Sales team structure for a company of 20 to 50 people

At 20 people you can still run selling out of the owner's head. At 50 you cannot, and the usual response is to hire another salesperson. That can be the wrong hire. Before you add anyone, follow ten recent orders from first contact to dispatch, and mark who touched each step. The structure that suits your firm is the one that fixes what the trace shows being dropped. Add a manager only when you can no longer read every deal yourself.

Trace ten orders, won and lost

Take the last ten quotations, five that became orders and five that did not. For each, write down how the buyer found you, who replied, who quoted, how long the quote took, and who spoke to the buyer afterwards.

Quote | Source        | First reply by | Quote by      | Days to quote | Follow-up by | Result
1     | Builder, site | Seller 1       | Seller 1      | 6             | none         | lost
2     | Shop reorder  | Clerk          | Seller 2      | 1             | none         | won
3     | Builder, site | Seller 1       | Seller 1      | 9             | Seller 1     | lost
4     | Shop, new     | Seller 2       | Seller 2      | 2             | Seller 2     | won

Do not read the totals. Read the pattern in the columns. Which step has no name beside it? Where do days pile up? Who appears on every row?

What the trace showed one hardware maker in Moradabad

Here is an invented case. A door-hardware maker in Moradabad with 35 people sells to hardware shops and to builders through two sellers. The owner had decided the answer was a third field seller. The trace of ten orders told a different story. Shop reorders closed quickly, because the shops knew what they wanted. The builders' quotes took a week or more, because only the two sellers could price them, and both were out visiting shops.

The first remedy was wrong. Hiring a third traveller would have added another person who could not quote from the road. The owner moved a capable clerk to a quote desk with written price rules and a limit above which a seller must approve. The shop reorders went to an inside person on the phone, since shops order by calling. The two field sellers were left with builders and new shops, where a visit pays for itself. No head was added. The quote desk made errors in its first month, and one builder was quoted below cost before the approval limit was tightened.

Four jobs, and who does each today

Whatever the titles, selling in a firm this size has four jobs. Someone finds buyers, through calls and enquiries. Someone wins the order, through visits, quotations and negotiation. Someone looks after the account after the sale: repeat orders, complaints, collection. And someone supports all three by typing quotes, sending samples and keying orders.

At 20 people, one seller does the first three and a clerk does the fourth. At 50 you can afford specialists. To size the team, count how many accounts one person can serve well, then divide the buyers you want to reach by that number; the answer is a ratio for your trade, not a rule for all. List the four across the top of a sheet and your people down the side, and mark who actually does each one today. Gaps and double entries tend to show up quickly.

Inside or field: decide by the order

Cost is the wrong test. Look at what the buyer needs before saying yes. If the buyer knows what is wanted, because it is standard and has been bought before, a phone and WhatsApp suffice. If the first orders are small and from many buyers, a visit costs more than the order is worth, so call first and visit only the best. If the product is custom or technical, or several people decide, the buyer needs to see, measure or trust you, and that means a field visit with an inside person supporting.

A pattern that works in many trades has an inside person qualify and follow up while the field seller visits only buyers who pass, both measured against one enquiry list. The logistics of the field role are in supporting field sales without a back office.

Hunters and farmers: split only when you can see the damage

A hunter finds and closes new customers. A farmer keeps and grows existing ones. Split them when you can see one of two things. Repeat orders may be going to a competitor because nobody checked after the second delivery. Or new business has stalled because your best seller spends the days on service calls. Do not split with fewer than a few dozen active customers, since the farmer will have too little to do and drift into hunting. Nor should you split when the product needs one person from first call to last, as in a one-off fit-out.

When you need a sales manager

You need one when you cannot read every deal. You cannot say, without checking, which three quotations are likeliest to close this month. Sellers bring you disputes over territory. A good seller has stopped improving because nobody reviews the calls.

Before hiring one, try a player-coach: your best seller keeps fewer accounts in return for coaching time. Check after a couple of months that coaching is happening and that the player-coach's own sales did not collapse. If the coaching is hated, do not force it, because losing your best seller to make a poor manager is a bad trade. A full-time manager makes sense once there are five or more sellers and the pipeline review alone fills a day. Until then, a fractional revenue leader can hold the plan.

Four lines for every role

For each role, write what the person owns, which numbers they are measured on, what they hand to whom, and what they must not do. A field seller, for example, does not change a price. Settle also who owns the customer list. If the answer is "the seller", you risk losing the customers when the seller leaves.

Start with ten orders and one sheet

Pull the ten quotations, fill the trace, and find the step with no owner. Start with the quote times, since they are the easiest column to count. To scope the structure for your own team, tell us what you need; how teams like this are organised is covered under sales.