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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.