Building a sales team, leadership, commission, closing. From practice, not from a textbook.
Start with the guide building a sales organisation in seven steps. The sales guides draw on 25 years of building sales organisations, from structured sales and a 750-person telephone sales team to franchise expansion (career). Building a team: hiring salespeople, onboarding in 30 days and commission models that last. The conversation itself: the first B2B meeting, the “too expensive” objection and negotiating without discounts.
The first 100 days as head of sales decide whether the team follows. A plan in three phases: listen, set a rhythm, make the first changes — with conversation openers, typical mistakes and what German law says about commission and CRM.
“A new head of sales is not judged by their plan but by whether the best salespeople are still there after 100 days.”
In a small business, the decision is made by the owner who is also standing behind the counter. When to reach them, how to structure a ten-minute conversation, who quietly has a say, what the law says — and why the absence of a right of withdrawal is an obligation for the salesperson.
“An owner does not buy in a meeting but between two customers — anyone who does not plan for that is selling against the shop door.”
What changes in sales when the economy weakens: longer cycles, more decision-makers, the status quo as the strongest competitor. How to secure the customer base, rebuild the offer around savings and liquidity, do the maths on discounts and lead the team — with conversation building blocks and an action list.
“In a downturn, most offers do not lose to a competitor — they lose to the decision not to decide at all.”
Six sales KPIs are enough for weekly steering: win rate per stage, cycle length, deal size, open opportunities, contribution margin and early churn.
“A metric where nobody knows what to do differently on Monday when it drops is not a steering tool — it is decoration in the weekly report.”
Base salary or commission in sales: when a high fixed salary is right, when a high variable share is, what the minimum wage and German commercial agent law require, a model calculation over three months and sentences for the salary conversation.
“The base salary pays for the work the salesperson cannot influence; the commission pays for the work they can. Mix the two up and you end up paying for luck or for bad luck.”
Building a sales function in a mid-sized firm in seven steps: target customer, offer, channels, hiring and commission, process, CRM, metrics, mistakes.
“A sales function does not grow because you hire people; it grows because you decided beforehand who they sell to, what they sell and how you will know it is working.”
Most early cancellations are set up in the sales conversation and visible in the first weeks. What the handover from sales to service looks like, a contact plan for day 1 to 90, early warning signs, an example calculation of what an early cancellation costs and an action list.
“A customer who cancels in the first 90 days was never a customer. They were a deal that had not yet fallen through.”
What products that need explaining are and how to sell energy, payments and software: with the customer’s own figures and an explanation they can pass on.
“With products that need explaining, you rarely lose to the competitor. You lose to the moment when the customer has to explain the offer to their boss and cannot.”
How to negotiate price in B2B sales without giving it away: a trade list instead of discount headroom, the typical buyer moves and the answers that work, a calculation showing why contract term is worth more than percentages — and an action list for salespeople and sales managers.
“A discount without something in return is not a negotiated result but a price cut on a delay. Whoever gives way must get something for it — otherwise the customer only learns that asking pays off.”
Building referral selling systematically in B2B: the right moment to ask, specific instead of open referral questions, the introduction made by the customer, rewards without an aftertaste — and what § 7 UWG and the German Federal Court of Justice say about calls and emails to referred contacts.
“A referral is borrowed trust. Treat it like a name on a cold list and you pay it back with interest.”
Social selling on LinkedIn in B2B sales: your profile as a landing page, connection requests with a reason, posts from everyday selling, conversation instead of a pitch in direct messages — plus what § 7 UWG and the LinkedIn User Agreement say about promotional messages and automation.
“On LinkedIn, it is not the message that sells, but what the customer has read from you beforehand.”
Where AI saves real time in B2B sales today (preparation, call notes, draft quotes, training role-plays), where it does damage (voicebot cold calling, mass emails, forecasts from dirty data) and what § 201 StGB, § 7 UWG, the AI Act and the works council have to say about it.
“AI makes the salesperson faster before and after the conversation. The conversation itself stays theirs.”
Why CRM systems in sales stay empty and how to change that: five mandatory fields instead of fifty, a next step with a date, an entry in under a minute, leading from the CRM instead of via Excel — and what the works council and retention duties have to say about it.
“A CRM gets maintained when the salesperson gets something out of it the next morning — not when the boss demands it.”
How to plan field sales tours that yield more conversation time rather than more kilometres: visit frequency by customer value, fixed territory days, a daily calculation — and why, under CJEU and BAG case law, the drive to the first customer is working time.
“A good route does not save kilometres. It saves the visits you never needed to make.”
How to lead self-employed sales partners without destroying their self-employment: the line drawn by § 84(1) HGB and § 7(1) SGB IV, the information duties of § 86a HGB as the real management tool, the territory trap in § 87(2) HGB and what ending the contract costs under § 89b HGB.
“A commercial agent who has to report in every Monday morning and work through a weekly plan is no longer a commercial agent — he is an employee nobody has registered yet.”
When the claim to a closing commission actually arises (§ 87a(1) HGB), when it falls away again (§ 87a(2) and (3) HGB), what of this cannot be contracted out — and how a salesperson uses the statement of account under § 87c HGB to check whether the settlement was correct.
“Most commission disputes do not arise from bad faith but from the fact that sales and accounting are talking about three different points in time and all three of them call it “the close”.”
Why most induction plans in sales train for too long and measure too late, what a 30-day plan with four weeks and four clear purposes looks like, which pieces of evidence have to be in place at the end of each week — and what, under § 2 NachwG and § 12 ArbSchG, has to be on the table on the very first working day.
“A new salesperson does not learn the product in the training room but in the moment a customer asks him a question he cannot answer. The later that moment comes, the more expensive it gets.”
Why the hiring interview systematically measures the wrong thing with salespeople, how a trial working day has to be built to prove anything, which four criteria have to be settled before the day — and where the legal line runs between a non-binding look around and a paid employment relationship under § 611a BGB.
“A salesperson who convinces in the hiring interview has proven exactly one thing: that he can sell a hiring interview. Whether he can sell my product is another matter entirely — and that page only gets written in the field.”
Why the weekly pipeline round moves nothing in most sales organisations, how to define stages with exit criteria instead of gut feeling, which four questions every deal has to survive, how to calculate pipeline coverage instead of guessing a forecast — and what the works council has a say in the moment the CRM starts logging activity per employee.
“A pipeline review in which nobody loses a deal was not a meeting, it was a reading hour. The purpose of the round is not to confirm the list — the purpose is to make it shorter and truer.”
A good salesperson's resignation is the end of a chain, not its beginning. Which five sentences are said months earlier, what a departure costs in a model calculation, how a stay interview is structured — and which three rules (§ 87 (3) HGB, §§ 74, 74a HGB, § 622 BGB) actually apply on exit.
“Nobody resigns on the day he resigns. He resigns four months earlier, in subordinate clauses that get taken for grumbling.”
Why a revenue target alone leads nobody, how to calculate backwards from the annual target to the week, which activities you may count and which only measure busyness — and what the Federal Labour Court decided in 2024 and 2025 about setting targets in good time.
“A revenue target is a gauge, not a lever. You can look at it, but you cannot do it — the only things that can be steered are the ones a salesperson can decide for himself on Monday morning.”
Why the classic closing techniques work against the salesperson in B2B today, which five closing questions actually hold, how to check beforehand whether the deal is ready to be closed at all — and what § 4a UWG and the absence of a right of withdrawal for commercial buyers mean in practice.
“A closing question does not make a decision. It makes an existing decision visible — which is why the worst closing question is the one meant to force something that never happened in the conversation before it.”
How often to follow up without being a nuisance: a cadence with real reasons, the sentence before the quote goes out and what § 7 UWG allows.
“It is not the third follow-up that annoys but the first one without substance. Whoever brings nothing along is demanding work from the customer and calling it service.”
The objection “too expensive” has five different meanings, and only one of them has anything to do with money. How to tell them apart in the conversation, which three sentences work, why the counter-calculation matters more than defending the price — and what a reflexive discount does to the margin.
“Whoever answers “too expensive” with a justification has misunderstood the question. In four out of five cases the sentence does not say “too expensive” but “I do not see the difference yet”.”
A B2B first meeting has five blocks in 45 minutes: reason, frame, analysis, contextualisation, next step — with a date, not “I will be in touch”.
“A first meeting is successful when there is a decision at the end — even if the decision is no. The most expensive outcome is the friendly maybe that sits in the pipeline for a year.”
B2B cold calling in Germany is allowed where consent can be presumed. What § 7 UWG requires for that, and how to open the call well.
“Cold calls rarely fail because of the law. They almost always fail at the first question. If you cannot say why you are calling this particular business, you have neither presumed consent nor a conversation.”
Bakers, hairdressers and restaurateurs buy clarity about their costs, not a terminal. How a payment sales conversation that keeps customers works.
“Sell a baker a terminal and you have a customer for twelve months; explain to him why his five-euro receipt costs 1.8 per cent and you have a customer for ten years.”
Sales commission models compared: base plus variable, closing, recurring, tiered and override, with a worked example on cost per customer and clawbacks.
“A salesperson optimises exactly what he is paid for; if that is the close, you get contracts that get cancelled in the thirteenth month.”