Head of Sales Responsibilities: What to Delegate

Head of sales responsibilities include planning sales, managing salespeople and deals, training the team, overseeing the CRM system and reporting to the business owner. The head of sales organises work so that salespeople meet the agreed sales plan and keep their promises to customers. To do this, they assign tasks, examine the causes of problems and make sure decisions are carried out within their authority.

You might need this list before a conversation with the head of sales, for example: they have staff, yet you are once again left dealing with an unhappy customer. A salesperson promised that work would start on Monday. The team doing the work did not accept the order for Monday. The head of sales considers the sale complete and the rest a matter for another department.

Adding “be responsible for the customer” to their duties is easy. But then the head of sales will either start giving orders to other departments’ staff or receive another requirement they have no means of meeting. I think it is more useful for the owner to define the point to which the head of sales must take an order and who accepts it next. Below are the main responsibilities and a way to agree this boundary without turning the head of sales into the boss of the whole company.

Main responsibilities of a head of sales: from the sales plan to the order handover

Prepare the sales plan and explain what it is based on

The owner sets the business goal. The head of sales calculates how the sales team will achieve it: through which customers, products and actions. They divide the work among salespeople and show in advance what is missing for the sales plan: demand, skills, salespeople or the capacity to fulfil orders.

You should require the head of sales to provide an agreed sales plan with the information and limits it is based on. If the owner’s goal is higher than what the team can achieve now, the head of sales presents options for changing the conditions. Silently agreeing to any figure deprives the owner of a choice while there is still time to make it.

Manage deals and salespeople’s workloads

The head of sales decides who takes new enquiries, who handles repeat orders and how customers are handed over when a salesperson is absent. When problems arise, they choose an action: help with negotiations, change the offer within the permitted limits, involve a specialist or stop work that has no prospect of success.

Their results here are visible in the decisions made and the promises kept to the customer. Every delay has someone responsible for addressing it. The owner does not have to assign customers to individual salespeople or work out who should call today.

Train salespeople on specific difficulties

The head of sales decides what an employee needs to learn based on their work. If a salesperson describes the product but does not find out what the customer needs to achieve, the head of sales reviews that conversation, shows them the questions to ask and checks whether they used them when handling the next suitable enquiry.

Giving everyone the same training without a reason is a poor substitute for this responsibility. One employee cannot explain the offer; another can, but rushes to promise an unconfirmed deadline. Different actions are needed, and the head of sales must recognise the difference.

Take part in hiring and help new staff get started

The head of sales describes the future salesperson’s tasks, assesses candidates against those tasks, organises training for the newcomer and decides what they can already handle independently. The owner approves spending and makes staffing decisions in their company.

The team must be clear about what the newcomer can do independently: prepare a standard proposal on their own, but get a non-standard deadline approved first. Without this boundary, the head of sales only discovers a gap in training through a promise the employee has already made to a customer.

Keep information reliable and provide a forecast

Salespeople record information about customers and their work. The head of sales sets requirements for this information and uses it to explain the expected result, delays and losses. They are responsible for making sure the report matches what is actually happening in deals.

The owner needs the overall result, significant changes and decisions that require their involvement. Filling in records for salespeople every day should not become a separate, permanent job for the head of sales.

Suggest changes to incentives and selling methods

If the current rules encourage unwanted behaviour, the head of sales shows the connection between the rule and the team’s actions. For example, a salesperson rushes to count an order towards their results and keeps quiet about the fact that the start date for the work has not yet been confirmed to the customer. Both the rules for recording results and the requirements for salespeople’s promises need to change.

The head of sales prepares a proposal: what behaviour is needed, how to recognise it and what will change for employees. The owner approves pay terms and the budget. The head of sales may announce a new bonus themselves only if they have been given that authority in advance.

Agree customer promises with the people doing the work

The sales team needs information about the availability of products and specialists, and about timescales. The head of sales agrees with those responsible for doing the work where the team gets this information and at what point it receives confirmation for a specific order. They then make sure salespeople follow this process.

They do not take over the work of the warehouse, production team or specialists. But handing them an order without an agreed scope and date leaves the customer to coordinate the two departments themselves. This is where “we have done our part” turns into a complaint to the owner.

Where sales work ends: eight requests for five slots

Let us look at an illustrative example, not a RENTROP case study. A company sells a service with a scheduled start date. Eight customers want to start on Monday, but the person in charge of the team doing the work has confirmed five available slots. The price and scope of the service remain the same for this example.

Simple arithmetic: 8 requests − 5 slots = 3 requests without a confirmed date. The demand to “close all eight” does not in itself create three slots. If salespeople promise Monday to everyone, the shortfall will have to be resolved after the sale.

Before making promises to customers, the head of sales must establish the following:

Five starts fit within the confirmed capacity; each has a customer and a person assigned to do the work.
The earliest available dates have been obtained for the remaining three. Salespeople check whether the change suits each customer.
If Monday is the only option for someone, the person in charge of the work explains whether another slot can be added and what that would require.
If extra spending or changes to existing commitments are needed, the owner receives this option with its consequences and a deadline for replying to the customer.

The head of sales does not need to make every decision personally here. They need to match demand with the confirmed ability to keep the promise. If the owner refuses extra resources, the sales team’s work continues: offer an available date, get an answer and record the refusal. The phrase “the owner did not approve it” does not end the conversation with the customer.

An order handover needs an acknowledgement from the person taking on the work: the scope is clear, the date is confirmed and a responsible person has been assigned. A message sent to the group chat is not such an acknowledgement. Until someone accepts the order, the head of sales pursues a response through the agreed process; after acceptance, the designated manager is responsible for completing the work.

The owner sets the boundary: sales are responsible for an agreed promise and an accepted order handover. The person who manages those doing the work is responsible for actually providing the service. The customer knows in advance who to contact next.

A head of sales’ working day

The working day depends on how long deals take and the team’s working pattern. Below is an example of a day in an established department. The times are a sample schedule, not a standard for every business.

09:00–09:30. Review urgent problems: who was promised a reply today, which orders are waiting for confirmation from those doing the work and where a salesperson is absent. Assign actions and deadlines.
09:30–10:00. Briefly agree priorities with the team. Point out separately any conditions that have changed today: available dates, stock availability and limits on the offer.
10:00–12:00. Help with difficult negotiations and work through salespeople’s problems. Prepare options for disputed orders together with the people responsible in other departments.
12:00–13:00. Work with the team: training, a conversation with an employee or a job interview, depending on the current task. Allow for lunch and breaks separately.
After lunch. Work on the chosen sales improvement: repeat enquiries, an offer for a particular group of customers or fixing a recurring mistake.
Before the end of the day. Check whether urgent tasks have been completed, update the forecast if new facts have emerged and pass the owner any issues where the decision deadline is approaching.

The purpose of the schedule is to leave the head of sales time for tasks that are easy to overlook. A missed reply to a customer will come to light quickly. A salesperson’s recurring mistake can persist for months while the head of sales stays busy every day.

If the head of sales also handles their own customers during the day, the owner separately determines the amount of this work. This is covered in the article “We need to sell better. The head of sales is busy with their own customers”. Adding a personal sales plan to a full workload of leadership duties without choosing priorities is pointless.

Questions for the head of sales

These questions are suitable for a conversation about how responsibilities are divided. Ask the head of sales to answer using examples from their own work; the owner does not need to piece together what happened for them.

Which decisions about a customer do you make on your own? You need examples of the terms they are allowed to agree and the point beyond which they turn to the owner.
Which promises made by salespeople depend on another department? The answer must name a specific person who confirms the deadline, availability or scope of work.
How do you know an order has been accepted for fulfilment? There must be a record of confirmation from the receiving team, available to both sales and those accepting the order.
What happens if a promise cannot be kept? The head of sales names who prepares the options, who talks to the customer and when a decision is needed.
What do you bring me when you ask for an exception to be approved? The facts, available options, consequences of each and their own recommendation must be ready before they approach the owner.
Which decision remains yours after I say no? A useful subject for discussion is what the team does next, including offering different terms or turning down the order.

If the answers do not fit together, this creates a specific task: agree how dates are confirmed with the named manager, or define acceptable terms. A separate article looks at how to assess the head of sales’ own actions: “No one is checking this at the moment. So what is the head of sales doing?”.

Sample task: agree the boundaries in three working days

Below is ready-to-use wording for the current head of sales. Three days is the time the owner sets for preparing agreements for this task; it is not a promise to fix sales in three days.

Within three working days, prepare a process for agreeing dates and handing orders over for fulfilment. Check it with the manager responsible for completing the work. Describe what salespeople can promise on their own, where they get confirmation and who accepts the order. List separately any disagreements that need my decision, with options and consequences. Attach one current order that has been handled using this process.

A sample completed agreement for the company in the example:

Without further approval: a salesperson offers the standard service on a date for which the person doing the work has confirmed and reserved a slot.
Before promising the customer: the head of sales discusses a non-standard date with the person in charge of the work; the answer is saved in the order record.
The owner decides: extra spending or changes to commitments already made. The head of sales brings prepared options.
If there is no answer by the deadline: the salesperson tells the customer the status and offers a confirmed date. The owner’s silence does not count as permission to promise more.
The handover is complete: the employee accepting the order has confirmed the scope, the date and their responsibility; the customer has been told how communication will work from that point on.

Use the attached order to decide whether the task is complete: the salesperson’s promise matches the confirmation from the person doing the work, the next person responsible is named and the customer knows the next step. If colleagues have not reached an agreement, the owner resolves the specific disagreement. There is no longer any reason for them to forward the question “so what is happening with the customer?” to the salesperson.

When there is no one to carry out the responsibilities

If the team is already selling but has no one managing it day to day, the list you have prepared will help you choose someone for specific work. RENTROP has a separate product for this task — an outsourced head of sales. The format is worth discussing once the tasks and limits on decisions have been defined.

In the original situation, the customer was waiting for Monday, which no one had confirmed to them. Solving this problem means making confirmation a required part of the sale. The head of sales does not need to run the neighbouring department to do this: they need to ensure the promise reaches someone who has accepted it and can fulfil it.