A new salesperson initially gives the team leader more work. They need someone to explain the offering, help with their first negotiations and review their mistakes. If the head of sales continues selling personally at the same level, each new starter gets less of his time. I think speeding up hiring in a department like this is risky: the company risks making conditions worse for the new people who need to start selling.
An unpleasant cycle develops. The head of sales is busy with his own customers, and help for the new starter gets postponed. If someone leaves after a start like this, a replacement arrives — and everything has to be explained all over again. The head of sales’ workload grows, although the number of salespeople able to work independently does not.
It is easy to call the head of sales inattentive. But his customer is ready to discuss a deal today, while the new starter is still learning. When the owner demands that he maintain his personal sales while building the team faster, the head of sales chooses every day between today’s income and the people who are meant to bring in future income.
The choice has practically been made for him.
We worked with an estate agency with two partners. One of the people in charge had done an excellent job of setting up the sales system. But there had not been a single deal in half a year: the team was not staying together, and there was no one to lead people day to day. Our head of sales built and retained the team; people followed his lead. After about three months, sales started coming in. The timeframes are rounded.
What was missing in that case was someone to lead the team day to day. A department that already has a head of sales who also sells needs a different solution. First, you need to find out how much of his day the company has already promised to customers. Appointing another person to take responsibility will not free up that time.
Here is a sign to look for in your own department: help for new starters repeatedly gets postponed to accommodate the head of sales’ personal clients. Have him show you these postponements from the past working week and the tasks that caused them. This will give you grounds to recalculate the workload.
How many new starters can a head of sales support in a week
Below is an illustrative example, not a RENTROP case study. The head of sales has 40 hours in the working week. His personal clients take up 28, and the existing team and other essential tasks another 8. That leaves 4 hours for helping new starters. Suppose each has been allocated 3 hours of individual work with the head of sales for the coming week.
These are the assumptions for the calculation, not a standard for helping new starters settle in. In his own department, the head of sales calculates the time based on upcoming tasks: who needs help preparing for negotiations, who needs him to join a conversation, and who needs a review of the work done. He counts a group meeting once; help for a specific person is counted separately. He also includes people who started earlier and still need support.
| Weekly workload | One new starter | Three with no changes | Three after handing over some clients |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head of sales’ personal sales | 28 h | 28 h | 20 h |
| Existing team and other tasks | 8 h | 8 h | 8 h |
| Work with new starters | 3 h | 9 h | 9 h |
| Total time needed | 39 h | 45 h | 37 h |
| Time left from 40 hours | 1 h | 5 h short | 3 h |
Under the second option, with three new starters, the owner has requested more work than fits into a week. Even without a single unexpected call. Yet the department continues to assess every new salesperson as though the head of sales had managed to give them all the promised help.
The third version of the calculation requires some clients to actually be handed over: who takes them on, from what date, and how the head of sales’ personal sales target changes. If his previous sales plan and earnings still depend on these deals, an instruction alone will not free up eight hours. The handover and pay arrangements will have to be agreed together.
The three spare hours in the final option are also an assumption for the illustrative example. The head of sales uses his department’s workload to justify the amount of time kept in reserve. In the transition week, he separately adds the time needed to hand over clients. The promise that all three can start at the same time should come after this calculation.
And you cannot simply arrange for one person to start every Monday. If the first employees still need help, those hours remain taken up. The next start date depends on how much support is still ongoing; otherwise, the overload will simply arrive a little later.
Decide in fifteen minutes what to give up for a new starter
To make a decision, the owner needs the completed table and the consequences of each option. The head of sales prepares the calculation. Here is an instruction you can send him in full:
By tomorrow evening, prepare a breakdown of your workload for the next working week: personal clients, the current team, new starters and reserve time. For each new starter, specify what help they need and who will provide it. Include three options: keep the current workload and limit how many people start at the same time; hand over some of your clients; appoint another mentor. For each option, show the possible start dates, who will take over the tasks, and which changes to the sales plan or pay need my decision. Separately state how much time the client handover itself will take.
During the discussion, do not take over the head of sales’ job of reviewing salespeople’s calls. Spend fifteen minutes choosing what to give up: wait for the team to grow, hand over clients or assign someone else. A mentor also has their own work; it cannot be left out of the calculation.
The objection about money is serious here: the head of sales’ personal deals are keeping the company going now. So preserving them is a valid decision. It means limiting the number of people being trained at the same time. If new people need to start quickly, you will have to name who will provide daily support and what work they will be relieved of. Demanding both outcomes for free means accepting in advance that the support will fail.
You can accept the work as complete based on three things: the clients being handed over have named new people responsible for them, existing responsibilities and pay arrangements have been agreed, and the hours of help for all current and new employees fit into the available time with a reserve. At the end of the first working week, the head of sales reports what help was provided, what was postponed and why. Repeated postponements because of his personal clients mean the time was freed up only in the calculation.
If help was provided but people still leave, the next review is about the terms on which they were hired and what is required of them. Compare promised and actual earnings, the work involved and the tasks completed after training. Faster recruitment does not fix broken agreements, but spare time in the head of sales’ schedule does not turn every candidate into a suitable salesperson either.
At RENTROP, turnkey sales management includes daily work with the team, including training and help with difficult negotiations. During a free sales review, you can discuss whether those leading your team can handle the current pace of hiring and which parts of the head of sales’ work are taking time away from helping new employees.
The owner has the right to keep the head of sales selling personally — sometimes the department cannot survive without those sales right now. But then the pace of hiring will have to match the time available for support: you cannot keep sending a replacement for someone who has left into the same queue for a busy head of sales and expect a different outcome.