When does a business need a sales kit

You do not need a sales kit just because the company is large or already has a brand. You need it when there are people telling the same story differently, or when clients need materials to persuade others internally. If you are not in one of those two situations, investing early will only create documents that remain unused.

The real threshold to start

Sinh Vũ does not ask "how many years has the company been around" or "what is the revenue" before consulting on the sales kit. The first question is always: who will take this kit to sell, and where are they misaligned?

Two clear signs that indicate it’s time to invest:

• A sales team consists of two or more people, or sells through multiple points and agents. Each person tells the story differently, leading to varied perceptions of the same brand.
• Your clients do not make decisions alone. They need to report back, present to the director, and seek budget approval. At that point, they require materials to take with them, not just for one meeting.

Gartner's research on the B2B buying journey shows that a typical deal involves multiple decision-makers, and each person often seeks additional information outside of joint meetings. A sales kit is worth having when it can support that persuasion, not just for show.

When is it not needed?

If you are at this stage, a brochure and business card are sufficient:

• Only one seller, the founder, and no plans to hire more in the next six months.
• Clients make decisions right after the meeting, without needing to go through a review board.
• Each month, only a few new clients are met, not daily sales.
• The sales process is still experimental, unstable, and changes its approach every month.

In these cases, Sinh Vũ frankly states that hiring is not yet necessary. You can create a concise slide deck on Canva, print business cards to the correct standard, and use them first. When your team begins to expand, you can come back.

Most common mistakes

• Creating the entire set before having a team use it. The documents are finished, but only the founder holds them and no one reads them. Six months later, they need to be redone because the message has changed.
• Confusing scale with synchronized needs. A large company may not need a complex system if it only has one sales channel and customers decide quickly. A small company selling through a network of agents may need to establish standards much earlier.
• Wait until the team is misaligned before correcting it. When each employee has become accustomed to their own storytelling style, the cost of aligning to a common standard is much higher than doing it correctly from the moment the second person is hired.

Providing the right information for customers to complete each step in their buying journey is something the sales team must achieve. If this cannot be met, it is just printing costs.

Gartner, Buyer Enablement (support for buyers)

The viewpoint of Sinh Vũ

The first step in Sinh Vũ's P5 process is to map out touchpoints: listing all situations where customers interact with the brand, from the first meeting to the signing of the contract. From that map, it becomes clear what really needs to be done and what does not yet need to be done.

Typically, businesses in the stage of one person selling will need less than they think. Businesses expanding their team or channels will need it sooner than they think. The right question is not "should we do it or not" but "what stage am I currently at."

If you are preparing to hire a second sales employee or are about to open another sales point or add a distribution channel, that is the time to sit down and finalize standards before starting to expand, not after.