps leaders should ask a different question. Not simply: “What are we doing to stand out?” But: “When the next storm arrives, will our decisions prove what we stand FOR?” Because storms will come. And when they do, the marketplace won’t merely discover how distinctive your organization looks...

It will discover how deeply your distinction is rooted.

The company has every right to change course. In fact, it probably had no choice.

Jaguar’s previous strategy wasn’t working. Sales had declined, its vehicles were reportedly producing almost no profit, and continuing to do more of the same would have been an act of corporate denial.

But here is the question no one should overlook:

That is not merely a change in price. It is a request for an entirely different position in the customer’s mind. And you can raise your price in an afternoon. It may take a generation to raise your position.

The Market Does Not Owe You Context

Jaguar introduced its reinvention with a radical new identity and an attention-grabbing campaign built around the theme “Copy Nothing.” The campaign featured vividly dressed models, provocative imagery, and slogans such as “Delete Ordinary” and “Live Vivid.”

What it did not feature was a Jaguar automobile.

The reaction was immediate, intense, and frequently unflattering. Gerry McGovern, Jaguar Land Rover’s former chief creative officer and one of the architects of the reinvention, recently defended the campaign. He said the film had been “taken out of context” and that it was connected to other communications “that nobody got to see.”

That defense is revealing. If the customer needed additional context to understand the message—but never received it—the problem is not that the customer misunderstood. The problem is that the organization failed to communicate.

Leaders often evaluate a message according to what they intended. Customers can only evaluate what they experienced.

Intent belongs to the organization. Meaning belongs to the audience. The marketplace does not owe us the context we failed to provide. If the supporting communication was something nobody saw, it did not “support” anything.

Reinvention May Be Necessary. Disconnection Is Not.

I am not among those who believe Jaguar should have protected everything about its past. Heritage is valuable, but nostalgia is not a strategy. When sales are declining, and profitability is disappearing, “Stay the course” can become the most dangerous advice a leader receives. What got you here may be exactly what is preventing you from getting there.

Jaguar needed reinvention. But necessary change does not automatically validate the direction of that change.

There is a significant difference between transforming a brand and disconnecting it from the sources of meaning that gave the brand value in the first place.

Jaguar’s name still carries associations with British elegance, distinctive design, performance, beauty, and a certain rebellious sophistication. Those associations represent decades of accumulated customer meaning. A successful reinvention should not be imprisoned by that heritage. But neither should it casually discard it.

Transformation requires a bridge. Customers need to recognize enough of the organization’s enduring truth to understand why the new enterprise still deserves the old name.

That is why “Copy Nothing” is both a compelling ambition and a potential strategic trap.

Copy nothing cannot mean connect to nothing.

A Higher Price Is Not a Higher Position

The logic behind Jaguar’s strategy is understandable.

The company could not match the scale, breadth, and market strength of the German luxury brands. Moving upmarket would allow Jaguar to sell fewer vehicles at significantly higher margins. Instead of competing model-for-model, it could emphasize design, exclusivity, scarcity, and heritage. But this strategy depends on an assumption that deserves closer scrutiny: That increasing the price will increase the prestige.

It usually works the other way around.

Customers must first perceive greater prestige, craftsmanship, exclusivity, service, and meaning. Only then does the organization earn permission to charge the higher price.

Bentley and Rolls-Royce do not merely manufacture expensive cars. They deliver an entire ecosystem of exclusivity. The product, personalization, dealership environment, purchasing process, ownership experience, service standards, and social meaning all reinforce the position.

Jaguar is not simply entering a more expensive category. It is entering a category with fundamentally different customer expectations.

A company can announce a higher price. It cannot announce higher status. That status must be conferred by the marketplace.

Price is what the company asks. Position is what the customer believes.

Position Comes Before Price

This is where Jaguar’s challenge reveals a larger lesson for every leader attempting to move an organization upmarket.

• What you stand FOR establishes your position.

• Your position creates preference.

• Preference produces pricing power.

• And pricing power becomes evidence that you genuinely stand out.

Too many organizations reverse that sequence.

They increase the price, redesign the logo, change the language, add the word “premium,” and expect the marketplace to accept their new position.

But a premium price is not a positioning strategy. It is the economic reward for a position the marketplace already recognizes and values. The correct sequence is:

Conviction → Performance → Position → Preference → Premium

It begins with conviction: a clear and consequential understanding of what the organization stands FOR.

That conviction must then be translated into performance. Customers must experience it in the product, the service, the communication, and every significant interaction.

• Consistent performance establishes a credible position.

• A credible position creates customer preference.

• And customer preference produces the ability to command a premium.

Jaguar appears to be beginning with the premium and trusting that the marketplace will supply the rest. That is not impossible. But it is an extraordinarily demanding wager.

Standing Out Is Earned

Jaguar’s campaign unquestionably stood out. It generated headlines, arguments, criticism, curiosity, and an enormous amount of attention. But attention is not the same as understanding. Controversy is not the same as connection. And visibility is not the same as value.

This is the danger of treating “standing out” as the objective. Organizations can become so determined to be noticed that they neglect to establish why customers should care.

Standing out is not something an organization announces. It is something the organization earns by consistently demonstrating what it stands FOR.

Jaguar can announce that it intends to compete with Bentley and Rolls-Royce. But neither Jaguar’s executives nor its competitors determine whether it belongs in that category --because that’s what customers do.

The marketplace must decide whether the design is sufficiently compelling, the performance sufficiently impressive, the craftsmanship sufficiently extraordinary, and the ownership experience sufficiently distinctive to justify the position—and the price.

A higher price may signal ambition. It does not prove distinction.

The Final Verdict Has Not Been Written

Jaguar may eventually prove its critics wrong. Its new Type 01 could be magnificent. The production vehicle is scheduled to be revealed in October, and it may provide the missing evidence that makes the company’s strategy coherent.

If the product is extraordinary enough, customers may look back at the controversial campaign as the beginning of one of the boldest and most successful transformations in automotive history.

But even if the vehicle succeeds, the communication lesson remains.

• A strategy that can only be understood through material the customer never saw has not been successfully communicated.

• A position that exists primarily in the boardroom has not yet been established in the marketplace.

• And a premium price attached to an unproven position is still an aspiration—not an achievement.

Leaders must be willing to transform organizations that are no longer working. But transformation does not mean abandoning everything customers once valued. It means carrying the organization’s most meaningful truths forward in a form that is relevant to its future.

Jaguar wanted to copy nothing. That is a bold ambition.

But no organization—not even one pursuing radical reinvention—can afford to connect to nothing.

• Attention may open the door.

• Understanding creates relevance.

• Performance builds trust.

And only then does position earn the premium.

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