A sales system is a set of connected rules, people and tools a company uses to find buyers, close deals and receive payment. To build one, you need to define the required result, describe the customer's path, and align the sales plan, sales funnel, salespeople's work and their pay. The head of sales puts this process into daily practice and adjusts it when conditions change.
You agreed a sales plan based on the money that must reach the account. The head of sales reports progress based on signed contracts. The salespeople demand a bonus: the pay policy specifically refers to contracts. Yet work for the customer may only begin after payment in advance.
Everyone follows their own rule. The business owner has to step in and explain why the same word, “sale”, means something different to everyone. And you want to finally commission the whole system: a CRM system, scripts, procedures and a proper incentive scheme.
But one more document will join those that already contradict each other. I think the starting point here is a shared definition of a deal's result. Without it, even conscientious work by the sales team will give the owner a reason to intervene.
What a sales system consists of
The system has several parts. The connections between them become clear when you look at a specific order:
- Buyer and offer. Who the product suits, what problem it solves and where these enquiries come from. Otherwise, the sales plan will call for sales to people you have nothing to offer.
- Sales plan and deal terms. What we count as a result, by when, at what price and on what payment terms. The owner sets these terms.
- Sales funnel and records. What happens between the enquiry and payment, what confirms a move to the next stage and where customer information is kept. CRM stores this information.
- People and skills. Who looks after the buyer, what a salesperson needs to be able to do and what they are taught before working independently.
- Scripts and procedures. How to understand the task, agree the offer and handle delays and unusual requests.
- Incentives and management. What result people are paid for, who spots a deviation and makes sure it is corrected.
For example, a requirement for payment in advance must appear in the proposal to the customer, the sales funnel stages, the salesperson's actions and the head of sales' report. If it remains only the owner's decision, the team will have to learn about it again on every disputed deal.
Designing a sales system
At this stage, you decide how the sale will work. The head of sales gathers the starting information and proposes rules; the owner chooses the commercial terms and the spending limit for the launch. Only after these decisions does it make sense to assign someone to set up the software.
First, choose one type of sale to build the system around
Define the product and buyer narrowly enough. For our example, we will take a one-off service for businesses, paid in full in advance. Enquiries come through the website; the salesperson clarifies the task, agrees the scope of work and terms, prepares the contract and obtains payment. Work starts once the money arrives. We are not including repeat orders or complex projects paid in stages in this launch.
Setting this boundary lets you finish the work. If you rewrite the rules for a quick purchase, an annual contract and a tender at the same time, each stage will have several incompatible meanings. The owner will have to approve exceptions even before the launch.
Next, the head of sales reconstructs the path of completed sales: the enquiry source, agreements, contract and payment. To calculate how customers move between stages, they take one group of customers and trace what happened to them. Dividing payments from existing customers by this month's new enquiries gives a meaningless conversion rate.
One sales plan must have one date for measuring results
All the figures below are illustrative. At the reporting date, one group of 100 enquiries looks like this:
- 60 buyers are suitable for the chosen service;
- the scope of work and proposal have been agreed with 30 of them;
- 12 have signed contracts for 100 thousand roubles each — 1.2 million roubles in total;
- 9 have paid in full — 900 thousand roubles has reached the account;
- 2 have payment dates still to come, and 1 order was cancelled before payment.
The owner's sales plan is 1.2 million roubles in payments received by this date. Based on contracts, the sales team reports 100%; based on money received, 75%: we divide 900 thousand by 1.2 million. The conversion rate from enquiries to contracts is 12%, and to payment as of the reporting date, 9%. The latter will change if the two remaining customers pay.
The difference of 300 thousand cannot all be called a loss. 200 thousand is due on future dates, while 100 thousand relates to the cancellation. The head of sales must explain separately why future payments were included in the current sales plan and what happened to the cancelled order. An instruction to “urgently collect three debts” is wrong here: there are no overdue payments in the example.
Now the bonus. At a rate of 5% of the value of signed contracts, it comes to 60 thousand roubles. At the same rate on money received, it is 45 thousand. Under the first scheme, 10 thousand is awarded before payment is due on two orders, and another 5 thousand for the cancelled order. The difference comes from the calculation rules; it cannot be called proof of poor work by the salesperson.
Paying a bonus for a contract is acceptable if the company knowingly takes on this expense before receiving the customer's money. But then the owner chooses in advance how cancellations are handled and who is responsible for payment. In our example, the owner chooses to award bonuses on money received, because the salesperson's final task is to obtain payment in advance. New terms are agreed before they apply; bonuses already earned are not recalculated retrospectively.
Building a sales system
Now the agreed decisions need to be put into the tools. It is easy here to give each specialist a separate part: CRM to one, the script to another and incentives to a third. One leader — the head of sales — must be responsible for making sure the terms match across all these places.
Build the rules around one order
In our example, a separate stage appears between the contract and payment. Signing is recorded as an event that has happened, but the order is not yet considered ready for work to begin. The salesperson still has to agree the payment and obtain confirmation that the money has arrived.
For this, the head of sales gives the team a completed sample rule:
Stage: contract signed, awaiting payment in advance.
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In the record: order value, agreed payment date, payment contact, salesperson's next action.
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Before the due date: the salesperson checks whether the invoice has been received and whether anything is preventing payment. They agree any new date with the customer and record the reason for the change.
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After the due date: the head of sales reviews the delay and assigns an action. Work still cannot begin until the advance payment is received.
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To leave the stage: confirmed payment or a recorded reason for cancellation. A signed contract on its own does not close this stage.
In the script, the same rule is reflected in a specific conversation: before entering into a contract, the salesperson explains the payment process and checks whether it suits the buyer. If the buyer pays only after the work is completed, the mismatch is found before the order is placed. It is too early to memorise a more persuasive response to the objection: first you need to decide whether the company accepts these terms at all.
In the head of sales' report, contracts, money received, future payments and overdue payments remain separate. The incentive scheme states the event that triggers a bonus. The instructions for a new salesperson describe the same process, without anyone saying, “We usually do it differently here.”
Hiring and training start with a defined task
Now it is clear what to assess in a new salesperson. For this service, being able to get the customer's agreement is not enough: the person must clarify the scope of work and agree payment. During the interview, they are given an illustrative request to begin without payment in advance, to see whether they find out why, maintain the terms and ask their supervisor for an exception.
Training ends with a review of a conversation they handled independently, using the same criteria. If a new salesperson is given instructions about payment in advance but receives a bonus only for a signature, they will quickly work out which requirement it pays to follow. For more on the consequences of this kind of introduction to the job, see “Sales are not coming in. A new salesperson can multiply the same mistakes”.
You do not have to change CRM for this. First, ask the head of sales to show exactly which rule cannot be followed in the current software. If the stage, date and payment confirmation are already available, spending money on a move now will not solve the problem you have found.
Implementing a sales system
Implementation begins when real work starts following the new terms. The owner needs a limited launch: one product, a chosen group of enquiries, an assigned head of sales, a deadline and a spending limit. Other sales continue, but the rules for the two groups are clearly separated.
For contracts already signed, the agreed terms remain in place. Set a date from which new enquiries will follow the new process. Otherwise, a salesperson will find that yesterday's promise to the customer is forbidden today, and will have to choose which instruction to break.
Sample launch brief
For the illustrative company above, the owner's instruction looks like this:
We are launching a new process for incoming enquiries about the one-off service. The head of sales is responsible for the launch and ongoing work.
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Within the first three working days, prepare a list of contradictions between the sales plan, sales funnel, payment terms and bonuses. Propose one change for each and show which documents and actions it affects.
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By the tenth working day, agree the terms, set up the records and review three scenarios with the salespeople: normal payment in advance, an agreed future payment, and a request to start without payment in advance. Present the costs and schedule for launching with new enquiries.
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When presenting the work for approval, show the path of each scenario from the proposal to the report and bonus calculation. Separately identify decisions that need my authority.
Ten days here is the preparation period for a limited launch. The duration of the whole job depends on the number of products, the state of the data, the team and how long deals take. The financial result is assessed once customers have completed the whole path; you can see earlier whether the record-keeping and actions are ready.
How the owner should approve the work
Use the three scenarios from the brief when approving the work. The head of sales demonstrates them using the same terms in every tool:
- Normal payment in advance. The salesperson has explained the term, the record contains a due date, payment is confirmed, the order is approved for work to start, and the bonus is calculated under the agreed rule.
- Future payment. The contract is visible in the sales funnel, the money is assigned to the agreed date, and the order is not marked as overdue. The salesperson still has an action to take before payment.
- Exception. The customer asks to start without payment in advance. The head of sales shows the reason for the request, the consequences and their proposal. The owner decides whether to change the commercial terms.
For each scenario, ask to see confirmation: a document, a record of an agreement or a payment. If the answer depends on an experienced salesperson remembering everything, the rule is not yet available to the rest of the team. Dependence on this kind of employee is examined separately in “The team are generally capable”. Why the sales department still depends on one salesperson.
With real enquiries, the head of sales reviews breaches of the new process daily and corrects the specific action. They bring the owner the number of exceptions, the reasons and a solution for each recurring case. If suitable buyers regularly refuse to pay in advance, the terms of the offer will need to be discussed. Insisting that people follow the script more strictly will not resolve this.
Who will maintain the system after launch
A new product, instalments or a different way of attracting customers affects several rules at once. The head of sales must update them together and train the team. Without an assigned leader, the owner will once again become the person who makes sure each document agrees with the others.
At RENTROP, building a sales system is part of the “turnkey sales management” product: in three months, our head of sales puts the sales plan, sales funnel, scripts, procedures, hiring and supervision in place, then continues to manage sales using them. The person doing the work stays on after launch.
At the start of the example, the owner was manually reconciling three meanings of the word “sale”. In a working system, this difference is resolved in advance: a contract remains a contract, money remains money, and the employee knows what must happen before their work with the customer is complete. Then the conversation with the head of sales is about which sales terms are worth changing, instead of a monthly argument about what the company has already agreed to count as a result.