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How to Systematically
Improve Your Sales Process:
A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

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As famed professor and

business consultant Edward
Deming once said, “If you can’t
describe what you’re doing
as a process, you don’t know
what you are doing.”

If this concept alone doesn’t resonate, consider the

fact that research shows that having a formalized
sales process in place leads to:

• An 18% difference in revenue growth

• A 65% boost in reps hitting their targets

• An 88% increase in companies hitting quota

A good sales process is the foundation of any

successful sales organization. And just like in
construction, if you don’t have a solid foundation,
none of the other pieces (reps, tools, strategies, etc.)
that you put into place will stand for long.

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Only 51% of surveyed

Not only does a sales process give reps strategic
sales organizations use a
step-by-step instructions and tasks to move prospects
formal step-by-step selling
from one stage of the sales pipeline to the next, but
process that guides sales
by establishing a common language and set of
professionals through a
expectations, it also ensures that managers are
variety of sales interactions.
working with the appropriate quantity and quality of
data needed to yield meaningful insights.

While most companies have some semblance of a

sales process in place, they often fail to formalize it
and enforce compliance across the organization.

Equally devastating is the frequent failure to optimize

and refine these sales processes over time;
it’scextremely important to remember that the sales
process is a living, breathing playbook that should be
consistently updated as you discover what drives the
most revenue for your business.

Along with its accompanying exercise sheet, this

guide will take you on a step-by-step journey of how
to systematically optimize and improve your sales
process to strengthen the foundation of your sales
organization - and, of course, close more deals.

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

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01 Common Sales Process

Stumbling Blocks

Not surprisingly, many companies face Because prospects felt that their “relationship”
similar types of challenges when it comes to with the company had not yet progressed to
creating a fully-functional and successful a point where credit information was
sales process. Let’s examine a few common necessary, they got spooked, lost trust in the
yet critical areas typically in need of some process and went dark. Lindsey admits, “If we
fine-tuning. had waited a stage to do this or added an
extra little step to verify our customers’

Keeping your process

requirements, the overall process would have
run a lot smoother.”
buyer-focused.
Take a step back and examine your sales
Too often, companies create sales
process - could premature requirements be
processes that lay things out the way that
hurting your prospect relationships? Be sure
they wish they would happen. In reality, a
that early stage process steps are focused
sales process should be reflective of your
on identifying needs and defining outcomes,
customer’s needs and realistic buying
and any major asks are saved for further in
processes - not your needs.
the funnel.
A good example of what can happen when
your sales process isn’t focused on your
buyer comes from ex-sales ops professional
and current Zendesk Sell product marketer
Lindsey Bly. At a previous company, Lindsey
and her team noticed prospects frequently
dropping out of a particular pipeline stage.
After some analysis, they discovered that
the culprit was a request for credit card
information that was being sent far too early
in the sales process.

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Ensuring every scenario

Document this information and ensure that your
team knows exactly where handoffs between
has a follow-up action. marketing, BDRs, AEs, finance, etc. should occur.
Just because someone doesn’t answer your For an extra smooth transition, take this a step
call or respond to your email doesn’t mean further by defining how these handoffs should
that that opportunity is dead and the deal take place and where historical information and
stops there. Don’t leave things open- ended context should be stored.
or up for interpretation. Be sure give reps a
set list of steps to follow regardless of
outcome. If a deal is rejected, define A recent study by SiriusDecisions
whether it should be placed in a nurture found that organizations with a formal
queue or on a do not call list.
stage in their lead management
process signaling the handoff from
Qualifying the right buyers. marketing to sales generated twice
Not all leads are created equal, and knowing as many wins per 1,000 inquiries
which to focus on and which to walk away compared to other companies.
from based on past successes and failures is
key. Start paying close attention to the
qualities and characteristics that make up
your ideal customer profile, such as industry, Focusing on the most
title, company size and so much more.
impactful part of the
Does your sales process feature the sales funnel.
questions that you need to ask to identify and Of course, everyone in sales is most excited
build profiles for these buyers? These about what comes at the end of the sales
qualifying steps should be baked into your pipeline: revenue. But as tempting as it may be,
team’s workflow. And of course, make sure avoid zeroing in on the bottom of the sales
that your SFA or sales platform of choice has funnel. Your deals will never get there if you don’t
the fields and functionality necessary to keep optimize the top and middle of your funnel first!
track of this information for you.
Dig into your process in the early and middle
stages to identify and define the activities that

Knowing when handoffs ultimately push deals further down the pipe toward

should occur.
these closing stages. Once you have things like
ideal qualifying questions and demo scripts in a
Sometimes certain information and steps can good place, then you can start diving into later-
be overlooked if not everyone on the team is funnel items, like your best customer references
100% sure who owns which parts of the and tactics for receiving that verbal yes.
process and how information is transitioned.

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

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02 Refining Your
Sales Process

Printing out and using the exercise sheet that accompanied this eBook, let’s
get started refining your sales process in a more detailed and systematic
manner. You will also need your SFA or sales system of record.

Step one: Step two:

In the small boxes at the top of the first Choose the last 25 closed deals in your
page of the exercise, enter the stages of pipeline and enter their company names at
your sales pipeline. Beneath each of the top of each column in a Google or Excel
these stages, list the individual steps spreadsheet. Highlight those that have
within your sales process. been won in green, and those that were

Write your sales pipeline stages in the boxes below.

Prospecting Accepted Qualified Committed Transacted

List sales process steps: List sales process steps: List sales process steps: List sales process steps: List sales process steps:

Schedule a reference call

Send 3 case studies
Evaluate discounts
Get verbal “yes”
Provide detailed pricing

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Step three Step four

Next, in the far-left column of the spreadsheet, create Take the time to answer these questions in your
a list of key questions to analyze attributes and steps spreadsheet, and then start comparing and
in each deal. These questions should be aimed at contrasting your responses across won and lost deals.
helping you identify features of both successful and You should be able to identify both a few obvious
not so successful deals. areas for improvement, as well as some follow-up
questions to dig deeper into certain issues.
• What was the time to first outreach?

• Was first contact made via phone or email?

Note: Remember that one major function
• Which reps were assigned the deals?
of your sales process is to ensure the
• What competitors/other solutions were the consistent and complete capture of data
prospects considering? needed to properly evaluate and optimize
• Was a customer reference provided? If so, performance. The questions you chose are
which one? indicative of these key data points. As such,
• How many decision makers were if you were unable to answer some of your
ultimately identified? questions, this in and of itself indicates areas
of your process that should be refined.

While this list will vary depending on your sales

pipeline, target market and business requirements,
here are some examples of meaningful questions that
you can ask to dig deeper into your sales process
and performance:

• How soon was an on-site meeting held?

• What, if any, marketing materials were sent?

• How much time was spent in each stage of the

sales pipeline?

• If lost, at what stage did the deal close? • If lost,

what were the deal loss reasons?

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Step five
Select three of the areas you have identified for improvement, and go
back to your sales process exercise sheet. What changes can you make
to these steps to drive change? On page two of the exercise, map out
your sales process once more, but this time, add, alter or remove steps as
needed to address these three target areas.

Remember that when you begin to actually apply these changes to your
sales process, to do so one step at a time for attribution purposes. Of
course, to find out whether these changes will get you the result that you’re
looking for will require some additional analysis and testing over time.

Keep in mind that there could be many reasons why you

are noticing certain patterns in your sales performance.
However, for the purposes of this exercise, we are
assuming that those you have identified are tied directly
to the sales process.

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03 Sample Scenarios

To help give you an idea of the types of insights you may

uncover through this exercise and the corresponding actions
you might take, let’s examine a few sample scenarios.

Scenario One: What you should do:

What you see: There is a higher connect rate when first Add a step in your process specifying that reps
outreach is made via email versus phone. must email prospects within 30 minutes of
receiving a lead.
What this could mean: Email may potentially be a better
channel for your business.

Scenario Two:
What you see: Deals that sit for longer than a week in a Try including scheduling an on-site meeting as a
particular stage are won only half as often as deals that process step for this pipeline stage. This will
are in this stage for less than a week. give your team a better chance of making a
connection with these prospects and addressing
What this could mean: There may be something missing in
any concerns they may have before it’s too late.
your sales process that helps address a particular concern
Over time, you may even discover a particular
of some prospects at this stage.
set of recurring objections that you can insert a
step to combat earlier in your sales process.

Scenario 3:
What you see: When a customer is considering you What you should do: Issue the creation of
alongside a certain competitor, you tend to lose out. marketing collateral comparing your product
offering against this particular competitor. Then,
What this could mean: Your team may not be properly
include a step to distribute this document in
positioning themselves against this competitor.
your process.

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Facilitating Sales
Process Improvement
Companies that fail to make sales process management a priority
face productivity and performance roadblocks, as well as miss out
on data-driven insights and improvement opportunities.

Choosing a sales platform that facilitates your sales process and

makes it easy to optimize your team’s workflows is critical.

To learn more about how Zendesk Sell

can help your business systematically
improve your sales process,

visit [Link]/sell
or call us at (855) 964-1010.

How to Systematically Improve Your Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide