I believe that an instruction to “put sales in order” should start with a question: which decisions does the team have to make from scratch every time? If answers about the product and working rules exist only in the mind of the head of sales, the business owner has things in order only for as long as that person is in the role. The next person will need everything explained again.
We once had a client: a chain of budget accommodation rented by the day. The owner had changed the head of sales more than once, but lasting order never emerged. The properties were just over half full.
Our head of sales ran the team. We reorganised the team's work: organised sales into levels, introduced incentives, scripts, procedures, regular training and daily checks. We recorded everything about the product and sales in two books: the “product book” and the “sales book”.
Within half a year, the properties were almost fully occupied, and the chain later grew. We worked together for more than three years. It would be dishonest to attribute the whole result to the books: the team's entire way of working was changing. But this detail helps you set a more precise task for your head of sales. Knowledge of what we sell and how a salesperson should work must be accessible independently of the person who explains them.
A task you can forward to your head of sales
Start with one recurring difficulty that the head of sales sees in the team's work. There is no need to rewrite all the instructions at once. Below is a sample task for your team, not a description of the contents of the client's books.
By this coming Friday, prepare a rule for one recurring difficulty in sales, ready for review. Choose the difficulty based on actual enquiries and show where it arises.
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The result must answer these questions:
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Where does the salesperson find the current terms, and what are they allowed to promise the client?
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What must they do in this situation, and where will you be able to see that it has been done?
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How do you spot departures from the rule each day and make sure they are corrected?
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Who updates the rule when the terms change and tells the team about it?
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At the review, show a salesperson applying the rule without your prompting, and a record of your checks. Bring any unresolved questions about the product and terms to me separately. If no suitable enquiry comes in by Friday, show an analysis of a past one and set a date to observe the rule being used in live work.
This deadline applies to a narrow part of the work. Promising the owner a complete sales system by Friday is a very different commitment, and this task does not include it.
What must back up the answers
Where the terms come from. The product book answers the question of exactly what the company sells and on what terms. For accommodation rented by the day, it should include the current terms for stays, payment and booking changes. Start with the information without which salespeople stop and go to the head of sales for an explanation.
For the review, ask the head of sales to show where a salesperson finds the answer and who confirmed that it is up to date. A link to correspondence with the previous head of sales leaves the question open: it does not show whether the agreement still applies. The owner will need to approve the disputed term or name someone with the authority to do so. Until then, it is too soon to demand the same answers from all salespeople.
What the salesperson does. The sales book connects known terms with actions: what to find out from the client, what to offer, when to get approval for an exception and where to record the agreement. Here, the head of sales must present a specific working procedure. The phrase “knows the product” does not explain how an employee uses that knowledge in a sale.
Ask to see the point where the salesperson got stuck without help. If the answer is missing from the product description, add the information. If the answer is there but it is unclear how to apply it to the enquiry, improve the instructions and training. The owner decides which improvement to assign; there is no need for them to listen to the whole team's calls in place of the head of sales.
What the head of sales does every day. In the case described, the books were introduced alongside training and daily checks. So the task has a separate outcome: the head of sales shows a departure from the rule that they found, the task they assigned and the salesperson's action afterwards. If there were no departures, they show which enquiries they based that conclusion on. An empty list of issues tells you nothing if no work has been reviewed.
Who changes the rule. Without this point, the team gradually ends up with several answers to the same question: the document has the old terms, the head of sales states new ones, and an experienced salesperson remembers an exception. Ask the head of sales to name the person responsible for updates, say where the current version is kept and explain how changes will be communicated to the team. The owner approves changes to the product and terms of sale within their area of responsibility; the head of sales passes them on to the salespeople. Every employee must understand which answer to use today.
How to review the work and decide what to do next
The owner makes a decision based on the demonstration prepared by the head of sales. It must bring together a current term, the salesperson's action and the head of sales' work. It helps to agree in advance that different results from this demonstration lead to different tasks.
| What the review shows | What it means | The owner's decision |
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| The term itself needs to be agreed again before the client can be answered | The team has no approved answer about the product | Resolve the disputed issue; ask the head of sales to update the materials |
| The term is known, but the salesperson needs prompting at every step | The instructions and training do not yet allow independent work | Return it to the head of sales for improvement, with a date for another demonstration |
| The salesperson can follow the rule, but departures go unaddressed | The head of sales' daily checks are not working | Require the head of sales to provide a procedure for checks and records of its use |
| The salesperson works independently, and the head of sales spots and corrects departures | The rule is being used in the chosen area of work | Approve the work in this area and choose the next one |
There is a limit here: following an instruction independently does not yet mean that the instruction was well chosen. If the salesperson follows it but the client's difficulty remains, the head of sales must present a proposal to change the rule. Demanding even stricter adherence at this point is pointless. This gives the owner grounds for changing the way the work is done, instead of discussing the salesperson's character again.
At RENTROP, turnkey sales management includes both written rules and daily work to ensure they are followed. During a free sales review, you can examine what is stopping your particular team from using the rules: unclear terms, training or the head of sales' checks.
The next head of sales has the right to change the sales rules. But they must first be able to see the terms the team sells on today and how it ensures those terms are followed. By accepting this work from the current head of sales, the owner leaves the next one with the task of improving what has been done, rather than having to start all over again.