How do you set up a sales organisation that really works?

By Ainhoa Carpio-Talleux

Published: 28 July 2025

Is your sales team stagnating despite your position in a buoyant market?

Are your sales people struggling to meet their targets while the competition is making headway?

The problem lies in a faulty sales organisation. This situation paralyses even the best talent and slows down your company's development.

👉 That's why we've decided to help you! In this guide: "how to set up a profitable sales organisation", you'll find our advice and the best practices that will get your sales off the ground.

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Diagnose your current sales organisation

This diagnostic phase is the foundation on which you will build your new organisation. Without it, you run the risk of missing out on many opportunities for improvement.

Analyse the existing structure

Get a clear picture of your current sales team. Ask yourself how many salespeople make up your sales force and what their skills are. The answers to these questions will reveal any gaps in your sales team.

You should also take a close look at the usual customer journey (from initial contact to signing a contract). This will help you to identify any gaps between the practices of your sales team and the real expectations of the market.

In many cases, the sales stages do not correspond to current buying habits. This discrepancy complicates the task of sales staff and is detrimental to customer relations. Take the opportunity to examine the methods used to qualify prospects. When several approaches coexist without clear coordination, your sales organisation becomes unstable. This vagueness generates confusion and hampers the allocation of time between prospecting, follow-ups and monitoring ongoing business.

Identify bottlenecks

👉 Malfunctions often occur in the transfer of information:

the marketing department passes on contacts without checking their commercial maturity ;
the customer service department sends few alerts to the sales manager;
the sales team does not receive useful feedback to adapt its actions.

This lack of continuity creates internal tensions that can have repercussions on customer relations.

👉 Some bottlenecks are directly linked to the tools you use. Without a reliable CRM (Customer Relationship Management), sales staff act without a solid strategy. This creates a lack of coherence that reduces the team's ability to manage its sales activity rigorously.

👉 Other obstacles come from the organisation itself, such as :

duplication of tasks
unclear allocation of accounts to be handled
Poorly defined objectives can be a major source of demotivation.

A sales person's performance depends as much on their skills as on the framework in which they operate. A clear diagnosis of these stumbling blocks enables the sales manager to make targeted adjustments.

The different models of sales organisation

A sales organisation is not based on a universal model. It depends on a number of criteria, such as the type of business, the sales cycle, the level of sales maturity and even the targeted customer profiles. Choosing the right organisation clarifies the priorities of each sales person and limits conflicts of allocation.

Organisation by business sector

This approach involves specialising your sales staff according to your customers' sectors of activity. For example, one agent might focus exclusively on the automotive industry, another on the health sector. This specialisation develops in-depth expertise in your staff, who have a better grasp of the issues specific to each market.

As a result, your sales staff gain a better understanding of :

purchasing processes
the competition
trends specific to their sector. They speak the same language as their prospects and understand their business needs.

☝️ It should be stressed, however, that it takes time to train sales staff to become experts in an industry.

Not to mention that access to sector data remains complex for SMEs. This organisation is therefore best suited to companies that already have enough resources to train their teams!

Geographical organisation by territory

Geographical division is the most common sales organisation, especially for SMEs and developing companies. Each sales rep manages a defined territory. This may be :

a region ;
a department
an urban area divided up according to prospects.

This method simplifies day-to-day management and reduces travel costs. Your sales reps develop a solid local network and a good knowledge of their region. They can schedule their appointments and follow up closely with their customers.

☝️ Note that this organisation quickly reveals its limits. Your sales staff may find themselves competing in neighbouring areas. This kind of situation can lead to conflict. Territories with a low density of potential customers may also not generate enough work for a full-time salesperson, wasting resources.

More problematic still, this structure becomes ineffective when dealing with customers spread over several zones. A customer with subsidiaries in three different regions, for example, will find himself having to interact with three different contacts. If they don't coordinate their approach, the customer is likely to be confused. Geographical organisation works best for companies selling locally with short sales cycles.

Organisation by customer size

Segmenting your sales organisation by customer size allows you to tailor your approach to the needs of each category. One dedicated team manages key accounts, another focuses on SMEs, and a third on very small businesses and private individuals.

Sales cycles, decision-making processes and expectations differ according to the size of the companies you approach. The cost of acquiring a major account can be 10 times that of an SME, but its "customer lifetime value" more than makes up for this investment.

☝️ But what happens when a small SME grows into a giant? Which sales rep will retain the relationship? On what criteria will the transfer be made? You need to anticipate these situations before they arise.

Without precise rules, this type of organisation generates more internal conflicts than benefits!

Organisation by product or service range

Specialising your sales staff by product range is ideal for companies with a diversified catalogue or complex technical solutions. Each salesperson has a perfect command of his or her range and can provide prospects with in-depth technical expertise.

☝️ This type of organisation does, however, create silos between teams. When a customer needs several ranges, he or she finds himself or herself managing several contacts, with no real coordination between them. If a specialist sales person leaves the company and their expertise has not been properly centralised in a CRM or a repository, it disappears with them. In some sectors, where staff turnover can be as high as 25% a year, this represents a significant loss of technical expertise built up over the years.

Design a remuneration policy that motivates your sales staff

The remuneration of sales staff is strictly regulated by the French Employment Code. Whatever their performance, their salary can never be less than the minimum wage.

Commissions must be calculated on the basis of objective and verifiable criteria, clearly defined in the employment contract. In the event of termination, any commission earned remains payable to the employee.

The variable component usually represents between 20% and 40% of total remuneration, depending on the business sector. It should motivate your sales staff. The choice of variable should reflect your priorities:

sales
margins
acquisition of new customers,
customer loyalty.

A system based solely on sales will encourage you to negotiate large discounts, to the detriment of profitability.

Monitoring variable pay requires effective tools and transparent communication. Your sales staff need to know in real time how well they are performing and how much commission they are earning. A sales dashboard updated monthly is the minimum you need to put in place. Policy adjustments, on the other hand, need to be used with care, at the risk of disorientating your sales force.

The essential tools for managing your sales activity

Using the right technological tools boosts the effectiveness of your sales force tenfold. Here are four practical digital solutions for managing your sales development:

👉 CRM (Customer Relationship Management):

centralises all prospect and customer information,
automates repetitive tasks
tracks every interaction,
provides the sales manager with a global view of the sales pipeline with real-time performance indicators.

👉 ERP:

connects the sales function to the company's other departments: accounting, logistics, production ;
enables direct consultation of stocks
automates commission calculations;
facilitates payroll management.

👉 Marketing automation tools feed your pipeline by automating:

prospecting ;
lead qualification ;
follow-up emails
network publications.

👉 Business Intelligence tools:

analyse sales trends,
identify growth opportunities.

Create synergy between sales and marketing teams

These 2 teams too often work in silos, generating misunderstandings and loss of efficiency. Good collaboration between them improves customer satisfaction.

Harmonise the objectives and methods of the two departments

Marketing thinks in terms of visibility and image. Sales people think in terms of conversion rates, revenue and sales cycles. These ways of seeing don't necessarily clash.

💡 To get the 2 departments to work together, you can, for example, define a common lead evaluation system combining marketing criteria (commitment, channel) and sales criteria (budget, sector, decision-maker). You could also organise monthly meetings between the two teams.

This synergy doesn't happen overnight. It is built by clarifying the role of each department in the customer journey:

marketing acts upstream, prepares the ground and calibrates the messages ;
the sales team takes over for mature prospects, with a coherent message and aligned priorities.

Use collaborative tools to improve internal communication

The effectiveness of a sales organisation also depends on the channels through which information is circulated:

a common CRM ;
a customer feedback platform
a space for exchanging information on current campaigns.

Everyone retains control of their own area, but information flows better, bottlenecks are brought to light earlier, and teams become more agile.

Pool field data to optimise the customer approach

In direct contact with customers, sales staff pick up weak signals on a daily basis that neither surveys nor dashboards can capture. Sharing this information with marketing teams means that messages, offers and sales support can be adjusted as closely as possible to the situation on the ground.

Conversely, behavioural data from marketing tools enhances our understanding of the buying journey and guides our sales actions. This back-and-forth flow of information creates a virtuous circle: data becomes actionable, decisions more relevant and actions better coordinated.

Encourage initiative and individual responsibility

The best ideas don't always come from head office. It's often the salespeople themselves who, in the course of meetings, identify :

what makes customers tick
what's holding up a sale
or what's missing from the offer.

You need to give them the freedom to make decisions without systematically consulting their superiors.

Unfortunately, in some companies, compliance is praised, not risk-taking. This reflex blocks employees. A sales manager who wants his team to progress needs to set a clear, but open, framework.

Giving autonomy does not mean delegating everything. A junior salesperson will not take the same decisions as an experienced salesperson. In the same way, a strategic account is not treated in the same way as cold prospecting. Autonomy is adapted to experience and the stakes involved.

Continuously improve your sales organisation

A sales organisation can only remain effective if it can adapt without becoming unstable. This ability to adjust is not a matter of instinct or of decisions taken on the fly, but is based on rigorous, structured monitoring.

Identify and monitor the right performance indicators

Not all indicators are there to comment on results. Some are there to trigger an alert.

💡 A 15% drop in the conversion rate in one month or a 20% lengthening of the sales cycle in a strategic segment should immediately prompt a targeted analysis.

It is by cross-referencing data that weak signals become visible:

Is the cycle getting longer while the average shopping basket is shrinking? Are you wasting time on unprofitable opportunities?
A stable closing rate, but a falling margin ? Perhaps it's time to review your positioning or sales pitch.

It is these differences, rather than averages, that guide decisions about which tools, priorities or methods to adjust.

Regularly adjust your organisation according to the results on the ground

Changing a sector, redistributing accounts or changing a sales method can upset the internal balance. Some sales reps see these adjustments as a loss of territory, especially if they manage repeat customers. To ensure that the organisation evolves smoothly, the company needs to set up time-limited tests.

💡 You could, for example, carry out a new segmentation over three months or run a test on a volunteer team. This framework limits passive resistance and provides proof of the method's effectiveness before it is rolled out across the board. Adjustments can only be made if the teams understand them, try them out and see the benefits.

Anticipate changing market needs to stay competitive

Anticipating doesn't mean waiting for informal feedback from a lone salesperson. Your company needs to organise a structured sales intelligence system, defining the frequency of feedback, the method of collection and the analysis process. Every week, a dedicated channel should centralise weak signals:

repeated customer requests
new objections from the field
changes in buying behaviour, etc.

A marketing-sales team then qualifies this information, distinguishing between objective facts and more subjective feelings. This approach enables weak signals to be spotted earlier, market trends to be picked up and opportunities to be identified before the competition. The sales manager can then refine his strategy and adjust his team's actions in line with emerging trends.

Develop the skills of your sales team

The quality of the sales service depends as much on the CRM tools as it does on the skill level of your staff. Targeted training enables you to adjust your sales methods and develop your sales function on an ongoing basis. This approach boosts the effectiveness of your sales force in the field and improves customer relations.

Training your sales force doesn't mean piling on modules. Instead, create a clear framework, integrated into the day-to-day reality of the sales team. A monthly or fortnightly session is enough to deal with a sticking point identified in the sales process. This rhythm allows the sales people to test the new prospecting methods and then pass on their feedback to the sales manager.

Training also involves integrating new employees into your sales organisation. When a salesperson joins the team, an experienced pair of hands should help them to discover the management tools and internal processes. Business subjects must be clearly defined in line with the company's sales strategy. Each stage of the apprenticeship must be well thought out, so that the newcomer can master sales techniques and understand customer needs. This progression is followed from the very first weeks to identify what is working, correct what is slowing down sales activity and accelerate sales development in your company.