Sales structure also sells

Carlos Ocampo · Field Notes D31 · Based on D365-IRL, Day 356 · September 8, 2026

When a company needs to sell more, one of its first responses is often to look for another salesperson.

Before hiring, it is worth examining the conditions in which that person would have to work: what opportunities they would receive, what information they would find, how their progress would be evaluated and what support they would have to deliver.

On Day 356 of D365-IRL, the conversation about sales and BullishMx included recruitment, sales staff turnover, diagnosis, commissions and lean structures.

These topics open a common question: what does a person need to turn their sales capability into results within an organization?

At D31, we propose reviewing that question alongside the profile being recruited.

A company can be clear about how much it wants to sell while leaving essential operational decisions unresolved: which customers to prioritize, what problems it can address, what terms it can offer and who intervenes when an opportunity requires an exception.

When those answers depend on constantly consulting the director, the team has limited room to act on its own.

Sales autonomy needs information, criteria and authority to move forward.

Consider someone joining sales. They receive a target and a catalog. They begin prospecting, find interest and prepare a proposal. Then they discover that they must consult on every discount, delivery times vary, and nobody has defined who resumes contact with the customer when another department gets involved.

The example illustrates a problem of work design. To understand their performance, we also need to observe the conditions under which they operate.

The same applies when reviewing turnover. A departure may have different causes. Examining expectations, support, tools, incentives and responsibilities allows us to formulate more precise questions before hiring again.

Commissions are part of that structure. When designing them, we propose asking which behaviors should be recognized and how they relate to the commitments the company can fulfill. The team also needs to understand the conditions and be able to resolve questions about their application.

Sales judgment must connect opportunity with delivery capacity.

A lean structure can distribute that work among few people, provided responsibilities are clear. Who opens a conversation. Who identifies the need. Who builds the proposal. Who authorizes terms. Who maintains follow-up.

One person may perform several functions. Each function needs a recognizable scope and a way to coordinate with the others.

A lean structure requires clear agreements.

To put this reflection into practice, we propose reviewing a recent opportunity from beginning to end. Reconstruct what information was available, where progress stopped, which decisions required support and which agreements remained pending.

That path may help distinguish a training need from a coordination problem or a decision that had never been delegated.

HFE™ provides a framework for following up on adjustments: choosing a point of friction, agreeing on an intervention, observing what happened and reviewing the next move.

This connects sales development with our exploration of the autonomous company. The team needs to recognize opportunities, act within a mandate and coordinate to fulfill what it offers. Technology can support that work on a structure people understand.

Before opening your next sales vacancy, can you explain what conditions will allow the person who joins to do their job well?

Field note based on the recovered summary of Day 356. The sales onboarding example and diagnostic questions are editorial developments; they do not describe a specific case presented in the session.

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