What is a Sales Process, And How Does It Work?

Compliments of our partner from HubSpot

 A sound sales process is the backbone of any productive sales engagement. It gives you the structure, roadmap, and reference points necessary to sell with thoughtfulness and consistency. Even though a sale always requires some degree of improvisation, finesse, and creativity, you can't just wing every deal you work on and expect to see results.

That‘s why virtually every sales org has one of these processes in place — and a solid one can ensure you prospect, qualify, research prospects, pitch, handle objections, close, and nurture as effectively as possible. So by now, you’re probably thinking, “Holy heck! These sales processes sure do sound important! How on Earth do I put one together, and once it's in place, how can I ensure that my sales org and I abide by it?” Well, hypothetical reader who asks all of the questions I want them to ask, you‘re in luck! Here, we’ll cover all of those bases — going over what a sales process is, the steps that generally comprise one, how to improve yours, and some handy examples you can reference. Let's dive in!

What is a Sales Process?

A sales process refers to a series of repeatable steps a sales team takes to move a prospect from an early-stage lead to a closed customer. A strong sales process helps reps consistently close deals by giving them a framework to follow.

Why build a sales process?

As I said at the beginning of this post, I like to think of a sales process as both the backbone of and a roadmap for a successful sales engagement. It provides the structure and direction you need to capitalize on the leads your marketing generates — from prospecting to closing and beyond. Some other key benefits include:

• ·         Facilitating smooth onboarding. A standardized sales process also helps less experienced reps get up to speed quickly — having that kind of framework in place ensures that you can train reps with some degree of consistency and give them a solid understanding of what they need to do at any given point in a sale.

• ·         Making revenue generation more predictable. Forecasting is much more erratic without a solid sales process in place — establishing one of these frameworks allows you to keep tabs on the prospects in your pipeline more closely and, in turn, have a more accurate picture of how much revenue you'll ultimately generate.

• ·         Allowing you to iterate and improve how your sales org sells. If you don‘t have a sales process in place, you won’t have a basis to improve upon when you‘re not hitting KPIs. In short, if you don’t have an established sales process, you're shooting in the dark.

Now that you know what a sales process is and why you should create one, let's consider the stages or steps that a typical sales process follows.

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