Sales standards are mandatory rules for a salesperson’s work: what to find out from the buyer, on what basis to make a proposal, what to agree and how to end the exchange. A workable standard describes the action, the conditions for carrying it out and the signs that it has been done well; if requirements clash, it states which takes priority and who authorises an exception.
A salesperson is told to send the final proposal within an hour. The same document forbids them from stating the installation cost without confirmation from a technical specialist. The measurement visit is scheduled for tomorrow.
In this illustrative example, the salesperson knows both requirements. They can write a competent email, understand the product and want to win the order. But it is impossible to fulfil both points now. If they send the quote, they breach the accuracy requirement. If they wait for the measurement visit, they miss the deadline.
The instruction “make sure the standards are followed” leaves the head of sales with an unpleasant choice: which breach to treat as acceptable today. A new script does not remove that choice. Listening to calls more often does not either.
I believe that, before demanding discipline from a salesperson, the company must decide which of its requirements they are allowed to set aside when those requirements clash. Here, the business owner needs to choose what the team promises within an hour: a final quote in all circumstances, or a meaningful response with clear steps for obtaining the quote.
How sales standards differ from scripts and procedures
Companies use different names for these documents. For practical purposes, it is more useful to distinguish what each is for.
A standard sets a requirement for an action and its result. For example: the final installation cost is stated after a technical specialist confirms the scope of work. The head of sales assesses the salesperson’s proposal against this requirement.
A procedure explains how to get confirmation: what information to send to the specialist, where to wait for the reply and who deals with a delay. If it does not set a response deadline for the other department, the salesperson is given a duty they can only fulfil when someone else has time.
A script helps tell the buyer what the company has already decided. Illustrative wording: “We need a measurement visit to prepare a final quote. We’ll arrange the visit now, and afterwards I’ll tell you the full cost of the work.”
One word in a script will not make someone available to take measurements. That is why work on the documents starts with the promises that are allowed and how to keep them. The wording for conversations is chosen afterwards.
Which standards a sales team needs
It is easier to organise the document around the buyer’s decisions and the company’s commitments. Here is a framework for the head of sales to fill with the rules of your business:
- First response. Who receives the enquiry, how soon they reply and what they say if a proposal is not ready yet. An automatic acknowledgement of an enquiry is counted separately from an employee’s response.
- Clarifying the task. What information is needed to choose what to offer: the purpose of the purchase, volume, constraints and the desired timing. Include a question if the answer changes the salesperson’s next action.
- Proposal and promises. Where the price, scope of work, availability and timing come from; what the salesperson may confirm themselves and what they need to agree with others.
- Agreement after the conversation. What each side needs to do, when they will next be in touch and what about.
- Handing over the order. What information the person doing the work receives, who takes on the order and how they return incomplete information.
Each point must have a reason. If a question about the budget does not change the proposal at all, making it compulsory to repeat the question lengthens the conversation. The head of sales either explains which decision depends on the answer or removes the requirement. There is no reason for the business owner to pay for people to follow habits whose purpose no one remembers any more.
How to reconcile speed and quality requirements
In the installation example, response speed clashed with the reliability of the final quote. Both are needed. But the word “final” was tied to a deadline by which the company did not yet have the information it needed.
This can be fixed with a specific decision: within an hour, the salesperson tells the buyer what is already known, what information is missing and when the final answer will be available. The full quote is provided after the measurement visit, within a period agreed with the technical department. The head of sales sees delays in the first response and delays in the quote separately: different people are responsible for them, and they have different causes.
There is another choice. The company defines standard types of work with a fixed cost in advance and handles non-standard orders through a separate process. The salesperson then starts by assigning the enquiry to the right group. The owner approves which work the company is actually ready to sell without an additional inspection.
The old requirement of “everything within an hour” cannot remain in place while employees are verbally allowed to bypass it sometimes. The same exception must apply in performance assessments and bonus rules. Otherwise, the salesperson is allowed to wait during the review, then criticised for being late at the end of the month. They will send the next quote faster — along with guesswork.
The boundary can be checked with a simple question for the head of sales: which point protects a salesperson who reported missing information on time and followed the agreed process? The answer “we’ll decide based on the situation” means that each such decision will still have to be made afresh.
Sample sales standard: a proposal before and after the measurement visit
Below is a completed illustrative sample for a company where the cost of non-standard installation depends on a measurement visit. The deadlines shown illustrate the process; before use, they must be agreed with the people doing the work.
- Situation: a new enquiry about a product with non-standard installation. A confirmed scope of work is not yet available.
- First response: within a working hour of receiving the enquiry, the salesperson contacts the buyer, clarifies the task and explains what information is needed for the final proposal.
- Before the measurement visit: a preliminary quote for the known part of the order is allowed. The email clearly states its status, the work included and what is still to be calculated. It must not be described as the full cost of the order.
- Next action: the salesperson agrees an available time for the visit with the buyer and confirms it with the technical specialist. The deal record contains the date, the person responsible and the agreement on the next contact.
- After the measurement visit: the technical specialist provides the scope of work and quote by the end of the next working day. The salesperson sends the final proposal within a working hour of receiving this information.
- If information is missing or a deadline cannot be met: the salesperson tells the head of sales before the promised contact. The head of sales arranges for an answer to be obtained; at the agreed time, the buyer is told the current situation and the next contact is agreed.
- Authority: the head of sales may speed up approval and involve another specialist. They may not waive the need for a measurement visit for a non-standard order.
- Signs that the standard was followed: the first response was on time, the preliminary document was labelled as preliminary, the final proposal matches the confirmed scope of work and the promised contact took place.
Let’s apply the sample. An enquiry arrived at 10:00. At 10:40, the buyer received a response and agreed a measurement visit for tomorrow. There is no final quote by 11:00 — under the new rule, this is not a missed deadline. If at 10:40 they were sent an unconfirmed amount as the full cost of the order, the quick email breaches the standard.
But the label “preliminary” alone is not enough. If the salesperson verbally assured the buyer that the amount would not change, they have already promised a final price. The review considers the email together with the conversation.
How to develop sales standards step by step
1. Choose a promise with a clear consequence. Start with what makes you recalculate an order, reschedule the work or reach a new agreement with the buyer. The head of sales gathers material from specific enquiries and shows the point at which an extra commitment arises. The general complaint “salespeople are selling incorrectly” is too broad for a task.
2. Gather all the requirements that apply at this point. You need the current document, the actual instructions from those in charge and the performance assessment criteria. This can reveal, for example, that a written ban on unconfirmed prices sits alongside a requirement to send a final quote within an hour.
3. Decide which requirement takes priority and what action is allowed. What does the employee do when both requirements cannot be met? Who makes sure the missing information is provided? What promise are they allowed to make before receiving it? The business owner settles questions about price, the scope of the service and acceptable risk. The head of sales sets out the working process within these limits.
4. Test the rule on difficult enquiries. An enquiry without initial details, an urgent order and a delayed reply from a specialist will do. For each, the head of sales shows what the salesperson is allowed to do. If all three require a call to the owner, the team has not yet been given the authority it needs to work independently.
5. Remove the old requirement. The new version has a start date and a person responsible for the update. The old point has been removed from the task template and assessment criteria. Salespeople know which process applies now. The article How to introduce sales procedures so people follow them covers the introduction of these documents in detail.
How to check whether standards are followed in conversations and deals
For a review, you need the requirement, the information available to the salesperson at the time of the conversation and the promise made to the buyer. The outcome of the order is considered afterwards. A successfully completed installation does not make an unconfirmed promise acceptable; a later delay by the person doing the work does not in itself prove the salesperson made a mistake.
The head of sales distinguishes three situations because each needs a different fix.
The employee departed from a workable rule. Confirmation was available and there was enough time, but the salesperson sent an old version of the quote. The head of sales makes sure the terms are clarified with the buyer and reviews the choice of document with the employee.
The employee encountered conflicting requirements. An accurate quote is not ready yet, but its deadline has arrived. Further training will not remove the conflict. The head of sales presents a proposal for which point to change and a decision on authority, if one is needed.
The rule is workable, but the internal response is late. The salesperson requested the information on time and reported the delay. The head of sales finds out who should have replied and why they did not. Telling the salesperson to “keep a closer eye on it” does not establish who will now free up the specialist’s time.
The absence of a recording of the conversation is noted separately. Without it, you cannot confidently conclude that the buyer heard all the terms set out in the email. The head of sales pieces together the information before discussing the breach with the employee.
And what if the customer really does leave because they need a price immediately? That is a reason to discuss the time it takes to prepare a proposal, specialist availability or a standard product. Allowing the salesperson to invent the final cost does not solve the problem: the order will still have to be fulfilled under the actual conditions. The owner chooses whether they are willing to invest in speeding up quotes or accept losing these enquiries.
What the business owner approves before introducing the standards
The owner only needs to choose which promises are allowed and appoint the person who resolves clashes between requirements. The head of sales handles day-to-day work with the document and salespeople. To begin, they can be given this instruction:
Within five working days, prepare a rule for issuing a proposal for a non-standard order. Show which speed and accuracy requirements apply now and where they clash. Agree the deadlines for receiving information with the other department.
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Bring one new version of the rule and three completed reviews: a routine enquiry, missing information and an urgent enquiry. Separate actual records from illustrative examples. For each, state the salesperson’s action, their authority and the basis for assessment. List the decisions that need my involvement separately.
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Show which old points need to be removed from tasks and performance assessments, who will replace them and from what date.
Five days is the time allowed for preparing one part of the process, not the whole department. When reviewing the work for approval, the owner checks whether the head of sales can conclude each of the three reviews with a specific decision within the authority granted. If a response deadline has not been agreed with the technical department, the work goes back for revision: without it, the promise to the buyer will once again remain a personal problem for the salesperson.
When separate sales quality control is needed
Once the rules have been agreed, a daily task remains: noticing where a salesperson has promised more than allowed or left out a condition. At RENTROP, AI ROP helps with sales quality control: it reviews conversations together with the deal against the client’s rules, highlights the mistake with a quote and shows how the salesperson should have replied. Decisions and corrections remain the responsibility of the head of sales.
If the working process for the whole team needs to be created, building a sales system is part of the “turnkey sales management” product: the head of sales sets the sales plan and puts in place the sales funnel, scripts, procedures, recruitment and monitoring, then uses them to manage the team. This is a separate piece of work to organise the department.
The salesperson from the start of the article must be given the right to finish the first hour calmly without a final price if it requires tomorrow’s measurement visit. The company has already decided what they must tell the buyer now and who will ensure the quote is prepared afterwards. Only after that decision can the standard be followed without breaking another of its rules.