Building your first sales process

Turn ad-hoc selling into a repeatable process: find leads, run a pipeline in a CRM, write proposals and measure what works.

Who it is for: Owners and first sales hires in small B2B or service businesses whose sales currently depend on referrals and memory.

Beginner · 7 articles · about 56 minutes

What you will learn

  • Define your ideal customer and generate a steady flow of leads
  • Prospect and follow up without being pushy
  • Set up a simple pipeline in a CRM and keep it accurate
  • Write proposals that win and negotiate without discounting away margin
  • Track the handful of sales metrics that predict revenue

Articles in this path

  • Sales fundamentals – What selling actually is, how a buyer moves from first contact to a decision, and the simple repeatable process that lets a small business win customers without relying on charm or luck.
  • Lead generation – How to build a steady flow of people who want to hear from you: choosing channels, turning attention into contactable leads, and measuring what each lead costs so you can spend with confidence.
  • Prospecting and outreach – How to find the businesses or people most likely to buy from you and start conversations with them: building a target list, writing outreach that gets replies, and following up without being a pest.
  • CRM fundamentals – What a customer relationship management system actually does, when a spreadsheet stops being enough, how to choose and set one up without over-engineering it, and how to get your team to use it.
  • Sales pipeline management – How to define pipeline stages, keep every deal moving, spot where opportunities stall, and use pipeline coverage to know months in advance whether you will hit your revenue target.
  • Proposal and negotiation – How to write proposals that get decided rather than filed, present price with confidence, handle the negotiation that follows, and agree terms that protect your margin and the relationship.
  • Sales performance metrics – The handful of numbers that tell you whether your sales engine is working: activity, conversion, velocity and value, how to calculate them from your CRM, and how to use them to coach rather than just to judge.

Next path: Marketing your small business