Imagine: the client has refused to wait, and only now have you been brought the full story of the failed deal. The salesperson asked for things to be sped up, looked for a replacement and tried to move the deadline. All reasonable steps. So why did you learn about the problem when there was nothing left you could do to help?
It is tempting to demand that the salesperson resolve such issues faster next time. But they may have spent all that time doing exactly what was required of them: looking for a ready solution before approaching the head of sales.
I would look at the gap between the first known obstacle and the report. Perhaps the salesperson was busy, but the time when others could help had already passed.
Friday is still a long way off. The decision deadline is not
Let us look at this hypothetical deal in more detail. A company sells a software program for businesses. The buyer has set aside Friday to test it with their staff. On Thursday morning, a specialist tells the salesperson that trial access with the required settings can only be set up the following week.
The buyer has been promised Friday. The person doing the work has said next week. The risk can already be shown through two messages, although the way to fix the delay is still unknown.
Suppose the specialists’ supervisor has another employee who could be assigned the preparation work. But that employee’s work for Friday is allocated on Thursday before lunch. The head of sales can discuss this option with their colleague. The salesperson has no authority to change someone else’s tasks.
The salesperson asks the first specialist to speed things up again. They wait for a reply, explain the importance of the deal and look for an alternative. In the evening, they tell the head of sales that no agreement was reached and all that remains is to suggest postponing to the client. Under the department’s rule, a problem had to be brought together with a solution. The salesperson has prepared one.
They reported before Friday. The other specialist is already busy.
In this scene, the requirement has been met, but the chance to help has been missed. For the head of sales, the deadline was Thursday’s allocation of work. If you only check whether the salesperson reported before the Friday deadline promised to the client, you may not notice the delay at all.
While an employee looks for a solution, everyone else waits without knowing it
The salesperson is entitled to try to reach an agreement on their own. The question is how much time they can spend on this before denying everyone else the chance to take part. Waiting for the first specialist’s reply took up hours when the head of sales could have checked the second option. These tasks could have gone on at the same time.
After each new request, the salesperson waits a little longer: perhaps it will work. Within their own task, this is understandable. But this means the whole department continues to rely on one attempt that its head does not even know about.
Preparing the trial with the specialist is the salesperson’s job. Spending all the available time on this attempt without reporting the risk to the client’s deadline means making a choice on behalf of the people whose help might be needed.
The requirement to bring a ready solution is convenient as long as the employee can produce it through their own actions and has enough time. When the solution depends on someone else’s workload, the queue of tasks or an exception for the client, the completed report may arrive too late precisely because the salesperson worked hard to prepare it.
First prove that this is where the time was lost
The story helps raise the question. It cannot explain every failure. I would ask the head of sales to bring me the most recent case of an unexpectedly postponed trial and reconstruct the events from the correspondence.
We need the promise made to the buyer, the reply from the person doing the work, the salesperson’s message to the head of sales and the first action taken by the head of sales. Separately, we need information about the option that could have been checked earlier: who could have approved it, and until when. Simply saying that the head of sales should have been involved earlier proves nothing on its own.
If the specialist gave a warning in the morning but the salesperson opened the reply in the evening, we first look at how the salesperson checks the trial preparations. If the salesperson reported it straight away but the head of sales took up the issue after the work had been allocated, the delay was with the head of sales. If the salesperson read the reply, kept looking for a solution and said nothing, we find out exactly what they were waiting for before reporting.
To link the last case to the rule about a ready solution, there must be a record of the rule itself: a task, a message from the head of sales, a warning sent back. We check the salesperson’s explanation against these records. Without them, the cause remains a theory; it is too early to call it fear or sabotage.
Something else may emerge: there was no available specialist from the outset, and the buyer was not considering a postponement. In that case, the lost order cannot be blamed on the late news. The head of sales still needs to know about a promise that cannot be kept, but there are no grounds for claiming that an earlier message would have saved the sale.
The next answer is needed before the chance to act disappears
If the review confirms that the delay was caused by the requirement to have a ready solution, I would change one condition: report a known obstacle straight away and continue working on the solution. This does not require another daily report.
In our scene, the salesperson can say that morning which trial has been promised for Friday, attach the specialist’s reply and describe their current attempt: finding out whether the preparations can be sped up. At the same time, they can say what they do not yet know: whether there is someone else to do the work. This is specific, unfinished work that the head of sales can get involved in.
The head of sales first asks how long they have left to change the preparations. They find out from their colleague when the second specialist’s work is allocated, and agree to come back with an answer before then. If this deadline is unknown, finding it out is the first task.
The salesperson keeps responsibility for contact with the buyer and checking the first option. The head of sales takes on the conversation with the specialists’ supervisor. They agree a time to compare notes, leaving enough time afterwards to assign the preparation work to someone else. Simply replying before Friday is not enough.
By the time they compare notes, they need the results of both attempts. If the first specialist does not speed up and the second is available, the head of sales agrees the change to the work with whoever has the authority to approve it. If no one is available to do the work, the salesperson discusses a realistic postponement with the buyer. A lack of an answer cannot be treated as agreement, and promised help cannot be treated as help delivered.
The salesperson has given a warning. The deal is still their responsibility
The owner’s objection is fair: once employees are allowed to come without a solution, they will start bringing every issue. The head of sales will once again be doing the department’s work.
This confuses passing on information with passing on work. You can check the first from the message: which promise is at risk, and what confirms this. You can check the second from the next action: who continues dealing with the client after the warning. If the salesperson has stopped looking for an option and is waiting for a ready answer from the head of sales, they have handed over their work. The early message itself does not require this.
So a warning does not complete the salesperson’s task. At the agreed time to compare notes, the head of sales asks what the salesperson has found out and presents the result of their own part of the work. Otherwise, the department will forward problems quickly, but work on deals will still be left waiting as before.
There is also a boundary between fact and worry. The buyer’s silence before the agreed deadline does not, on its own, prove that things have fallen through. But a specialist’s reply giving a date later than the one promised already provides a concrete reason to act. If the specialist has not confirmed the preparations at all, the salesperson reports precisely that lack of confirmation and establishes the timing; there is no need to invent a refusal on the specialist’s behalf.
Early news does not excuse a previous mistake either. If the salesperson was late in asking for access to be set up, that lapse still needs to be reviewed. First, the department needs to make a decision on the current deal while there is still time. Then, for the next trial, the head of sales checks whether the request was sent and the reply from the person doing the work was received on time.
A quick report can be useless
For the coming week, I would take one type of promise: a trial that requires preparation by another employee. The head of sales agrees with the salespeople where to report mismatched deadlines and checks what happens after the message.
For each risk that arises, we need to see when the salesperson learnt about the obstacle, when the head of sales got involved and which option, still available at the time, they managed to check. By the next review, it should be clear what each person did. Faster messages without completed actions are only half the change.
Separately, the head of sales opens the records for several upcoming trials where no one has warned of a risk. They check the date promised to the buyer against the confirmed preparations. Otherwise, the review will only cover employees who have already started reporting, and the previous silence will remain invisible.
There may be more warnings. I would not judge the change by their number: previously, some obstacles may simply never have reached the head of sales. A useful sign is that, in a new, similar situation, the salesperson has passed on the fact and continued their work, while the head of sales has managed to check an available option before it disappeared.
If there was no such situation during the week, the result of the check is not yet known. If there was, but no one was available to do the work, an early warning still does not guarantee an order. What is being checked here is the department’s ability to involve the right people in time. The financial result also depends on whether the business has an offer it can fulfil for the buyer.
The owner needs to see what the head of sales managed to change
Instead of a copy of every warning, the owner needs a review of a specific decision: when the head of sales received the fact, which options were still available and what happened after they became involved. If the head of sales always hears about problems with a ready explanation, it is worth checking what conditions they themselves have set for reporting.
At RENTROP, this is part of the “turnkey sales management” product. The head of sales leads the team and manages deals daily, while the business development director checks the quality of their work: whether they received an important fact in time, got involved in the right task and checked that the work was done. This review needs the original messages and the history of actions, including the head of sales’ own requirements for the department.
Prices, the budget and changes to the company’s commitments remain the owner’s responsibility. The head of sales cannot move someone else’s order back to make room for their own without authorisation. Their job is to set out a choice in time and agree it with the person who has the authority, while the chosen option can still be carried out.
You can start with the most recent unexpected failure: ask the head of sales to show the point after which a previously available option could no longer be used. Then look at where the news was at that moment.
A problem needs to be reported while others still have time to help.