Client Onboarding Checklist: Steps, Templates & Best Practices
Sales is the lifeblood of any business, so you can't afford to wing it. You either optimize your sales process or lose out to brands who do.
As business growth and sales expert, Tiffani Bova puts it: "How you sell matters. What your process is matters. But how your customers feel when they engage with you matters more."
The ideal sales process isn't just a series of recurring steps for closing deals. It circles around how you connect with prospects, address customer pain points and make their lives easier.
According to Salesforce, companies that execute a sales playbook enjoy 33% higher revenue.
Without a sales process, you'd end up hiring and firing your sales team without results. But getting it right earns you customer loyalty, consistent sales and business growth.
It’s obviously worth the effort.
If you're wondering how to build an effective sales process, you've come to the right place. In this guide, we'll show you how to create a sales process that closes more deals.
We'll also cover the benefits of having a streamlined sales process in place, discuss some eye-opening statistics and present the typical sales process companies use.
Let’s get started.
A sales process is a roadmap for executing a sales strategy, improving the effectiveness of your sales team and driving sales consistently.
It outlines a series of repeatable steps your sales team takes to move early-stage leads or prospects into new customers. Typically, a sales process has about seven steps, including:
Each of these steps in the selling process may consist of various sales, marketing and business activities.
Having a strong sales process helps teams acquire leads and close deals consistently. Not only does it provide a valuable framework to follow, but sales teams can easily replicate desired performance levels.
Some people tend to confuse these terms to mean the same thing. That’s because the sales process and funnel both describe the flow of leads and prospects through a sale.
However, they have slight differences.
A sales process refers to the necessary steps required to make a sale. It highlights a prospect's journey from identifying their need to searching for a product to an actual purchase.
While the sales process is a guide or template for a salesperson, it's an adventure for a prospect.
However, it shouldn't be confused with a sales funnel. A sales funnel visualizes all the activities and interactions between you and your prospects during sales.
Now, here's where the thin line is drawn.
Most companies have a standardized roadmap for selling to prospects and existing customers. Since there's a sequence of events, each sales rep knows what steps to take and when. This standardized sales process makes it super easy for brands to measure, forecast and manage sales.
On the other hand, your sales funnel displays all the active sales opportunities resulting from interaction with prospects. It also shows the various stages of completion of different sales activities.
By evaluating these opportunities, you're able to forecast expected revenue based on the sales activities in your funnel.
In a nutshell, the sales process details what you're doing to close sales and bring revenue. But the sales funnel measures the number of prospects, conversion rates and the actual and potential revenue you have in the funnel.
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According to a study by Harvard Business Review, having a winning sales process helps you make more money.
That's not all. It keeps your business afloat and ensures you stay competitive in your niche. Here are some other reasons why a sales process is important for your business.
A formal sales process guides salespeople to know what to do at every step of the customer buying journey. With a detailed roadmap, they're unlikely to miss an important step in handling prospects.
Sometimes, sales reps may get confused or drop the deal when prospects have objections. But a sales process ensures your team successfully nudges prospects toward a purchase while meeting their expectations.
Secondly, sales processes help the sales team and everyone else know where a deal stands. At a glance, you can quickly and easily determine how likely it is that you'll close a sale.
Without a proper sales framework, deals are simply qualified as won or lost. It's also difficult for companies to identify loopholes or know which specific actions are working. Putting an effective sales process in place lets managers see where and why a deal has stalled and identify ways to put it back on track.
Establishing a standardized sales roadmap could also help amateur sales reps. They can quickly learn what to do at each step during sales and catch up on industry best practices.
For example, if a sales rep has problems prospecting or generating leads, you can put a coaching program in place.
Having a formalized sales process ensures that your company invests more time, effort and money in the activities that generate the most revenue. Without a strategic focus, your marketing team's lead generation efforts would go down the drain.
For example, sales reps can prioritize leads who are more likely to convert. By focusing on sales-qualified leads, you can close more sales in less time and shorten the overall sales cycle length.
A key part of the sales process is prospecting and qualifying your leads. These stages involve researching and gathering more insights about who customers are and what they want. Learning about your prospects will help offer personalized product and service experiences, leading to repeat purchases and customer loyalty.
Still in doubt about the benefits of putting an effective sales process in place? Here's what the numbers say about having a formal sales process.
Made with Visme Infographic Maker
Bottom line: These numbers show a direct correlation between effective sales process management and strong revenue growth.
What's more? Brands that adopt and implement sales processes outperform brands that don't on parameters like:
Yet, rather surprisingly, Objective Management Group says a whopping 91% of
companies still don't have or follow formal or standardized sales processes.
Well, if this is the reality for your brand, we're here to help you drive more results. Keep reading to learn how to create a sales process that makes you more money.
Now you know what a sales process is and why it's important to create one. Let's consider the steps that a typical sales process follows and how you can optimize the process with Visme.
The preparation stage is where you lay the foundation for your sales process.
First, you need to build product knowledge.
When your product knowledge is solid, you’re ready to tackle B2B sales prospecting strategically. Instead of blasting generic features, you can have curious, consultative conversations that uncover real customer pain points, boosting your chances of building trust and closing deals faster.
Gone are the days when salespeople would refer prospects to the product teams to answer technical or product-related questions. Nowadays, prospects expect the sales teams to know everything about the product.
Potential customers expect the sales teams to know everything about the product, especially since the prospects can do plenty of research on their own to begin with. Salespeople must know all the minute details that a customer could possibly ask about.
The benefits? It builds prospects' confidence in your product and accelerates the sales process.
Put yourself in your customer's shoes. First, identify their varying pain points and how it affects them. Then highlight your product benefits and how it directly addresses those problems.
Use the Visme whiteboard to take notes about your customer personas using existing sales data and projection material. The whiteboard has an infinite canvas, so you’re able to do all preparation steps on the same whiteboard space. If necessary, you can also create separate slides that you can name and organize.
The Visme whiteboard is also an essential collaboration tool for preparing a sales process with your team in real-time. Start with this customer persona brainstorming template:
Research your competitors and find how your product stack up to theirs. Then, add this information to your sales playbook and use it to win prospects over.
Here's how to build solid product knowledge:
Be sure to write your notes and internalize anything you learn. But, most importantly, make it simple for your prospects to understand.
Then, add this information to your sales playbook and use it to win prospects over.
Bottom line: Salespeople need to know about their product's standout features and the pain points they solve for customers. They should also know their unique value proposition, target customers, competitors and industry.
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Prospecting or lead generation is the process of sourcing prospects (individual or business) for your business.
It involves building a database of leads or prospects. The end goal is to convert these leads to customers.
Not only is it a key part of the sales process, but prospecting is a critical daily and weekly activity for sales representatives.
How do real businesses do prospecting? They conduct lead generation activities to collect leads. Asana, for example, has a landing page where interested prospects can “book a demo.” Once the person adds their email to see this demo, their email, name, company name, and interests are collected in a database.
When it comes to prospecting, it's vital to know who your ideal customers are.
Why does it matter? Studies show that at least 50% of prospects won't be an excellent fit for your business.
So how do you find leads that match your ideal customer profile?
Creating a buyer persona will help you segment your audience and target them better.
If you don't have access to a buyer persona, research your target market and competitors. Find out the attributes of prospects your competitors are targeting.
To find your ideal prospect, you can:
Over 40% of salespeople admit prospecting is the most difficult aspect of the sales process. But following the tips we've shared above would make prospecting a breeze.
Use the template below to visualize and optimize your lead generation activities.
This next step in developing a sales process is in two parts. The first part involves reaching out to leads to collect more information.
And the second part involves verifying if they're an ideal prospect or not. At this stage, you can also determine if they're ready to move to the next stage of the sales journey.
Remember, not all prospective customers are created equal. Qualifying prospects will enable you to identify and focus on those that will most likely become customers.
You identify qualified leads over a connect, qualification or discovery call. You could also reach out to leads via email.
The connect or discovery call lets you collect information such as:
During the call or while exchanging emails, be sure to ask questions such as:
According to MarketingSherpa, a whopping 73% of B2B leads are not sales-ready when first contacted. So you need to engage those leads with tact to move them down the sales pipeline.
Remember, these questions should serve as a guide for your conversation rather than very direct queries. Avoid making your connect call sound over-rehearsed or like an interrogation.
Rather focus on flowing within your prospects in a warm and friendly manner. The goal is to draw them in and get as much information as you can.
Another way to gather qualifying information is to use surveys during the sign up process or afterward. When you sign up for Visme, for example, you’re asked a few simple questions so we can get to know you better.
If you want to create a survey, you have access to several survey integrations inside Visme to help create comprehensive questionnaires. Once prospects start the survey, you can use Visme analytics to see who opened it, from where, and how long they spent on it.
You've probably narrowed down the database to a list of viable sales-qualified leads. The next step would be to learn more about them or their company.
Researching your prospect gives you a deeper insight into their needs and pain points.
The best part? It helps you tailor your sales pitch or position your product as the best solution to their problems.
Remember, 95% of customers make purchase decisions based on emotion. Therefore, offering a more tailored and personalized experience will trigger your prospects'' emotional levers. In addition, it will increase the likelihood of closing a deal.
You can set up a face-to-face meeting or call with your prospect to:
Here are some questions to help guide this discussion:
Beyond asking questions, there are other ways to supercharge your meeting with prospects.
During the meeting, maintain a natural and free-flowing conversation with your prospect.
Avoid sounding too salesy. Rather, show the prospects you care about them.
Use the lead magnet template below to get your prospect excited about your offering.
Once you get the hang of what your prospect needs, you can pitch your product. Pitching involves a formal demonstration of your solution (product or service) for your prospect.
Before you invest your time preparing your sales presentation, be sure your prospect is a qualified sales lead. You don't want to waste resources pitching to leads that won't convert.
Be sure to tailor your presentations to your prospects' needs or use cases. For example, if you're pitching a technical solution, you could bring an engineer to answer technical questions about your product.
Bringing technical personnel indicates the level of support they'll receive from your team. This could also go a long way in boosting prospects' confidence in your product.
Remember that customers buy products and services to solve a problem or meet a need. So, consciously or unconsciously, they'll always be asking, "What's in it for me?"
So while pitching your offering, pay more attention to the benefits. Rather than focus on the features, pay more attention to the benefits. That's the major reason customers buy products or services.
For example, some ovens have features like smooth stovetops, convection capabilities, self-cleaning, warming bins and more. But benefits like ease of use, safety and affordability could make your buyers pull out their checks.
If you're looking to drive prospects' interest in your pitch, utilize visual communication. Incorporating high-quality visual aids like images, videos, charts, graphs and more will make your presentation compelling and attractive.
Best of all, Visme offers tons of visually-appealing templates to make your product pitch successful. You'll find sales-ready templates for any niche and an extensive library of visual aids and design elements to spice up your presentation.
Finally, take advantage of the AI tools inside the Visme editor to help finesse your pitch. Let the AI Writer help you craft the ideal copy by asking it to write in a specific tone or style.
You can adjust the prompt as many times as you wish until the copy is perfect. Likewise, add AI-generated images that fit your brand perfectly, using prompts you enter into the AI image generator.
Use the gorgeous template below to pique customer attention and spark interest in your product or service.
It doesn't matter how amazing your product is. It's natural for prospects to have objections or concerns about your solution. These objections could be questions or concerns about:
Most unsuccessful salespeople abandon the deal at this stage.
About 44% of salespeople give up after one rejection and 22% after two. About 14% abandon their pursuit of a prospect after three rejections and 12% after four.
The thing is, 80% of sales require at least five follow-ups to convert. Successful sales are often the result of multiple follow-ups with prospects. And the ability to handle objections is what separates novices from experts or excellent salespeople.
Before you pitch your solution, be prepared to handle any objections. You can start by identifying potential questions or concerns and draft answers to address them.
Your sales team should anticipate objections like:
By listening to these objections and handling them, you can:
Bottom line: How you handle objections can make or break your sales deal. Be careful not to sound defensive when you hear objections. Instead, pay attention to your prospect's concerns and ask for more details. Understanding the root of these objections will help you address them properly.
Use the template below to create a professional ebook that enhances clients' understanding of your solution.
This is every salesperson's dream. Weeks and months of research, prospecting and pitching have come down to this point.
The closing stage refers to activities or processes that take place as the client prepares to buy your product. And it differs from company to company.
These late-stage activities could be:
Here the goal is to urge the prospects to make the purchase. Depending on your business, you can use any of these closing techniques:
If the closing stage doesn't go as planned, nurture the prospect to re-engage them in the future.
Secure the buy-in of key decision-makers using this breathtaking proposal template below.
If everything goes as planned, your prospect has purchased your product and become a customer.
Congratulations. However, that's not where your work ends.
You want to monitor the onboarding process or confirm if the customer has received their order. Additionally, continue to communicate with the customer and offer post-sale assistance.
Doing this will:
Cynthia Barnes' formula for nurturing customer relationships says you should:
Now that you know what the sales process entails, you'd probably want to build yours. Here's how to map out and increase the impact of your sales process.
Before creating your sales process, you need to determine what you want to achieve. Your sales and overall business goals will determine how you'll structure your sales process.
For example, let's say you want to improve your lead generation or prospecting. First, you'll have to focus your efforts on identifying leads that will be a great fit for your business.
Other key goals could include:
What if you have a sales process that isn't working? In that case, analyze your current sales process. Doing this will uncover what is and isn't working.
Start by monitoring your sales team as they walk through their daily sales activity. Evaluate the last five to ten deals that fell and identify what went wrong. Then, go ahead and list out what they could have done better.
Optimizing your sales process will help delight more customers and close more sales.
Set realistic goals for your sales process using the template below.
After setting a smart goal, find out who your potential customers are.
Here's why? If you are a B2C company, your customer profile and sales process will differ from a B2B company.
Start by building customer personas or talking to existing customers. Gathering intel about your ideal customer will help you optimize your sales process to pull in more revenue.
Let's take Airbnb's buyer persona, for example. Their customer base is divided into two groups:
To improve their sales process, Airbnb would have to interview both customer groups to:
Here's the thing with creating buyer personas or knowing who clients are. It helps you adjust your product or service to meet their needs. In addition, you'll be able to identify the channel they use the most and reach them there.
For example, you'll mostly meet B2B companies during trade shows and conferences. In contrast, if you're a B2C company, online advertising may work just fine for you.
You can't get to work on your sales process without bringing your sales team on board.
Why does it matter? Why don't you create a sales process and slam it on them?
Your salespeople are constantly in touch with the customers. They know what works and what isn't working. Also, they know the challenges involved in nudging customers to the next step or closing a sale. You could even view your sales cycle from their perspective.
Leverage valuable insight from this meeting to map out a sales process that works.
We get it. The sales and marketing team is mostly responsible for driving sales in companies.
Now you're wondering why you should bring other stakeholders aboard.
Sharing your sales goals and sales process with other teams like IT, product, customer service and more can bring unanticipated insights. In addition, you'll get all the support you need to increase customer satisfaction and drive more sales.
As you define your sales process, list the actions that nudge a customer to advance to the next stage. Also, take note of actions or reasons why deals stall.
For example, during the presentations, how will the team handle objections? What are the things that will motivate prospects to schedule a face-to-face meeting?
Pay close attention to the exit criteria for every step of the process. These criteria should specify which actions a prospect should take in each sales cycle stage before progressing to the next level.
For example, let's say you have already identified a list of prospects. Your criteria for exiting that stage might be:
Before the prospect moves to the next stage, the sales rep must perform all three activities or more.
Specifically, let's say you're at the pitching stage. Your reps might need to share a demo, testimonial, case study to move the prospect to the closing stage.
At the closing stage, your sales reps might need to provide post-sales support to drive repeat sales. It makes sense, right?
Be specific and detailed about the exit criteria. And make sure all of your sales reps have the same information. That way, they'll feed prospects with correct information to motivate them to buy.
Having a detailed blueprint will make your revenue predictable. However, please don't take this step for granted as it will become crucial during sales forecasting.
Show how your solution can help prospects achieve their business goals using the template below.
We've explained the steps involved in creating a sales process. And now you have the background details for mapping out your sales process. Then, it's time to put it to work.
Make sure your sales process is dynamic and aligns with your customer purchase journey. Identify and eliminate potential bottlenecks that could make deals fall through.
Highlight how each step affects your sales team and other stakeholders. Remember to incorporate their feedback and explain what actions they should take.
Use designs that look professional and enhance visual appeal. Stick to tools like Visme that make it super easy to create and share visuals across multiple platforms. The beautiful thing is that you don't need the help of any designer to make your presentations pop.
List out the steps critical to closing deals and organize them in a structured manner. Then, draft out actions salespeople should take if things don't go as planned.
Remember to focus on building valuable and long-lasting relationships along the sales process.
Connect your Salesforce account to a Visme workspace and take full advantage of all the tools both platforms offer. Easily connect your deals with Visme projects.
Use the flowchart below to visualize your sales planning process, B2B sales process, or sales cycle process.
Next, evaluate the purchase journey for your prospects or existing customers. The customer purchase journey is the steps customers take before buying from you.
Mapping the customer journey will help you view your sales process from the customer's lens.
A customer journey map is a visual storyline of a buyer's purchase experience and interaction with your brand. It helps you define customer needs, expectations and engagements with your brand. It's also a key tool when building a good sales enablement strategy for your sales team.
Read this article to learn how to create a customer journey map.
While designing your sales process, keep your customer persona within reach. This will ensure your sales team remains focused on the customer.
Use the attractive Visme infographic templates below to describe your ideal buyer persona.
Write down details of customer interactions, including their pain points and why they need your product or service. And offer a personalized buying experience that triggers more sales, repeat purchases and referrals.
As you work to move leads through your marketing and Sales funnel faster, you'll have to track your progress and measure success.
Why's that? You won't know if you're hitting your goals until you test and measure the results.
There are a couple of ways to see if your sales process yields desired results.
For example, you can track how many deals you've closed successfully over a given period. You may want to calculate how many sales were lost at each stage.
Be sure to keep an eye on metrics such as:
This metric measures how much time an average sales take. It's the length of time since a salesperson first contacted the prospect to purchase.
To calculate the average sales cycle, divide the total number of days to close the deal by the total number of deals.
This metric tracks how many deals you won compared to the total number of opportunities created.
Here's how to calculate opportunity win rate = (Closed sales/Total number of opportunities) * 100
This ratio is an indication of your lead quality. It also shows how well your sales team moves prospects through the sales funnel.
Here's how to calculate the Lead to sales qualified lead (SQL) ratio. Simply divide the number of prospects that resulted in sales by the total number of leads.
CLV measures how much value you can get a customer over a given period.
Customer lifetime value (CLV) = Lifetime value x Profit margin
Where, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) = Average value of sale * number of transactions * retention time period
Churn rate refers to the percentage of customers that stopped using your product or service during a certain period.
You can calculate it by dividing the total number of lost customers by the total number of prospects at the start of the sales cycle.
It measures the percentage of deals or opportunities that passed one stage of the process to the next stage.
Pipeline conversion rate = (Number of conversions at a specific stage / Total number of prospects that entered the stage) x 100
Other critical metrics you should look for include:
Track the results of your sales process using the visuals below.
The sales process has evolved immensely in recent years, thanks to the power of digital technology.
The need for automation and personalized buying experiences backed by data-driven insights has led more brands to rethink their sales process. As a result, brands must leverage new ways to connect with buyers and adapt their sales process to achieve revenue goals.
That's why many brands are beginning to automate processes in a bid to:
In the past, AI-powered technology has been deemed somewhat overrated. However, 80% of companies admit AI provides immense value for salespeople. Plus, about 41% of salespeople AI believe it helps them stay informed, connected and productive.
According to Gartner, Inc., by 2025, 75% of B2B sales leaders will supplement their traditional sales playbooks with AI-powered selling solutions.
Sales leaders worldwide are looking to invest in artificial technology (AI) and machine learning (ML) technology. This is largely due to the ubiquity of data and the rapid growth of sales-enhancing technology. With AI, salespeople can analyze data, monitor trends and figure out the best next steps.
Sales processes and methodologies are similar but have distinct characteristics.
A sales process consists of a series of steps created to lead consumers toward taking action. A sales methodology, on the other hand, is a set of principles that guide and outline effective selling practices.
The sales team creates sales processes according to an established sales methodology and aligns it with the company values and customer needs.
The common sales processes you should avoid are:
The sales process in marketing speaks to the alignment between sales and marketing teams inside the same company. When you blend sales and marketing processes, you get an aligned marketing/sales process that looks like this:
The seven steps of the sales process are:
Undoubtedly, implementing an effective sales process can greatly impact revenue and business performance.
Creating your first sales process may require a lot of time, effort and resources. But putting in all the work now will save your sales teams from losing out on deals.
A winning sales process is never etched in stone. It should remain a work in progress.
You need to revise your sales process regularly and adapt it to the customer's ever-changing needs and overall business goals. And make sure it reflects market realities and industry dynamics.
If you're looking to visualize your sales process and bring in more deals, Visme's content creation tool is intuitive and easy to use. It empowers your sales team to create compelling and branded sales materials with little or no design skills.
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