If you’re trying to figure out how to take your startup from its promising initial sales drive to the consistent growth that will let it stabilize into a thriving company, you need to look hard at your relationship to your sales team. Selling is an art, and it’s a different one from launching companies, which means many entrepreneurs don’t spend enough time developing their selling team or working with them. This is unfortunate, because many customers respond better to companies that have a visible founder or owner out front selling the product.

It’s not hard to understand why this is. If you’ve started the company and you believe in what you are doing, it’s natural for customers to expect you’ll also like to talk about it. What they often don’t understand is that there’s a difference between being enthusiastic about your business and being able to pitch the product. As an entrepreneur, you need to develop those pitching skills to most effectively meet the customers where they are. It will not only help your overall sales by appealing to the customers that say seeing the owner selling is important, it will also boost morale on your team, and it will make customers more enthusiastic about working with your other personnel.

Most of the same reasons that active management improves teamwork translate to the selling environment, except it’s both the customers and the staff that benefit. Your enthusiasm for selling your goods and services sets a tone for your staff, allowing you to lead by example instead of spending a lot of time giving notes on performance to the team. This makes it easier for them to understand what you want out of your sales staff and it gives them a sense that they are just as important to your company as the other departments you work directly with.

How long should you stay out front selling? Well, there’s a good reason why so many of the world’s biggest brands use their founders as spokespeople. It’s never a bad idea to be out there as the face of your own company, and you’ll never get too big to benefit from it. If you’re wondering why your sales aren’t picking up speed as fast as you expected them to, the first thing you need to ask is whether you’re spending enough time hustling for numbers yourself. If you’re giving it your all, the next thing you need to do is challenge your team to outsell you.