A target state is not a vision.

The picture I bring with me

When I take over a sales organisation, I usually have the target state in my head already. The basic objectives have been discussed with the management and often communicated as well, before I sit down with the team for the first time.

After I have introduced myself, I talk about exactly these topics with everyone in the first one-to-ones. Only that way do I learn what people expect and what they know, and I can already outline roughly where I want to go. So the target state is there from the start, it just has not been worked out yet.

It is only worked out and presented to the team in the third step.

First comes the reality check. The first part of this series is about how I get to know the numbers, the processes and above all the people in the first weeks. It regularly turns out that part of the picture I brought with me is wrong. Then comes the first change, one that brings in revenue and takes nothing away from anyone. Why it comes before the target state is explained in the second part.

Sales is not as tangible as an invoicing process or a production line. A worked-out target state on day one rests on assumptions, and that is how it is received. After the reality check it rests on facts. And whoever presents it has already shown once that change can pay off for the team.

Target state or vision

The two are often confused, and that hurts the target state.

A vision is a lasting picture of the future. A target state describes more pragmatically what can be achieved in a manageable time. Both give a change its direction, but the target state comes across as less weighty and is therefore accepted more easily in some organisations. (Stolzenberg and Heberle 2021)

In sales that is an advantage. Salespeople measure everything by what can be achieved. A goal has to be ambitious and still attainable, because nothing demotivates more than one where it is clear from the start that it hangs too high. (Zupancic 2023)

For me, a target state is therefore what we want to achieve concretely in the next three years, and what we need for it. Not an abstract vision, but something that has to be achievable.

What belongs in a target state for me

Four things belong in it.

The organisational structure. Which roles exist, how they work together and who reports to whom. If roles are added that do not exist today, they are in the picture too.

The coverage model. For every customer it has to be clear how they are looked after. Directly or through a partner, in inside sales or in key account management, and who is responsible.

The quality. How the customer should experience us, from the first enquiry through advice to the handover to technical teams and service. Not all of it can be expressed in euros, and it still belongs in.

The metrics. What we want to achieve, in numbers one can commit to. I use a balanced scorecard with four perspectives for this, finance, customers, processes, and learning and development. The financial figures show whether the rebuild holds in the short term. The customer and learning perspectives show earlier whether it is actually being taken up.

Leading and lagging indicators belong in it as well. Revenue lags, it shows what has already happened, and the individual salesperson influences it only in part. Leading indicators measure the activities from which revenue later emerges. (Scherm 2024) Without them you only find out at the end of the year whether the path is right.

Some things can hardly be measured cleanly, such as how the customer experiences the advice. Then I record the goal as a description whose achievement can at least be judged after a while. (Zupancic 2023)

Why the target state is sensitive in sales

In production a target state changes workflows. In sales it changes territories, customers and roles, and with them often income.

Every change raises the same questions among those affected. What exactly is going to happen, why does anything have to change at all, where is it heading? And in the end, whether the change brings advantages or disadvantages for oneself. (Stolzenberg and Heberle 2021) In sales that is the first question.

The costs of a change are both material and personal. Materially it is about pay, job title and tasks, personally about identity, that is, whether the change touches one’s own self-image. (Hofert 2025) A key account manager who is supposed to hand over some long-standing customers pays both.

That is why I do not present the worked-out target state to the full group first. Beforehand I talk once more with those it affects most. Anyone who sees for the first time in a team meeting that their territory is being redrawn stops listening after that.

The foundation comes from the top, the rest from the team

I agree the foundation of the target state with the management. The team then does not receive it for information but for scrutiny. It gets questioned, attacked and developed further, and that is intentional.

Strategy remains a matter for the top, responsibility lies with management. But capturing a company’s strengths all the way into day-to-day work with customers only succeeds with a broad base of employees. Whoever deliberately involves opinion leaders and informal leaders wins ambassadors for implementation before it begins. (Marniok 2025)

In sales these opinion leaders rarely sit in the leadership meeting. Often they are the ones with the longest customer relationships, or someone in inside sales whom everybody calls when things are on fire. If these people have helped change the target state, they explain it to the others better than I can.

One format for this is the change round. Around twelve employees at a time talk for about an hour and a half directly with those responsible for the change, give feedback and get background information first-hand. The composition changes from round to round. (Stolzenberg and Heberle 2021) After a few rounds almost everybody has had a say, not only those who always talk anyway.

That takes time, and afterwards the target state looks different from the beginning. That is the point. Feedback and participation are not a courtesy, they decide acceptance.

And it does not stop at sales. Marketing, technical consulting and service work on the same customer. A target state that only sales knows fails at the first handover. That is why I align milestones, campaigns and capacity with these teams before the target state is set, not once things start to jam.

Without a roadmap it remains a picture

A target state without a visible path is a vision again.

An old change formula sums this up. Shared discomfort, the desired state and the first concrete steps are multiplied together, and the result has to be greater than the cost of the change. They are multiplied because one missing factor sets everything to zero. (Hofert 2025) A strong target state without visible steps therefore moves as little as good steps without a goal.

That is why every target state of mine comes with a roadmap that everyone in the team understands. It shows what is adjusted when, what effect we expect from it and how it contributes concretely to the goal. I set it up for three years and divide it into quarters. Three years create commitment and leave enough room to react to market, technology and customers. The quarters set the pace and make progress visible.

Who is to carry the target state

A target state also describes which capabilities the organisation needs, and not all of them are there today.

That calls for an honest comparison in every function. Which behaviour and which capabilities does the target organisation need, and what is missing today? The order after that is clear. First the employees who are already there are trained. Only where that is not realistic by the next major milestone is additional recruiting done from outside. (Marniok 2025)

Support and training for everyone who comes along, and the right people in addition where a role is newly created. Introducing a new role only on the organisation chart has moved the problem, not solved it.

A target state is allowed to change

Sales is changing faster than ever. In B2B sales of security solutions, a target state that is right today can be outdated tomorrow. A new regulation shifts demand, a vendor rebuilds its partner programme, a whole segment suddenly buys differently.

Whoever initiates a change in a complex environment can often only make assumptions about the consequences of individual steps. That is why feedback loops are needed throughout the whole initiative to stay on course. (Stolzenberg and Heberle 2021)

In sales this translates well into the quarterly rhythm. Every planning cycle lasts three months. At the end of the quarter, forecasts and planning are discussed and adjusted in the review, and in the retrospective the team looks at what it learned from the cycle. (Scherm 2024) A good plan is then one you want to change, because every change means you have learned something. (Cohn 2018, cited in Scherm 2024)

For me these are quarterly reviews and half-yearly strategy workshops. Alongside the metrics, the experience from sales, consulting and partner management goes on the table there. The target state thus becomes a learning system and does not stay a document that is decided once.

Planning certainty has to stay dynamic in a world of constant change. The target state sets the direction, and we adjust the exact path along the way.

What remains

A target state in sales is concrete, achievable and understandable for everyone. It shows how the organisation is structured, how every customer is looked after, what quality we deliver and which numbers we want to reach. The foundation comes from the management, the final form emerges in the team and with the functions that work on the same customer. A roadmap turns it into a path, and regular reviews keep it current.

It is roughly outlined from the first one-to-one. The worked-out version comes only once the analysis is done and the first change has shown that change pays off.