7 Step Sales Process Template

Having a solid sales process is crucial for any successful sales team. That's why we put together this detailed sales process template for B2B sales teams.

While there is no one way to sell anything, a sales process helps to move your prospects through the funnel. We put together a sales process template to help you get started. Whether you are starting from scratch or improving an old process, this template will help.

There are tons of different forms that a sales process can come in. To introduce the concept, we’ll start with the most basic. This general sales process template focuses on the overarching view of what goes into a more detailed one.

1. Lead Generation

This part of your sales process focuses on where you get your leads. Whether it’s a sales function or not, lead generation is a crucial part of any sales process. This section answers the question of who you are selling to and how you get in touch with them.

2. Lead Management

In this section, your activities should focus on asking qualification questions and updating lead status in the CRM.

3. Opportunity Management

This is when you move your converted lead into your sales cycle. We’ll get into more detail about this in our 7-step process below.

7-Step Sales Process Template:

1. Targeting

This area of your sales process focuses on who you sell to and their corresponding wants, needs, and more. Depending on your company, you’ll want to also target based on company criteria like territory or location, company size, as well as individual criteria like job title and team size.

Don’t be afraid to be as specific as possible while taking into account the size of the potential pool of targets.

Additionally, when creating a sales targeting process, consider establishing qualifiers as well as dis-qualifiers. This will impact your internal approval process and improve your close ratio.

2. Lead Capture

Lead capture can be done in many different ways. The most important thing is that you are capturing the right information about leads in your CRM. Here are some ways to do it:

Inbound Marketing

This type of lead capture utilizes your company’s marketing function. The goal is to use inbound marketing to attract, engage, and delight potential clients with relevant content and information on your website, just like what you are reading right now. Leads fill out forms to gain access to gated content like eBooks or even certain blog posts and then their information is automatically imported into the CRM system.

Manual Entry

There’s nothing like some old-fashioned networking. Make sure your team is logging all the information from the business cards they collect into your CRM system. They should also include talking points they had with the person or any other information that may be helpful when reaching out in the future.

Import Lists

Some business uses lists to find leads. Make sure to import these lists into your CRM system to accurately track lead progress in the sales process. Because lists tend to be hefty, it’s also a good idea to document lead owners or even assigned territories.

3. Lead Assignment

Speaking of lead owners and territories, a proper sales process allocates leads to a specific team or individual. Depending on your solution, allocation can be based on territory, company size, industry, or persona.

Be strategic about who gets assigned which leads. Each lead should be assigned to someone who will be able to engage with the suspect and manage the lead appropriately.

4. Qualify Lead

Qualifying is the process of asking the right questions to determine whether or not a suspect is in fact a prospect who can be converted.

With that said, in this part of the sales process, your team will begin asking leads qualifying questions. These questions help your reps decide whether or not a lead is worth pursuing. Some examples include:

• What role do they play in the decision-making process?
• How long have they been in business?
• What is the size of their organization? (Revenue, employees, number of customers)
• What are some challenges their team or company is facing right now?

These questions should get your sales team started on the qualification process. Remember, if a lead is not qualified, it becomes disqualified.

5. Lead Status

This is when your team is actively selling to the lead and adjusting the lead status in the CRM. You can create your own unique lead statuses, or base it off of these:

• Un-contacted
• Contacted – called/emailed
• Conversation
• Qualified
• Disqualified

The status of a lead is crucial in understanding whether it’s worth pursuing the relationship any further or not.

6. Convert

This section of your sales process is simple: is the lead qualified or not? If they are, they move on to the next stage.

If they fail to meet your qualifying criteria, the lead gets disqualified in your CRM system and your salesperson ends their sales efforts.

Converting suspects into prospects and subsequently into clients requires asking the right questions, asking for the close, going for no, and disqualifying

7. Opportunity Management

Now that your lead is qualified, it’s time to move it into the sales cycle. This means that it will enter into any one of the four stages before becoming an active client and a closed deal.

We use something called the ‘UCAN’ acronym to describe these stages. It stands for:

Unqualified: The opportunity has potential, but we can’t be sure how it will turn out. You’ve discussed your solution with those involved in the opportunity and see some type of synergy.

Confirmed: The opportunity moves to the confirmed stage if your sales rep has discussed a solution and sent over pricing or a proposal. Depending on your sales process, there may be a different type of document sent during this stage.

Advantage: This stage indicates that your rep will likely close this opportunity successfully. It is the only stage in opportunity management that is subjective and not based on some type of action.

Notify: At this point, your team member has received a verbal notification that you won the business.

After this, make sure you log the opportunity in your CRM as closed won or closed lost.

After going through these 7 sales process steps, ideally your sales rep will reach a close.

Closing is the process of getting all of the contracts signed and having a plan to begin the engagement. Although this seems as the end of the deal, it’s the beginning of really getting to know the client and building a deep relationship. Remember: a client has the potential to become an advocate or champion who is willing to evangelize your company’s offerings.

Follow this sales process template to increase your close rates and win more business.