How to Build a Sales Process: 7 Key Steps

Increase your sales success rate by optimizing every step — from research to closing the deal.

Your sales process is like a map. Without it, you can easily lose your way, make mistakes or lose a prospect. That is why many sales teams use specialized software that guides them through every step — from finding prospects to closing deals. The best sales processes optimize conversations with buyers and help deliver the right value at the right moment. During those conversations, you discover how your solutions can make your clients’ work and lives easier.

What you will learn in this article:

• What is a sales process?

• Why is the sales process important?

• What are the key steps of the sales process?

• What are the most common mistakes in the sales process — and how to avoid them?

• How do you continuously improve your sales process?

• Which CRM features can improve the sales process?

• How do you set yourself up for sales success?

What is a sales process?

A sales process is a series of seven steps that takes a sales rep from researching the product and market to signing the contract — and beyond, through building a long-term relationship with the client after the sale.

What is the difference between a sales process and a sales methodology?

These two terms are often used interchangeably, but they are actually different. The sales process is the “what” — the concrete steps needed to close a sale. The sales methodology is the “how” — the way a salesperson carries out each of those steps. When you combine the right process with an effective methodology, you significantly increase your chances of a successful sale.

Why is the sales process important?

A clearly defined sales process helps you know when and how to move a prospect through the sales funnel. This increases the likelihood of closing the sale and gives you a better understanding of the sales cycle, that is, the time it takes to get from first contact to closing the deal. A good sales process also lets you identify where things stall, what the challenges are and what most often causes sales to fail.

Without a clearly defined process, the buyer’s experience can suffer. If you present the solution too early, the prospect may not be ready to make a decision. If you wait too long for fear of being too aggressive, you can lose the opportunity. Understanding the buyer’s journey through the sales process is key to fine-tuning it.

Seven steps to building a sales process

Before we define the stages and the exit criteria for each of them, we need to do some research. The most successful sales processes are the result of thoughtful planning and careful implementation. Follow these seven steps to reach your sales goals.

1. Get to know the product inside out

Clients expect salespeople to know every detail of the products or services they sell. The best way to gain that knowledge is by reviewing demos, press releases and documentation. Ask developers and product managers about functionality, possible use cases and potential challenges. Write down the key features and the problems the product solves for buyers.

Example: A construction company sells affordable homes to young families in the suburbs. Their houses are built in about three months, and initial estimates put the cost at between €80,000 and €100,000.

The company hires a young and ambitious saleswoman, Katarina, to start selling. Unfortunately, there is no clearly defined sales process, and Katarina doesn’t know much about the company. To make her first sales, she creates her own seven-step sales process. Katarina talks to the chief construction engineer and the CFO.

She asks specific questions about how the houses are designed, the materials used, the building locations and how prices are set. This is how she learns that the company stands out by using only materials made in Serbia.

2. Define your ideal customer (buyer persona)

Many companies define a buyer persona, a profile of the ideal customer that includes demographic and psychographic data as well as preferred communication channels. It is important to study this profile in detail and think about how your product solves the target group’s problems.

If you don’t have access to a predefined buyer persona, take the time to do market research.

Key questions that can help you:

• What data do I already have about customers, and how can it help me define the ideal client?

• What specific needs does my product or service address, and who has those needs?

• What characteristics do the customers my competitors target have?

• Where do my ideal customers live, and how do they get in touch with businesses like mine?

You can use a variety of sales tools to gather this information, but the best place to start is your company’s CRM system, such as Salesforce. If your CRM also includes sales analytics, you can analyze which sources your customers come from, their demographic characteristics, buying habits, average purchase frequency and most popular products.

In addition, generative AI tools can help you research your competitors’ strategies — their marketing, pricing and sales tactics.

Example: Having gained a better understanding of the company’s goals and its product, Katarina builds an ideal customer profile — taking into account demographic data and average income. She also contacts several local real estate agents to find out what buyers are looking for in a new home, what challenges they face and which neighborhoods are currently the most popular.

3. Find prospects (prospecting)

Prospecting is the process of identifying individuals or businesses that are potential buyers.

Start by asking industry peers for referrals. Browse online portals and communities to find relevant contacts. Search for keywords related to your industry on LinkedIn and other platforms, then focus on the specialized sites your target buyers use to research products.

Also, use Google search with key terms related to your business to find forums and discussions in which prospects take part. CRM and AI sales tools can further automate and optimize the prospecting process. Once you identify a prospect, find them on LinkedIn and gather the available contact information.

Alongside traditional methods, you can also use an inbound lead generation strategy. Traditional prospecting is outbound — you actively look for buyers — while inbound methods attract interested clients through digital marketing, ads and social media. Working with your marketing team, create campaigns that target your buyer persona.

Example: After analyzing the forums her target buyers use, Katarina joins local real estate groups, online discussions and LinkedIn communities related to real estate. She also plans to organize several networking events in places where her ideal buyers often shop.

4. Qualify leads and research buyer needs

Not all prospects are the same. Before you make a sales offer, you need to check whether your product is really the right fit for those you have identified as target buyers. This is done with a qualification call.

The qualification call is used to gather basic information about needs, budget, timeline and decision-making authority, so you can recognize the buyers most likely to purchase the product. During the call, focus on the following key questions:

• What exactly is the prospect looking for, and does your product offer the right solution?

• Are they planning to buy soon? If so, when?

• What budget do they have available?

• Who makes the purchasing decision, and are you in contact with that person?

Once you confirm that the prospect is qualified, the next step is a discovery call. This call lets you understand the buyer’s needs more deeply and how your product can address them. Research shows that 70% of purchasing decisions are driven by emotion, so connecting with the buyer’s motives is key to success.

Questions that can help you build a deeper connection:

• What are the biggest challenges or problems you are currently facing?

• How do those problems affect your daily work or life?

• What is stopping you from finding a lasting solution?

• If you have already tried a solution that didn’t work, what was the problem?

• How would you describe the ideal solution?

Keep the conversation natural and open. Once you have answers to these questions, you can propose concrete solutions from your offering. And if it turns out the buyer doesn’t have a problem your product can solve — remove them from your prospect list.

Example: Katarina now has several prospects and calls them to find out exactly what they are looking for — and how she can help them. She discovers that some buyers are looking for homes at significantly lower prices than her company offers, so she removes them from her list.

5. Deliver the sales presentation

The moment has finally come to schedule a sales meeting and present your offer. This is your chance to show your product as the solution to the prospect’s problems.

Tailor the presentation to the buyer’s needs and focus on benefits, not just product features.

This approach gives the impression that the buyer matters and that you are not just trying to “push” a product on them.

Anticipate potential objections in advance and prepare your answers. However, when you run into an objection, don’t get defensive right away. Instead, ask follow-up questions to better understand the cause of the buyer’s concern. If you need extra support, AI sales coaching tools can analyze your conversations and give you real-time feedback.

Once the presentation is over, clearly define the next steps. This includes planned follow-up calls and a proposed timeline for closing the sale.

Example: For the buyers who are the best fit for the offer, Katarina suggests an in-person meeting to tour one of the model homes and discuss features, price, availability and move-in timeline. To create a pleasant atmosphere, she makes sure the house is nicely furnished and that the kitchen smells of freshly baked cookies. After several successful tours, one buyer is ready to buy right away, while the others ask for more time to think about the price.

6. Negotiate and close the sale

Right after the sales call, contact the prospect to summarize the conversation and repeat the next steps. If additional information was requested, send it in a follow-up message.

As the sale progresses, the buyer may raise certain objections. Listen to them carefully and steer the conversation from the problem to the solution. If you need help, use objection-handling strategies prepared in advance.

Now that you have built a relationship, presented your offer and resolved all doubts, it is time to close the sale. AI tools for guided selling can help with this process by giving you concrete steps to close the deal. For example, if price is the issue, AI may recommend a strategy such as sending a competitive offer with a discount to secure the sale.

As you guide the buyer toward a final decision, encourage them to stick to the agreed purchase deadline. You can make the process easier by sending the contract as a PDF with an electronic signature (e-sign) field.

Example: The day after the home tours, Katarina contacts her most promising buyers and informs them of the next steps, including a home inspection and a mortgage application. To those who are still unsure, she says she will get back in touch in a few months to see if they are ready for the next step.

Luckily for Katarina, her most interested buyer decides to buy the house. She arranges the inspection and helps him fill out all the necessary paperwork. As a token of gratitude, Katarina sends him a gift basket with a few small items for the new home.

7. Nurture the relationship and offer additional products/services

If everything went as it should, your prospect has now officially become a customer — congratulations! But the sales process doesn’t stop there.

Satisfied customers are a huge opportunity for cross-selling and upselling.

A few days after the purchase, contact the customer to check whether they are happy with the product/service. After a few weeks, get in touch again to find out whether they have any further questions. And after a few months, check their satisfaction level — and that is when you ask for a referral.

You can discreetly build the opportunity for an additional sale into each of these conversations. Because if the customer is happy with their initial experience, you are the first person they will turn to when they need something similar again.

Example: A few weeks after the sale, Katarina contacts the new homeowners by email. She checks whether the home meets their expectations and whether they have noticed any problems with the design or structure. She also makes sure that all the paperwork, including the mortgage procedures, has been completed without issues. When she hears how satisfied the buyers are, she asks for a referral — and offers €1,000 as an incentive for every new buyer they bring to her company.

What are the most common mistakes in the sales process — and how to avoid them?

Mistakes can completely derail a sales process. Here are the most common problems — and tips on how to avoid them:

1. Poor preparation

Research is the key to successful selling. When you know your product or service well, you can speak confidently about what you are selling and what problem it solves. If you don’t prepare enough — or at all — prospects lose trust in you, your product and your company.

Before you make your first sales call, take the time to understand what you are selling and whom you are selling to. That way, you will not only avoid embarrassing mistakes, but also be able to offer relevant solutions instead of a generic pitch.

2. Skipping the discovery call

Many salespeople believe the qualification call is enough to identify the best prospects. But in most cases, that call does not give the full picture of the buyer’s needs. So set aside time for a separate discovery call, where you actively listen to the buyer’s pain points — and only then offer a solution.

3. Pitching before you qualify the prospect

If you don’t find out before the sales call whether the buyer even needs your product, you reduce your chances of closing the deal. Many salespeople are so focused on quotas and commissions that they skip the qualification and discovery calls and jump straight to the sales presentation. The result? Time wasted on buyers who have no interest, budget or authority to buy.

4. Selling features instead of value

Many salespeople steer the conversation by talking about their product’s features. The problem is that buyers aren’t looking for features — they are looking for solutions. Focus on how your product solves the buyer’s problem.

5. Lack of empathy

If you are too focused on closing the sale, you can come across as overly aggressive. Nobody likes buying under pressure. So stop thinking of the buyer as a "prospect" — see them as a friend. Listen to them with understanding and build trust. That way, the purchasing decision will come more easily too.

6. Talking too much

Constant talking is often the biggest mistake in sales. It can push the buyer away and ruin a potential deal. Studies show that talking too much during a sales conversation hurts sales results. Although it is hard to pin down the ideal ratio, many experts recommend 60/40 in favor of listening. This lets you get the key information across while still actively listening to the buyer.

7. Not being prepared for objections

Buyers can have various objections: price, bad timing, insufficient need, missing features. Although they can differ, most can be anticipated. The best way to handle them is to map them out in advance and have your answers ready before you start the sales conversation.

8. Sales calls that run too long

In an era of virtual selling and short attention spans, many salespeople struggle to hold a prospect’s interest. The result? Poor engagement. Set a 30-minute limit for calls — it forces you to stay focused on the key information and avoid unnecessary digressions.

9. Following up too late

Some salespeople are disorganized or too busy, so several days pass between the sales call and the follow-up email. By then, the buyer’s interest has cooled, which makes closing the sale harder. The solution? Send the follow-up right after the sales call.

How do you continuously improve the sales process?

Building a sales process is not a job you do once and forget. Every six months, review your sales process to make sure there are no bottlenecks, inefficiencies or outdated practices. Although this is primarily the responsibility of the sales manager and the operations team, all salespeople should be able to give feedback on goals, the target audience, the technology they use and possible obstacles in the process.

Here is how you can get started:

1. Analyze results against the goals you set

Every stage of the sales process has key metrics that ensure a smooth sales flow and the achievement of goals. The most commonly tracked metrics include:

• The number of new prospects in the sales funnel over a given period
• The number of sales calls made
• The number of deals closed
• (Optional) The number of upsells and cross-sells

During the semi-annual review, compare your results with the goals you set. If you are falling behind somewhere, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the product messaging I use outdated or inaccurate?

• Is my approach to buyers out of context?

• Is it taking me too long to complete tasks?

• Are there obstacles that make my work at this stage harder?

Once you identify areas for improvement, report them to your manager or the sales operations team. Define a concrete plan for updating the process, and be sure to implement the necessary changes within one to two weeks of the review.

2. Revisit your target customers

Your ideal customer changes as the market and your product change. Review the buyer personas you defined earlier and determine whether they still match your current sales activities. You can use the same questions as when you first created them:

• What specific needs does my product or service address, and who has them?

• What challenges do the customers my competitors target have?

• Where are my ideal customers, and how do they get in touch with businesses like mine?

If the answers no longer match your existing buyer personas, be sure to inform the sales operations team and suggest updates.

3. Re-evaluate your sales tools (tech stack)

According to the State of Sales report, almost two-thirds of salespeople feel they use too many tools, which leads to time lost on data entry and increases the risk of errors.

To avoid these problems, regularly check whether your tools are helping or getting in the way. Ask yourself: Do these tools require too much manual data entry and take me away from sales conversations? Are there tools I find redundant or inefficient?

Also, pay attention to the terminology and data structure in the tools you use. If systems were set up by different teams, there may be inconsistencies in how categories, stages or labels are named in the CRM, which makes work harder. If you notice problems like these, talk to your manager or the sales operations team and offer concrete examples of how it hurts productivity.

4. Identify bottlenecks in the process

One of the key goals of reviewing the sales process is to increase efficiency. Don’t be afraid to dig deeper into the existing process and eliminate unnecessary steps.

Start by analyzing key metrics from the CRM, focusing on:

• The average duration of each stage of the sales process
• The number of prospects in each stage at the same time
• The overall win rate

The first question to ask: How do these metrics compare with the previous six months?

If the numbers are better, the process is more efficient.

If the numbers are worse, investigate the causes:

• Are there clear criteria for moving from one stage to the next?
• At which stage do buyers most often stall?
• Is there an unnecessary stage in the process?
• Is a key step missing, such as a discovery call or qualification?
• Are additional resources needed to close sales successfully?

Once you identify the problem areas, report them to the sales operations team and propose concrete changes backed by the relevant evidence.

5. Ask for updated training materials

Although maintaining sales training is a sales operations task, salespeople can always ask for new or updated learning resources — especially after the semi-annual review of the sales process. Training materials and tools should be refreshed regularly, and changes clearly communicated to the whole team. The more up to date the resources, the easier and more successful selling will be.

Key CRM features that support the sales process

Today, companies that don’t use a CRM platform probably don’t have a clear sales process.

Without a well-defined sales process, it is hard to gain real insight into sales opportunities at the level of individual deals and to plan future growth.

A good CRM can help you create a structured sales process that leads to more closed deals.

Ideally, the seven key steps of the sales process should integrate easily into the CRM’s stages. You can name them whatever you like, but the key is that once terminology is adopted, it stays consistent. Within the CRM, define concrete criteria for moving from one stage to the next. Although a sales process rarely runs in a completely linear way, the goal is for every sales conversation to be structured so that it provides clear insight into the sales opportunity. That is why it is important for the CRM system to automatically track and optimize every step of the process.

AI — a key component of the modern CRM

When choosing a CRM platform, look for solutions with built-in artificial intelligence (AI). AI brings:

• Predictive analytics for more accurate sales forecasts
• Personalized recommendations for next steps in the sales process
• Automated workflows that reduce the administrative burden on salespeople

Machine learning can identify new sales opportunities, improve strategic planning and enhance marketing campaigns. By automating routine tasks, AI lets salespeople focus on what they do best — selling.

CRM as a revenue generator

A good CRM not only improves the sales process, but also provides a complete picture of the organization — where it is now, where it is heading and what its long-term prospects are. It enables the analysis of historical data and the optimization of strategies for revenue growth. With additional options such as upsell and cross-sell functionality, the CRM becomes much more than a sales tool — it becomes a revenue driver.

How do you ensure a successful sales process?

Knowing the stages of the sales process is only part of success. It is just as important to practice the techniques at each stage.

• Work with colleagues to refine your sales conversations and customer follow-up strategies
• Note the tactics that deliver results — as well as those that don’t work
• Continuously improve the process based on hands-on experience

With a well-defined and tested sales process, your sales become predictable, efficient and scalable — which means more closed deals and steady growth.

Source: Salesforce