How to create a sales process
Most sales processes have the following stages in common, though their names may differ. Each stage will have a set of activities to go along with it. Your process might have slightly more or slightly fewer steps but should follow this flow.
A common way to visualize a sales process is via a funnel:
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Prospect / Lead
What: All potential customers you could interact with
These may be sourced by marketing (marketing qualified leads or MQLs), organic inbound leads, or sourced directly by you or the sales team (outbound, or cold prospects).
Qualify
What: Determine if the prospect is a good fit / serious buyer.
Have predefined qualification criteria to quickly (and consistently) determine if the prospect should move forward in your sales cycle
Why: Not everybody you talk to will be a good fit. The point of this stage is to quickly determine who isn’t a good fit so you can spend the time with the people who are. When somebody doesn’t fit your qualification criteria, they are considered “Disqualified”.
Discovery
What: Learn more about the customer and their needs. What problem(s) are they looking to solve?
Tip: Prepare several good discovery questions to help you better understand what they need
Why: A great discovery process leads to building lasting relationships with your customers. You will want to truly understand their pains, ideal solutions, and what impact a solution would have on them and their business. This step should be revisited throughout your process, but great discovery upfront sets you up to be a trusted partner to your customer - not “just” a salesperson.
Demo
What: Show them your product/solutions
This should be tailored to include the value that will resonate most for the buyer you’re speaking to. You’ll learn what that focus should be from the discovery process
Why: This is your chance to show your product in action. This will usually lead to an evaluation or trial of your product if you offer one.
Evaluation
What: Prospect tries out your solution
Why: If you offer a free trial period, this is when the prospect gets to try everything for themselves. Your goal is to set them up to see the value you promised during the demo. But they shouldn’t be left to their own devices. Make sure they know how to set things up and check in regularly.
Close
Close Won
What: A mutually beneficial agreement is reached. The prospect becomes a customer
Why: This what you’re working toward - closing new business! At this point, the prospect agrees that your product solves their problem and wants to pay you.
Close Lost
What: Not every qualified company you talk to will purchase from you at that time.
Why: Having a stage built into your process to capture this information is important for your data, and for future campaigns where you want to reach out to re-engage them.
💡 The difference between “Disqualified” and “Closed-Lost”:
When a lead is disqualified, they aren’t somebody you would consider talking to, even in the future. Closed-lost is somebody who could be a good fit, but for a variety of reasons decided to not purchase your solution (budget, timeline, competition, etc.)
Nurture
What: Continue to create value for the customer, keeping open the possibility for cross-selling and upsells.
Set up a regular cadence to check-in with your customers and keep the relationship strong
Why: Your existing customer base is already bought into your vision, making it a great place to start if you have new products or functionality to offer. And it’s easier/cheaper to retain a customer than to go out and find a new one - so keep your customers happy and those relationships solid. Especially your early ones!
Bonus: Handle objections
What: Listen and address any concerns your prospect has
This can happen at any point in the sales cycle, but it’s good to call out because you should be prepared
Why: Being prepared to handle objections from prospects is part of selling. You don’t need to lie about any shortcomings (in fact, don’t ever lie as it erodes trust), but you should have answers to common questions related to pricing, functionality, competitors, etc.
Every company’s sales cycle (the speed at which it takes you to progress through your sales process) is different. And sales cycles within your own company will differ too. Some deals will take a very short time to move from “Prospect” to “Closed-won”, and you may have only one or two phone calls that combine several of these stages. Others will take weeks or even months. The point is to have repeatable steps, not to spend a specific amount of time on each step
Sales activities by stage
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Each stage of your sales process will have different actions associated with it. Some are pretty obvious by the name (for example, at the demo stage you are typically giving a demo of the product). When you’re establishing your sales process, make sure you have “exit criteria” for each stage, so you know when a deal should progress or when it’s time to move on and “close lost” the opportunity. This will keep your process efficient and focused, and allow you to be clear with your customers about what to expect.
You can decide what specific actions make sense for you and your team, but here are some examples:
Prospect/Lead
Activity: Attempt to make contact to further engage with them
Common channels: Phone, email, chat (Intercom, Drift, etc.)
These people meet basic criteria to be considered a prospect (i.e. above a certain company size).
Move on to qualify once basic criteria have been collected (i.e. company size)
Qualify
Activity: Gather information about the prospect to see if they’re a fit. Compare these answers to your pre-defined qualification criteria. If they are qualified, this is the point at which you would create an opportunity record in your CRM and convert the lead.
Common channels: Phone, email, chat, prospect’s website/LinkedIn page/ social media
Move on to Discovery once contact has been established and they meet qualification criteria (i.e. meeting is scheduled)
Discovery
Activity: You will have a meeting with your prospect to discuss their needs and further establish fit. You will ask them questions and answer theirs. You’re not actively “selling” - Discovery is about being curious and asking great, layered questions to get a full understanding of their business and pains.
This may be more than one call depending on the customer and the speed of your sales cycle. It can also happen over email but is typically done on the phone.
Common channels: Typically happens over the phone or video call, can be done by email.
Move on to Demo if you confirm that your product is a fit to help solve their pain.
Demo
Activity: You will have a meeting to walk through the product with them, tailored to the needs they expressed in your previous conversations. You’re not showing them every feature in the product–this should be very targeted to what will be valuable to them
Common channels: Video call/screen share, in-person meeting/presentation
Move on to Evaluation if they agree your solution will fit their needs and want to try it out
Evaluation
Activity: They are trying the product and getting to “test drive” their use case. You have established success criteria with them beforehand and are checking in to make sure the evaluation is successful.
This is not a passive stage: you will want to establish a check-in with the prospect during the evaluation at least once.
Move on to “Close” when they have agreed they will purchase the product, have signed any contracts, or entered their credit card info within your product.
Close
Activity: Finalize pricing, legal review, etc. You are getting them to pay to use your product.
They are “closed won” when they have agreed to pay you for your product (put in a credit card or signed an order form to pay by bank transfer)
They are “closed-lost” if at any point in the sales cycle it is determined they will not purchase your product.
Nurture
Activity: Regular check-ins to continue to add value
Common channels: Customer newsletter; quarterly business reviews (QBR) for higher-touch customers
🤔 Disqualification and Closed-Lost: What do you do if it’s not a fit?
With a well-defined sales process, you’ll be able to tell who is and isn’t a fit more quickly. A prospect may have been perfectly qualified according to your qualification criteria and make it through an evaluation before it becomes clear it won’t be a good fit. This can happen for a variety of reasons (lack of budget, deprioritized projects), but it happens! You should have a stage in your process for “Lost” prospects, building it into your CRM (more on that later).
The main thing is–know what is qualified for your company and when to move on so you spend your time on the people who are most likely to purchase and become long-lasting customers.
Disqualified = leads that do not fit your lowest threshold to spend time talking with
Closed-lost = prospective customers who are qualified but did not buy your product
Activity + Worksheets: Design your sales process
What: Define each stage for your company and determine the activities that go along with the stage.
Why this is important: Defined stages will keep everybody aligned. From sales to marketing to product, there’s no guessing - no matter the size of those teams (even if it’s all you right now!).
Keep your customers’ needs top of mind as you define these steps, this way your sales process will naturally mirror their buying process and you will be positioned as a trusted advisor.
How?
Be specific. What criteria would a prospect need to fulfill to talk to you?
How does this map back to what your customers are doing?
What do you need to do at each point of the process?
Remember: depending on what stage your business is at (trying to close your first deal ever or going from $1M to $10M), the detail and activities at each stage will differ.
The goal is to create repeatable steps that take the guesswork out of customer interactions, not to put a structure in place for its own sake.
Step 1a: Establish qualification criteria
Qualified Leads and Prospects
First, who will you take the time to talk with? Of the many people you could talk to (visitors to your site, people reaching out for more info, etc.), who is most likely to find value from your product and buy? The answer to this question is considered a “qualified lead.” In the beginning, you may want to talk to almost everybody, but as you start to get more leads you’ll want to tighten this up. Revisit this often.
Common things to consider when filtering out who will make it into your sales process include:
Company size: is there a certain company size that’s too small to talk to? Too big?
Example: Any company with fewer than 25 employees will not talk to sales
Industry: are there industries that you know will not be a good fit?
Example: Your solution isn’t HIPAA compliant, so you don’t want to talk to healthcare companies
Are there other considerations that would indicate a lead is not a good use of your time to pursue further?
→ If they check these initial boxes, consider these leads “Prospects” (also called Sales Qualified Leads). You will want to pursue them further and they will continue in the sales process.
Note: When you disqualify somebody from your sales process, it doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t use your product. It means you aren’t going to spend your limited resources (time) on them.
🤔 Where do leads come from?
Leads can come from multiple sources inbound visitors to your website, lists you create of customers you want to attract proactively, events, etc. Tracking where a lead comes from can be helpful to better understand where you should spend your marketing budget based on which leads are most likely to purchase.
Determine your qualification criteria
Write down what you need to know to make sure a potential buyer is serious. Depending on your business needs, your qualification criteria could be very light (i.e. one or two requirements) or very strict. It will also fluctuate with your business needs, so revisit this often.
For example: if you have a lot of inbound interest and a lot of resources to help with talking to customers, keep your qualification light so you fill your pipeline with lots of prospects. You’ll filter out customers later in the process if you do this. If you have limited resources and want to spend time talking with only the most serious buyers/best fit, make your criteria more strict.
Some examples of the information you will want to secure from the prospect before continuing:
Business name; contact information (name, email, phone)
Confirm their industry and company size fit
Is there an active project that your product will be part of?
If you have multiple products: what products are they interested in?
What else would you want to know before delving deeper in Discovery?
You’ll also want to note where you will find the information and how the information will be recorded or stored. Most of the information you collect should be stored in your CRM (more on that later), but you can specify which field or if you will save it some other way.
| Qualification criteria | How you will find the info | Where you will store info |
|---|---|---|
| (example: company size) | (example: LinkedIn; contact form) | (example: “company size” field in CRM) |
| ... | ... | ... |
How do you get this information from leads? Depending on how you make contact with the lead, you can ask a few questions over the phone, email, or chat. If you’re using a chatbot and they’re an inbound lead, you can even collect this information without having to talk with them. No matter the channel, remember to be human and don’t make the interaction feel like an inquisition.
Step 1b: Define the stages, actions, and exit criteria
Fill out the fields below. For each, think about these questions:
Definition: Are there unique definitions you need to account for? Capture everything that defines what would be considered viable at each stage (i.e. evaluation is a 30 day trial with clear evaluation criteria)
Sales Activities: What do you need to do at each step (i.e. attempt to make contact to schedule an introductory call)
Exit Criteria: What needs to happen for you to move on to the next step in the process?
| Stage | Definition | Sales Activities | Exit Criteria |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prospect | example: a visitor to the website | example: check LinkedIn for company size; enrich record with Clearbit data | example: they fit the initial qualification criteria |
| Qualify | example: a call is scheduled | ||
| Discovery | |||
| Demo | |||
| Evaluation | |||
| Close | |||
| Nurture |
