If there is one key to business growth, this is it: building a sales process. It is worth understanding what it is, how to create one and when to put it in place.
A sales process is the sequence of steps the commercial team uses to take a prospect from “lead” to “customer”. Once it exists, everyone involved in sales — from the manager to the reps, and the CEO too — is working from the same vocabulary.
Why it matters so much
The answer is simple. The sequence gives the sale a structure and shows where the leads and opportunities actually are. That lets you track how sales are progressing and see how close you are to the revenue target for the month.
Each stage carries its own metrics, so the manager can compare against previous months and watch the trend. If the trajectory suggests the target will be missed, you can act surgically on the stage that is holding sales back.
You might notice, for instance, that sales development reps aren’t generating enough qualified prospects to hand over to closers. From there you can work with the reps on qualifying faster, or ask marketing to strengthen the inbound flow.
So if all you see is fog when you try to forecast the month, a sales process is what gives you the clarity to change course while there is still time.
How to create a sales process
Start by recognising that the job of sales is not to force a deal, but to guide the buyer through their journey.
Modern buyers have access to enormous amounts of information and use the web to find companies. The most successful sales processes take advantage of that inbound flow, building an inbound sales process that helps the customer through every stage of their journey: recognising the need, discovering the options, evaluating them and buying.
Reps help the customer recognise a problem or an opportunity, then help them discover solutions, assess them and decide. Following that journey aligns your sales effort with the steps the buyer wants to take anyway.
When to create it
Ideally, before you hire more reps. Having the process in place makes it far easier to train new talent and to point them in the right direction from day one. It also lets you measure each rep’s performance and coach where results fall short — or, when someone is performing well, work out why and spread it across the team.
You cannot scale a business without a sales process. It takes stages the whole company recognises, from sales to marketing to leadership, and metrics built for your operation. That is what makes growth both scalable and predictable.
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