How to map your sales process (with a free sales process template)

Without a structured sales process, you risk losing sight of your sales strategy, which can impact your ability to track leads, nurture them through the sales funnel and close deals.

Fortunately, there’s a way to clearly outline your sales process for your sales team members – a sales process map.

In this article, we outline the seven common stages of a sales process and provide a template you can customize as needed. You’ll also learn how sales processes vary by industry, how to create your own sales process map and how to manage it in a CRM.

What is a sales process?

A sales process is a structured, step-by-step formula that represents your sales cycle.

It standardizes the procedure and shows reps how to move leads through the sales pipeline. As a result, your team can easily track leads and close more deals.

A basic sales process generally includes the following stages:

• Prospecting

• Researching prospects

• Contacting leads

• Lead qualification

• Presenting or pitching to leads

• Closing the deal

• Retaining the customer

Steps often vary depending on how customers move through your sales funnel.

For example, if you’re selling a consumer product instead of a service (e.g., SaaS), you may or may not need to walk through a demo to convince leads to buy.

A well-defined sales process will also help you track sales activities that do and don’t work. Mapping the activities helps you understand where leads are dropping out in your sales funnel.

For instance, if you’re finding you don’t get many responses to your emails, you can try new follow-up email templates to help yours stand out in busy inboxes.

A simple sales process template to start with

A sales process template gives your team a basic roadmap for turning new leads into customers, then adapting each step to match how your buyers move through the funnel.

Here’s a sales process example template you can use as a starting point for mapping your sales process.

The template outlines a basic sales process map showing the most common, universal sales process steps and activities for each:

There isn’t a perfect process or list of activities that work for every organization. Instead, sales management should tailor the process to their team’s goals and prospects’ needs.

For example, you may find that arranging a public product sampling results in more warm leads than reaching out on LinkedIn. You can replace the LinkedIn activities or scale back efforts.

Let’s say your sales process is pretty similar but includes a negotiation step where leads contact you to discuss pricing. In this situation, you’d keep the template as is but add the extra step.

Customize the existing template to reflect the stages of your unique sales process to get the most value from it.

The 7 stages of the sales process

To help you identify the right steps in your sales process, let’s break down the seven typical sales stages in more detail.

1. Prospecting

In the prospecting stage, you seek potential customers who fit your buyer personas.

Typically, a marketing team generates warm leads for your sales team through inbound lead generation.

However, some sales teams handle prospecting in-house. Depending on the structure of your organization, you can generate leads in other ways, including:

• Someone entering their email address to download content from your website

• Capturing contact information in a conversation with a chatbot

• Someone subscribing to your newsletter

• A sales professional sifting through LinkedIn profiles

• Your reps attending in-person networking events

At this stage, it’s unclear which prospects will be a good fit and who won’t. To be more certain, you need to look more deeply into all potential clients during the research stage.

2. Research

Understanding more about a prospect or their company can help you frame your initial conversation better.

Here’s some of the information your reps might look for during the research stage:

• Details that can help kick off the conversation (i.e., something to break the ice without sounding too “salesy”)

• What problem the lead is trying to solve and how you can solve it

• The best contact within a company to reach out to

• The size of the lead’s business, including annual turnover

To find these answers, sales reps may spend significant time online – particularly on social media platforms like X and LinkedIn. They may also speak with multiple people at an organization to learn who holds decision-making power.

Customer relationship management tools can also help you research and manage prospective contacts. For example, Pipedrive’s sales prospecting software allows you to uncover publicly relevant data to identify quality leads.

Simply click the data enrichment button in the detail view sidebar of your Pipedrive account to reveal a person’s location, job title, social media accounts and more.

The more context reps gather during research, the easier it is to personalize their outreach and lead with a relevant reason for getting in touch.

3. Making contact

Making contact is where reps turn research into targeted outreach, using the right channel to move a potential lead further into the sales funnel.

First contact can happen via phone (cold calls), cold emails, texts or social media. Prospects can also book a discovery call to learn more about your product or service.

CRM tools can make this stage easier by centralizing outreach activity and communication history. For example, in Pipedrive, reps can sync emails, make calls, schedule meetings and view all interactions of a contact in detail view:

The optimal communication method depends on your target audience. To find the right format, perform market research and learn where your audience spends their time online.

Run tests to see which tactic performs better (e.g., a direct message on Instagram or Facebook) or host an online survey to gather feedback directly from prospects.

4. Lead qualification

Lead qualification separates those who fit your ideal customer profile (ICP) from those who don’t.

At this point, your reps determine which prospects are right for your business, so they don’t spend time on leads who are unlikely to buy. You can use several systems to qualify your leads. Here’s how the BANT framework works, for example:

• Budget. Does your prospect have the budget for your product?

• Authority. Can the prospect actually make the purchase, or do they need to convince someone else?

• Need. Does the prospect truly need your product?

• Timescale. Does the prospect seem ready to buy now?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, you’ve got a hot lead, and you can move them through the sales pipeline. If the answer to some or all questions is no, you should review their suitability.

Pipedrive can help reps qualify and prioritize leads by tracking key criteria and facilitating lead scoring. For example, teams can score leads based on company size, budget or engagement activity, then filter the pipeline to focus on the highest-priority opportunities.

Lead qualification can reveal objections early. If a prospect has the right need but not the right budget, your rep can decide whether to discuss a smaller plan, offer a discount or nurture the lead for later.

If the lead definitely doesn’t qualify, remove them from the funnel and free up space for qualified leads to progress through the sales process.

5. Presentation

The presentation stage is where reps show qualified leads exactly how your product solves their pain points and why it’s the best fit.

It may involve a formal proposal, product demo, sales deck or sales pitch. Instead of using the same generic presentation for all prospects, tailor the conversation around what you learned during research and qualification.

Here are some tips for delivering a successful sales presentation:

• Prepare for questions. Review common objections and product questions to provide answers on the spot. Note down questions from previous presentations to build a knowledge base your whole team can refer to.

• Use evidence to back up your points. Back up claims with data, case studies or customer examples that show the real impact of your solution. Share statistics to solidify your points and convey the real impact of your business.

• End with a call to action. At the end of your presentation, give prospects a clear path to contact you or purchase the product. Tell them exactly what happens next, whether it’s booking a follow-up, reviewing a proposal or signing a contract.

An in-depth research stage makes crafting your pitch more straightforward as you can fully understand each lead’s unique circumstances, needs and pain points.

6. Closing the deal

Closing the deal is the stage of the sales process where prospective customers commit and make a purchase.

At this point, it’s make or break, so here are three tips to close a sales deal successfully:

• Make it easy to say yes. Don’t make prospects jump through hoops to close the deal. For example, create an efficient user experience on your website so they can purchase easily.

• Be flexible, but not too flexible. If leads want to negotiate prices, you may need to make some concessions. Be clear as a team about which limits are reasonable in advance. If you’re unsure, speak to your colleagues or sales leaders.

• Don’t beg. When leads suddenly stop answering calls and returning messages, send a few follow-ups, then one final email. Tell them to reach out when they’re ready and schedule a follow-up in a few months.

Remember, you’re not trying to manipulate a lead into buying something they don’t need. You’re gently persuading them that you’re the best choice to help them solve a problem.

7. Customer retention and referrals

The final step of the sales process turns closed deals into long-term revenue by keeping customers satisfied, engaged and more likely to buy again or refer others.

At this stage, the focus shifts from winning new prospects to supporting new customers after the sale.

Your customer service or success team can follow up with customers at the right touchpoints to ask if they’re still happy with your product or service. If there’s room for improvement, make changes to boost the customer experience.

Once you prove yourself and build trust over time, you can even upsell additional services or ask customers for referrals that can lead to new sales.

Retention is important because the sales process doesn’t end at closing. Happy customers can tell friends, family and colleagues about their experience and funnel new prospects or leads into your pipeline.

How to handle objections at each sales process stage

The best way to handle sales objections is by matching your response to the stage the deal’s in, whether that means asking better discovery questions, clarifying value or agreeing on a clear next step.

Use the table below to identify common objections at each sales process stage and plan a response to keep the deal moving.

Some objections are easy to anticipate, such as “I’m not interested” during initial contact. Check out this video for tips on how to handle it:

Some objections, on the other hand, are specific to the prospect’s business, timing or pain points. Preparing for both helps reps keep the sales conversation moving without sounding scripted.

The best time to prepare is before the objection comes up. Review CRM notes and data to spot patterns in where deals stall, then build guidelines around the top objections your team hears.

When a new objection comes up, slow down and ask follow-up questions. A thoughtful response shows that you understand your prospect’s concern and helps move the deal forward.

3 examples of industry-specific sales processes

Sales processes can vary widely by industry, mostly because of legal requirements, niche products, challenging target markets or industry governance and regulations.

Here are three examples of industries that use slightly different sales processes.

Use these examples as a starting point for thinking about how your own sales process should reflect your buyers, stakeholders and deal requirements.

How to create a sales process map in 4 simple steps

The best way to map your unique sales process is to identify how prospects move through your funnel and what your team does at each stage.

Use the four steps below to define your goals, involve key stakeholders, list core activities and measure performance over time.

1. Determine your most important sales metrics

Tracking sales metrics helps you monitor the success of your process and make the necessary changes when things aren’t going to plan.

When setting sales goals and metrics, it’s helpful to use the SMART methodology:

Instead of focusing on arbitrary numbers, SMART sales goals can help you set realistic target metrics. Here’s what that looks like:

• If it takes 10 initial sales calls out of 100 for your reps to close a deal, their deal win rate is 10%

• To close 90 deals this year, they likely need to make 900 calls

• A realistic target could be an average of 75 monthly calls, or roughly 15 to 20 calls per week

Breaking down targets into smaller chunks can help them feel more achievable and inspire reps to start working towards them immediately.

To accurately track your goals alongside sales performance, use Pipedrive’s custom dashboards. For example, you can monitor metrics that matter most to your sales process:

You can then share reports with your team so everyone can see what’s working and where deals need attention. Tracking the right metrics makes your sales process easier to measure, improve and repeat.

2. Identify key stakeholders

Identify any stakeholders who play a key role in your sales process, aligning teams and streamlining the activities that make up the buyer’s journey.

For example, most sales processes require sales and marketing teams to work together. Other departments, such as customer support, may also get involved.

Let’s say your customer support team fixes an issue, and the rep asks the customer to participate in an interview. The marketing team uses the story (with permission) to create a case study. The sales team then emails the case study to new customers with similar needs.

By understanding that all these departments play crucial but different roles in the sales process and customer journey, you can transform siloed processes into cross-functional teams and create a unified customer experience.

3. Define your sales process steps

Your sales process steps are the core areas we discussed above, such as prospecting, lead qualification and closing the deal.

Map out these stages on your template along with all the activities involved in nurturing a customer from lead to final sale.

Each activity in the process will belong to one of these steps. For example, the activity “cold call a qualified lead” would fall under the “making contact” step. Other activities will fall under multiple stages, such as handling objections.

With so many activities required to close sales, you need an intuitive way to track them all.

4. Track and monitor progress

What works now may not work in the future, so you need to track and revise your sales process.

Use sales tracking software to get a clear picture of how your pipeline is performing and whether it’s working as it should.

Tracking deal progress is particularly crucial for businesses with more than one or two people in charge of sales. It’s easy to lose track of whether you’re closing more or fewer deals than before without a tracking system.

A unified, transparent pipeline lets you see everyone’s workflows and activities, so you can learn what’s working for different reps (e.g., a particular incentive is helping them close deals faster) and improve across the board.

Setting up your sales process in a CRM

Use a CRM-based sales tool to turn your sales process into a visual pipeline with trackable stages and next steps.

Using a CRM allows you to correlate action-based data from your sales tactics, prospects and customers in one location. Use it to visualize your process and track performance indicators like:

• Forecast analysis. How many products is your team predicted to sell this week, month or year?

• Territory coverage. How many prospects or customers has your team visited in their sales district?

• Quota analysis. Which reps are likely to hit their sales quota and why?

A cloud-based CRM like Pipedrive can help you create and customize an ideal sales process for your business.

Sales reps can use the platform from wherever they’re working, giving them instant access to everything contained in the sales process map.

Use the software to find contact details, engage automation to send emails, try Pipedrive Marketplace integrations to improve efficiency and track sales performance measurements from fewer dashboards.

Keeping an eye on your sales performance will enable faster, more frictionless decisions as you’ll be able to spot the bottlenecks and opportunities in real time.

Final thoughts

A clear and effective sales process is crucial to helping your sales team effectively nurture leads through the sales funnel.

Now that you know what a sales process is, what the stages are and how to create and manage it, it’s time to put your knowledge into practice.

Try Pipedrive free for 14 days to design a sales process that will help you build relationships with prospects, close more deals and achieve scalable revenue growth.

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