The biggest advantage of working with over 500 paying customers and more than 10.000 sales reps? We get a front-row seat to what works, and what doesn't.
And what we’ve seen? A lot of teams are still winging it. No clear targets. No shared structure. No CRM. Just reps doing their own thing. And we get it. Most salespeople hate being boxed in. It's hard to come up with processes and a structure that doesn't suffocate them.
This blog post is for sales teams who want to take their process one step closer to scalable, sustainable growth. With simple, doable steps you can actually implement.
What a strong sales process looks like
A strong sales process doesn’t mean more rules, more meetings, or fancy software (though that last one can definitely help). It means clarity. Everyone knows what’s expected, what happens when, and how to move deals forward. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
1 - Clear targets
At the very least, every business should have a revenue goal. That's just the start, though. If you want to become a high-performing sales team, you need to understand how your sales team can contribute to that overarching revenue goal.
Which channels are currently used to generate and chase leads? How successful are they?
How much revenue is expected to come in through your current channels (aka existing vs new business)?
How much revenue will you need to generate on top of that to reach your revenue goal?
Using these questions, you now know which targets to set on new business vs existing business, and how to distribute those targets across your team.
Example: An HR Consultancy team we work with had clear targets for each of their offices, but they saw that new business growth was limited. With a market that is growing tougher by the day, they realised they needed more. We helped them split each office’s target into new and existing business, and then distributed that target across their team. Now, it's really easy for them to see where additional help from the main office is needed, and which offices are doing really well.
2 - Defined stages
Your pipeline should have clear stages that mean the same thing to everyone. Not just "in progress" or "follow-up", but specific steps like "meeting booked", "proposal sent", "contract in review". Make sure your team is involved in setting them up, so they all know and understand what each stage means.
Ideally, you have a platform that allows you to track deals through each stage, measuring the conversion rate in each step. That way, you are adding a layer of predictability into your sales process.
Example: A wholesale company simplified their sales stages to 4 key steps that every sales rep does. The team defined each step, and decided how to name them, themselves making sure everyone is aligned. Because they're measuring conversion rates in each of these steps, they've also seen where the biggest bottleneck lies in their process and they're actively working on solutions to fix that.
3 - A shared way of working
Of course, sales reps need freedom to sell in their own way. However, if everyone works on their own little island, a lot of knowledge is lost. By sharing tactics and arguments that help deals move forward, the whole team becomes way more efficient.
Not only that, by pooling knowledge together, you can come up with templates and sequences that you can tweak based on the results you see. Whenever you have a way to measure, you have a way to build in some predictability.
Example: At Bizzy, each of our sales reps uses sequences to test which messages work best. Whenever we see room for improvement, we log the new message variant as an A/B test and see which of the two versions performs better. If it's the new one, then that becomes our new message. If it's the old one, we park the new content or tweak it further to see if another experiment brings a different result.
4 - A consistent lead flow
You can’t sell if you don’t have leads. This may sound like a pretty catchphrase, but that doesn't make it any less true.
In our experience, and being sales reps ourselves we can say this, sales are nothing if not lazy. We'd much rather chase clients we know for a renewal, or work on inbound leads generated by marketing activities, than reach out to a new cold prospect we're so much less likely to sell to.
We jokingly refer to this as the “waterfall of laziness”.
This is where step 1 comes back into play, though. Because what happens if your existing business cannot support your envisioned growth, and your inbound leads are not enough to bridge the gap?
Exactly. You need more outbound lead generation.
Make sure you have a system in place that brings you potential new outbound leads on autopilot, and start measuring your conversion rates so you know if you need less or more leads coming in.
Example: Using a tool like Bizzy's Sales Agent, you get new leads every single week with an extensive AI-generated summary of why they were selected, how they match your ideal customer profile, and what you can use in your first outreach. Our customers are seeing an increase in meetings booked in the first few weeks. If this is a huge gap in your current sales process, check out the Sales Agent for yourself.
5 - One place to track everything
And, please, leave the spreadsheets or ERPs or e-commerce platforms behind. If you are serious about sales, you need a CRM. Keep the ERP for your operations, the e-commerce platform for your online sales, and the spreadsheet for whatever you still use spreadsheets for. But make sure that you track each new lead and deal in a system that's meant for it.
Having one place where you cannot only follow up on ongoing sales efforts, but also giving you insights per deal stage and team member, as well as automated forecasting, that's a dealbreaker. It's why Bizzy integrates seamlessly with all major CRM platforms, making sure your leads are trackable right away. Don't overcomplicate it, just have a system your sales reps can use.
Example: An IT Consultancy company introduced a new CRM last year. Whenever an inbound lead from marketing efforts is qualified, it pops up in their CRM, right next to the cold outreach leads they get from Bizzy each week. Sales now has both cold and warm leads to engage on a weekly basis. This allows them to warm up and engage leads, creating new opportunities consistently despite the long sales cycles they have to deal with.
Start getting more predictable sales
Even with a solid team, your sales process might be slowing you down. Building a strong sales process isn’t about reinventing the wheel. It’s about making a few key decisions, pouring them in a system everyone agrees on, and reviewing what works.
The most successful sales teams we work with didn’t get there by doing everything at once. They just started. They made goals clearer. Cleaned up their pipeline stages. Shared what was working. Added the right tools when needed.
You don't need to figure out the perfect process right away. You just need to pinpoint your biggest challenge right now, and figure out how to improve that.