When a sales team lacks a dedicated sales core process, you’ll often see them go through the classic struggle: talented reps working incredibly hard, with wildly inconsistent results. One month they’d crush targets, the next would wonder where all the prospects went. Sound familiar?
The breakthrough came when we realized that sales success isn’t just about hustle, relationship building, or even having a great product. It’s about having a repeatable, documented process that works every single time.
- The Problem: Sales Without Process is Sales Without Predictability
- What Makes a Sales Process “Core”?
- Five Core Sales Processes Every Sales Team Needs
- How to Document Sales Core Processes + Templates
- Getting Started: Your Four-Week Sales Process Documentation Sprint
- The Sales Process Mistakes That Cost You Deals
- How You’ll Know Your Sales Core Processes Are Working
- From Hunting to Harvesting: Strategic Sales Growth
- Why Strety Makes Sales Process Documentation Actually Work
- Ready to Build Your Sales Process Foundation?
The Problem: Sales Without Process is Sales Without Predictability
Here’s what the data tells us about this chaotic approach: 68% of all salespeople do not follow a sales process at all. That means more than two-thirds of sales professionals are essentially winging it.
Even worse, only 33% of a rep’s time is spent actively selling. The rest gets eaten up by administrative tasks, searching for information, and trying to remember what they were supposed to do next with each prospect.
But here’s the kicker: organizations with a standard sales process experience 18% more revenue growth compared to organizations without one (CSO Insights). That’s not a small difference—that’s the difference between hitting your growth targets and missing them by a mile.
I’ve seen this play out firsthand. Sales team was burning through leads, losing track of follow-ups, and each rep was essentially running their own version of a sales process. The mental load was enormous, and deals were falling through cracks we didn’t even know existed.
What Makes a Sales Process “Core”?
EOS core processes are the essential, step-by-step ways your company consistently delivers value to customers. For sales, these are the critical workflows that turn prospects into customers, predictably and repeatedly.
Think of core processes as the difference between a piano bar performer singing random requests versus a professional arena performer. Both might be talented, but only one has a proven system that delivers the same excellent result every single time.
Research backs this up: businesses with a standardized sales process see up to a 28% increase in revenue compared to those that do not. Your core sales processes aren’t just nice-to-have documentation—they’re your competitive advantage.
Core sales processes focus on the high-impact activities that directly drive deals forward. They’re not about documenting every email you send or every phone call you make. They’re about the repeatable methods that consistently move prospects through your pipeline toward a close.
Five Core Sales Processes Every Sales Team Needs
After watching sales teams struggle and succeed, I’ve identified five core processes that form the backbone of any effective sales operation:
- Lead qualification and discovery
- Proposal and presentation development
- Objection handling and negotiation
- Deal closing and handoff
- Customer retention and upselling
These processes work together like a well-orchestrated system. Lead qualification feeds into proposal development. Your objection handling process prepares you for negotiation. Deal closing seamlessly hands off to customer success. When documented properly, they create a sales machine that runs whether you’re in the office or on vacation.
How to Document Sales Core Processes + Templates
The EOS framework uses a simple Three-Step Process Documenter that makes this manageable:
- High-Level Steps (5-8 major phases)
- Detailed Steps (The specific actions within each phase)
- Accountability (Who does what, when)
Here are templates for each of these 5 sales core processes using this framework:
- Sales Core Process Template: Lead Qualification and Discovery
- Sales Core Process Template: Proposal and Presentation Development
- Sales Core Process Template: Objection Handling and Negotiation
- Sales Core Process Template: Deal Closing and Handoff
- Sales Core Process Template: Customer Retention and Upselling
These templates provide a comprehensive framework that can be customized based on your specific industry, deal size, and sales cycle. Start with one template, test it with your team, and refine based on what works in practice.
Getting Started: Your Four-Week Sales Process Documentation Sprint
The thought of documenting all your sales processes might feel overwhelming, especially when you’re trying to hit your numbers. But you don’t have to tackle everything at once. Here’s how I recommend breaking it down:
Week 1: Sales Activity Audit
Track everything your team does for a week. Not just calls and meetings, but every step of how they move a prospect forward. Have your top performers walk through their last few closed deals step-by-step. Your goal is to identify the 5-7 most critical processes that drive the biggest impact.
Week 2: Documentation Sprint
Start with your most successful process—probably lead qualification, since that’s where everything begins. Use your EOS tool (like Strety’s Playbook feature) to document each step. Include email templates, qualification questions, and links to resources. Focus on getting the knowledge out of your best performers’ heads and into a shareable format.
Week 3: Testing and Refinement
Have someone else on your team follow the documented process with a real prospect (with appropriate oversight). Note every gap, unclear step, or missing resource. This is where you’ll discover all the “obvious” things that aren’t actually obvious to anyone but your top performers.
Week 4: Team Training and Implementation
Roll out the process to your entire sales team. Create practice scenarios using your CRM and role-play different prospect situations. The goal is to prove that anyone on your team could execute this process successfully and get consistent results.
The Sales Process Mistakes That Cost You Deals
I’ve seen teams make every sales process mistake in the book, so let me save you some pain:
- Don’t over-engineer simple interactions. Your qualification process doesn’t need 47 questions. Focus on the critical information that actually affects how you sell to them.
- Don’t create rigid scripts that kill relationships. Sales is still about human connection. Your processes should provide structure while leaving room for authentic conversation and relationship building.
- Don’t ignore the feedback loop. Sales coaching can improve sales performance by 20% (DePaul University). Schedule regular process reviews based on what’s working and what isn’t. Your processes should evolve as you learn.
- Don’t use one-size-fits-all approaches. A $5,000 deal and a $500,000 deal require different processes. Build flexibility into your documentation for different deal sizes, industries, or buyer types.
The best sales processes feel like helpful guardrails, not restrictive rules. They should make your team more effective, not more bureaucratic.
How You’ll Know Your Sales Core Processes Are Working
The real test of good sales processes isn’t how impressive they look in your documentation—it’s how they change your team’s performance. Here are the signs that your process documentation is actually working:
Predictable pipeline. You can forecast revenue with confidence because you know exactly where each deal stands and what needs to happen next.
Faster ramp time. New salespeople become productive in weeks, not months, because they have a clear roadmap to follow.
Consistent messaging. Your entire team sounds professional and aligned when talking to prospects, regardless of experience level.
Higher close rates. Following the process leads to better outcomes because it’s based on what actually works, not individual preferences.
But the biggest indicator of success is what I call the “vacation test”: Does your sales operation continue running smoothly when key people are out? When your top performer takes time off, does the team maintain their momentum, or does everything grind to a halt?
From Hunting to Harvesting: Strategic Sales Growth
Implementing core sales processes didn’t just make our team more organized—it fundamentally changed how we approach sales. Instead of being reactive, constantly chasing any lead that showed interest, we became proactive and strategic.
The documentation process revealed how much of our “selling” time was actually spent on remembering what to do next, hunting for information, and trying to recreate conversations from memory. Sales teams are 103% more likely to perform better when they’re aligned with their company’s marketing team — and processes make that alignment possible.
When our sales processes became part of our organizational knowledge instead of individual expertise, our entire team became more valuable. Sales reps could focus on building relationships and solving customer problems instead of trying to remember the next step in our methodology.
Most importantly, we stopped being dependent on individual heroics. Our processes became the foundation for sustainable, scalable growth that didn’t require our top performers to work 70-hour weeks.
Why Strety Makes Sales Process Documentation Actually Work
Time for some Strety talk here for my sales team 🙂
I’ve seen teams try to document sales processes in everything from Google Docs to complex CRM systems. The problem with standalone documentation is that it lives in isolation, separate from where sales actually happens. Team members forget it exists, and processes quickly become outdated.
Strety solved this when we started integrating process documentation directly into our sales workflow. When our sales team creates a Playbook in Strety, it’s not just a static document—it’s connected to our Rocks, generates To Dos for team members, and shows up in relevant L10 meetings.
Plus, the cross-departmental visibility means our sales processes integrate seamlessly with marketing, customer success, and operations. Everyone can see what’s working in sales and how their work contributes to closing deals.
Ready to Build Your Sales Process Foundation?
Start small. Pick one core sales process that your team does regularly—maybe it’s how you qualify leads or how you handle objections.
Spend an hour this week documenting it step-by-step using whatever tool you have now. Once you get comfortable with process documentation, check out the sales core process templates above and start adapting them for your own use.
If you want to see how Strety can make this process documentation actually integrate with your daily sales workflow, start a free trial or book time with our team for a personalized tour of how sales teams are using our platform.
Remember: you don’t have to keep everything in your head. Your future team members (and your current team’s sanity) will thank you for taking the time to document what actually works. Because the best sales organizations aren’t just effective—they’re repeatable and scalable.
