The sales leader's first ninety days in a small company

You have hired a sales head, or a fractional lead, and you want to see change. In the first ninety days the useful work comes in three parts, one after another: listening to customers, mending one process, and keeping a few numbers. Changes to people and pay come after that. Below is one invented ninety days, then the page to fill in before the head's first morning.

A sprayer maker in Dhule hires a head from a bigger firm

Imagine, as an invented example, a Dhule firm that makes knapsack sprayers and sells them through agri-input dealers across north Maharashtra. Four people work in sales and accounts. The owner hires a head of sales from a large equipment maker, and wants to see changes before the season opens.

The head's instinct is to start with structure. In the second week the head redraws the dealer map, moving two long-standing dealers to other sellers. The change goes out on Monday. By Thursday one seller has stopped sharing dealer notes, and a moved dealer has rung the owner to ask whether the firm is in trouble.

The owner asks the head to undo the map and ask a different question: what do dealers say about us when we are not in the room?

Days one to thirty: eight dealers and a pile of quotations

The owner introduces the head to eight dealers: the three biggest, two that started buying last year, and three that stopped. The head asks each the same four things. How did they first hear of the firm? Which other sprayer brands do they stock? What nearly made them drop it? What do they tell a farmer who asks?

The three that stopped are the most useful. Two say the same thing in different words. The machine is fine. But when a nozzle or gasket fails mid-season they cannot get a spare for days, and the farmer blames the dealer. Nobody in sales had heard this, because nobody asked a dealer who had stopped buying.

Alongside the visits the head reads about forty quotations from the last two seasons, noting the date sent, the date of the first follow-up and the outcome. Some have no follow-up at all, and sellers keep the rest in personal notebooks. The dealers' phrases go on a single page, unedited, and the head's opinions stay off it.

Days thirty-one to sixty: one fix, tried on two sellers

Two candidates present themselves, the slow follow-up and the spare-parts worry. The head picks the second: it came from lost dealers, and it is cheaper to test. The rule is half a page. Every sprayer quotation carries a short spares list with prices and the name of the person who dispatches a spare. The seller says it aloud on the call.

The head tests it with the two friendliest sellers on one batch of dealer orders, and asks them to note each dealer's reaction. One dealer asks for the spares list to be printed so it can be pinned above the counter. The head waits for a second batch before extending the rule to all four sellers, and on that batch only one of the two remembers to say it aloud every time. Whether the fix works is still open at day sixty.

Days sixty-one to ninety: three numbers and a cautious look at pay

The head now keeps three numbers on a shared sheet: sprayer enquiries answered the same day they arrive, quotations with at least one call logged, and confirmed orders marked as new dealer, repeat dealer or referral. A fourth, deals by stage, waits until the sellers trust the first three. The head says what the numbers are for: finding where the process leaks, not ranking sellers. Once the counts hold steady, setting a sales target from capacity turns them into a quota.

Only now does the head raise commission, by asking each seller what the present plan rewards that the firm does not want. Nothing is proposed in writing.

The page to fill before day one

Fill this in with the new head, ideally before the first day. The Dhule firm's version is shown after the blanks.

Customers to meet in the first month (6 to 10; name, why this one):
  largest 3: ______   newest 2: ______   stopped buying 2 or 3: ______
Who introduces each, and the date of the message: ______
Records by day 3: last ~40 quotations, enquiry list, price rules
The one process I may change alone: ______   (decided after day 30)
Decisions that stay with the owner: hiring and firing, discount above ____, price list
Numbers I will read from day 60 (max 4): ______
Date of the first review with the owner: ______

Dhule, filled in (invented):
  Meet: the 3 largest dealers; 2 new; 2 who stopped
  Alone: the spares list on every quotation. Owner keeps: discount above 8%, price list
  Numbers: same-day replies, quotations with a call, orders by source. First review: day 30

The line about what the head may change alone is the one people skip. Fill it even if the answer is "nothing yet".

What waits, and why

Pay plans, territory moves and price lists wait for the second half, for different reasons. A new plan can read as a pay cut. A territory move without warning looks like the Dhule map. A price list changed too early muddies the evidence, since the head cannot tell whether price was why dealers left or just the excuse they gave. A conduct problem, such as a misreported deal, is the exception: deal with it at once and privately.

A fractional lead has fewer hours, not a different order

A fractional head of sales follows the same order with a narrower scope: four or five customer conversations in place of eight, one process, two numbers. Agree in writing which decisions the owner keeps, or the sellers learn to wait for the owner anyway. The same line serves a full-time hire.

When to skip the slow start

Skip it in an emergency, such as one customer who makes up most of the orders and is leaving. The first thirty days then go to that account. Skip part of it when the head is a long-time seller promoted from within, though not all of it: customers tell a manager things they never told a colleague. At the end of a quarter, a win and loss review gathers more of the same evidence.

Send the introductions yourself

Pick the eight customers this week and write the introductions before the head arrives, saying who is joining, what the person will ask and why honesty will be welcome. The rest of the team-running work sits under sales. If you want help setting the plan for your own firm, tell us what you need.