Role Mapping Exercise for a Twelve-Person Sales Floor

Twelve people on a used-car floor does not mean twelve posting logins, and it does not mean one shared password on a sticky note. It means you have a mix of a GM, a used-car manager, an internet lead, closers, junior listers, maybe a BDC voice, and a couple of people who should never touch Marketplace. If you invite everyone as the same kind of user, you get shared sessions, associates pulling the wrong aged units, and nobody who can release a stuck claim. A role mapping exercise for a twelve-person sales floor is how you put names in the four roles that actually exist before you buy seats or print an SOP.

PostToMarket roles are admin, manager, sales rep, and sales associate. There is no owner slug, no generic "user," and no reason to invent a fifth role because someone has a veteran title. This exercise is a table you fill in a one-hour meeting. It is the practical companion to admin, manager, sales rep, and associate roles explained. Read that for permissions. Use this for names.

Dealership plan includes up to 13 team logins and up to 2 managers. That cap is a design constraint for this exercise, not a suggestion to share. Starter is one login; a twelve-person floor that needs assignment, team queue, and analytics is not a Starter problem. See Starter vs Dealership if you are still arguing the plan. This article assumes you need the team plan and must map people onto it.

Why a Role Mapping Exercise Matters on a Twelve-Person Sales Floor

Headcount creates pressure to "just add everyone." That pressure is how you burn manager slots on people who only needed a rep login, and how you skip associates who should not be allowed to self-queue.

Typical failure patterns

• Everyone is a sales rep, including the person whose job is posting assigned units. They pull the 70-day problem child because it has a photogenic color.
• The GM and the used-car manager both want "full access," so you try to create two admins. Admin is the account login, not a seniority badge. Extra leadership belongs in manager.
• The closer who never posts still gets a login "in case." They never sign in. Someone else uses their email on Saturday.
• You have three people who should be managers and only two manager seats. Without a mapping meeting, you give the third person a workaround instead of a decision.

What the exercise optimizes for

Not fairness. Not titles on business cards. It optimizes for:

1. One admin who owns billing and settings.
2. At most two managers who run assignment, team queue, analytics, and the leads inbox.
3. Sales reps who should choose units from shared inventory.
4. Associates who should only work what they are given.
5. People who should have no login because they do not post and do not manage posting.

The Role Mapping Exercise: Sixty Minutes, One Table

Attendees: GM or dealer admin, used-car manager, internet director if you have one. Do not invite the whole twelve. You are assigning roles about them, not running a vote.

Step 1: List twelve names and their floor job (10 minutes)

Write the actual job, not the hope. Examples of labels: GM, used-car manager, internet director, sales manager, closer, floor salesperson, junior lister, BDC, porter, F&I. Porters and F&I usually get no login.

Step 2: Ask four questions per name (25 minutes)

For each person, answer in order. Stop at the first yes that fits.

1. Do they own the PostToMarket account (billing, settings, who gets invited)? If yes, they are admin. There is one. If two people raise their hands, the second is a manager or they share a human workflow outside the product, not a second admin.
2. Do they need to assign units to associates, release claims, and read team analytics / leads? If yes, they are a candidate for manager. You may pick only two.
3. Do they pick their own vehicles from shared inventory and post them? If yes, sales rep.
4. Do they post, but only what a manager hands them? If yes, sales associate.

If all answers are no, they get no login. Write "none" so the decision is visible.

Step 3: Force the two-manager constraint (10 minutes)

If you have three manager-candidates, you must rank. Typical ranking that works:

• Used-car manager (inventory truth, sold calls).
• Internet director or BDC lead (queues, messaging, coverage).

The GM often thinks they need manager. If the GM will not assign queues daily, they should stay admin (if they own the account) or have no posting role. An unused manager seat is a wasted cap.

Step 4: Fit the remaining people into 13 logins (10 minutes)

Dealership allows up to 13 team logins and 2 managers. Do not over-promise seats. Count named posters first:

• Associates who will actually post this month.
• Sales reps who will self-queue this month.
• Then, and only then, "just in case" names.

If you have more posters than seats, you do not share. You rotate who is in the tool this quarter, or you accept that some floor salespeople are not Marketplace posters. That is a valid operating model.

Step 5: Publish the table (5 minutes)

Send the filled table to the twelve. Silent names ("none") should see that in writing so they do not borrow a password.

Illustrative Map for a Twelve-Person Independent or Franchise Used Department

This is an example mix, not a recommended org chart. Change every name and title to yours.

Count check: admin + 2 managers + 4 reps + 2 associates = 9 people in the product, 3 explicitly out. That is healthier than 12 in and 0 discipline.

A franchise store with a larger BDC might flip K to associate if they post assigned units, and drop one of E–H if that salesperson never lists. The exercise is the tradeoff, not the sample names.

After the Table: Assignment Rules That Make the Map Real

Roles without rules collapse by week two. Write these next to the table.

Associates

Managers assign. Associates do not add from shared inventory. If their queue is empty at 11 a.m., that is a manager failure, not permission to go shopping. This matches how you should assign inventory to floor reps, with associates as assigned labor.

Sales reps

Self-queue from shared inventory that is ready. They still do not take units already claimed. They mark sold when they close a car that was in their queue.

Managers

Daily: assign, glance at team queue, release stale claims, watch failed. They are not a third posting pool unless the floor is short, and even then they post from their own login.

Admin

Does not use admin as a posting identity for the intern. If the GM wants to post a personal unit, decide whether they need a separate workflow. Most GMs should not be in the Saturday posting rotation.

No shared logins, including "just the weekend"

The twelve-person map fails the first time someone is off and a colleague opens their browser profile. Coverage is a roster of people who have their own logins, not a spare password.

How PostToMarket Automates This

A role mapping exercise is wasted if the product treats every login the same. PostToMarket's four roles are the buckets you just filled. The queues and manager tools are what make "associate" different from "sales rep" on Tuesday morning.

Roles and seats

• Admin, manager, sales rep, sales associate.
• Dealership plan: up to 13 team logins, 2 managers. Starter: 1 login — the wrong plan for this twelve-person exercise.
• Email sign-in to the extension; no API keys, no shared "shop account" as a feature.

What each mapped role actually does in the workflow

• Managers assign vehicles to associate queues; sales reps self-queue from shared inventory.
• Personal posting queues and per-rep queues.
• Team queue view: see and release any claim.
• Team analytics (posting by rep and source) and leads inbox for managers.
• Inventory statuses shared across logins so twelve people are not keeping private lists.

What stays true for every role that posts

• Unlimited vehicles in inventory.
• Chrome extension posts one at a time with human-like delays and server-enforced daily limits.
• AI copy editable before posting; Facebook photo picker.
• Mark as sold and archive from inventory or the queue.
• Mobile dashboard to reorder a queue between customers.

The mapping meeting is human. The product's job is to refuse the work a role should not do, and to show managers the work that stalled.

Put Twelve Names on Four Roles Before You Invite Anyone

A role mapping exercise for a twelve-person sales floor is a naming problem: one admin, two managers, a deliberate mix of reps and associates, and an explicit list of people with no login. Fill the table in an hour. Publish it. Then invite. If you invite first and map later, you will spend the quarter undoing shared sessions and leftover manager seats.

PostToMarket is the role system that table attaches to. Starter at $59 per month is one login — useful for a solo seller, not for this exercise. Dealership at $299 per month is up to 13 logins and two managers, which is the box this twelve-person map is drawn in.

Start your 10-day free trial through secure Stripe checkout. Print the empty table, fill it with real names, then create logins that match the page. Cancel anytime. If you cannot fit the people you need into the two-manager cap, write info@posttomarket.com with the floor map before you invent a shared manager login.