Specialist versus generalist sales structures: what the data actually shows

Specialised structures (separate roles for prospecting, closing, and account management) tend to outperform generalist structures once deal volume is high enough to justify the handoff overhead between roles, but underperform at lower volume where the coordination cost outweighs the specialisation benefit.

The threshold varies significantly by organization, but the pattern holds directionally often enough to be worth explicitly testing rather than assuming a specialised structure is always the more mature choice.