Sales is usually discussed as a commercial function. Shirit Oren sees something broader in it.
At its core, selling requires a person to listen, understand competing priorities, communicate value clearly, and create enough trust for someone else to make a consequential decision. Those abilities do not stop being useful when a salesperson moves into management.
They become leadership skills.
Oren has experienced that progression firsthand. As Vice President of Sales at Uber Freight, she landed a billion dollar deal in 2024. The principles she used during that chapter of her career would eventually inform the Invisible YES Framework, an approach she now teaches through Shirit Oren Consulting.
“People don’t buy products, they buy outcomes,” she says.
Sales Is Really About Decisions
Oren’s statement points toward a larger idea about influence.
Whether someone is selling a service, presenting a strategy to executives, or leading a team through change, the challenge is rarely to communicate information alone. The other person needs to understand why the decision matters and what result it could produce.
Oren’s sales philosophy begins with that outcome.
Instead of approaching the buyer as someone who needs to be persuaded, she encourages sales professionals to understand what the person is trying to accomplish. That shifts the relationship from a contest between competing interests toward a conversation about whether both sides can create value together.
Oren describes this as selling as a service.
What High Stakes Selling Can Teach Leaders
Her billion dollar agreement at Uber Freight provides the most visible example behind the framework.
Deals at that level involve significant stakes. A salesperson cannot rely solely on enthusiasm for a product. There are concerns to understand, relationships to manage, and business outcomes that have to make sense to people with different responsibilities.
Those demands have parallels in leadership.
Executives routinely need to earn support for decisions they cannot simply impose. They have to communicate with people who may see the problem differently. They need to understand resistance before they can address it.
In that sense, Oren’s approach to sales is also an approach to influence.
From Corporate Leadership to Consulting
Through Shirit Oren Consulting, Oren now helps companies increase revenue by changing how their teams sell, communicate, and build trust.
Her work includes sales training, keynote speaking, and executive coaching. That combination allows her to address both sides of the equation: the people conducting customer conversations and the leaders shaping the environment in which those conversations happen.
A manager can teach a sales technique. Building a culture where people listen carefully, communicate clearly, and understand customer outcomes requires something deeper.
It requires leaders to model those behaviors themselves.
A Broader View of Selling
For people who associate sales with scripts and closing tactics, treating it as a leadership capability may seem unusual.
Oren’s career offers another way to look at it.
The skills behind a major sale are often the same ones organizations expect from strong leaders: judgment, communication, trust, curiosity, and an ability to connect decisions with meaningful outcomes.
The Invisible YES Framework grew from a sales achievement, but Oren’s work now reaches beyond a single deal or company.
Her larger argument is that selling, when approached as service rather than pressure, is ultimately about helping people make decisions with greater clarity.
That is useful behind a sales desk.
It can be equally valuable in the executive suite.
Learn More
Learn more about Shirit Oren, the Invisible YES Framework, sales training, keynote speaking, and executive coaching at Shirit Oren’s official website or follow @shirit_oren on Instagram.