Tiffany Kemp, Devant's founder and managing director

In many organizations, the sales person has a heavy burden on their shoulders. Not only do they have to generate new opportunities, they need to develop them, oversee the preparation of proposal documents, deliver presentations, organize demos and help the client find budget for, and obtain approval for, your product or service.

Should the sales person also be responsible for getting the client to sign the contract?

If so, how much of a role should they take in the contract negotiation process?

Usually, commission is not paid until the contract is signed and/or purchase order received. Often, part of the commission will be held back until the client has paid up. Both of these should encourage the sales person to engage enthusiastically with the process of guiding the client to contract signature.

In reality, sales executives can find the whole contract area to be a minefield. They may feel that dealing with both their own and the client’s lawyers is like doing battle with the “Sales Prevention Squad”. Sometimes it seems that everything is stacked against them actually closing the sale, and the people who are supposed to be helping them to signature are putting obstacles in their way.

Some organisations have a very clear demarcation at this point, with a handover from ‘sales’ to ‘commercial’ or ‘legal’ for the contract negotiation process. Others keep the sales person or account manager closely involved in the whole cycle. In other organisations, the sales person is solely responsible for negotiating and closing the contract, referring to internal or external legal support on an as-needed basis.

What’s the right way to manage this?

Can sales people be trusted to take an active part on contract negotiation, without ‘giving away the family silver’ in order to close a deal faster?

Can lawyers be trusted to negotiate the contracts without upsetting the client relationship and undoing all the good work the sales person has put in for months or years beforehand?

How do you foster effective communication and mutual understanding between sales and legal, so that they can work together to close deals faster without increasing risk?

For me, this area is the key to growing a business and increasing sales without creating an unpalatable legacy of poor commercial agreements. I’ll be looking at different elements of this discussion over the next couple of weeks, and would really appreciate your thoughts and feedback. It’s also going to be one of the topics under discussion at our first Autumn Briefing on Thursday 6^th October, so if you’d like to join us, ping me a mail at info@devant.co.uk and I’ll make sure you receive an invite.