Repeatable Sales Process

What is a Repeatable Sales Process?

A repeatable sales process is a structured, step-by-step framework that sales teams follow consistently to convert leads into customers. It allows a business to standardize how reps conduct sales, making it easier to train new team members, predict outcomes, and improve overall sales efficiency.

Repeatable sales processes cover every stage of the standard sales process:

• Prospecting
• Preparation
• Outreach
• Lead qualification
• Sales presentation/demo
• Objection handling
• Closing the deal

Each stage is clearly defined, with specific criteria that guide salespeople on when and how to move to the next step. That way, every sales representative is aligned in their approach, leading to more consistent results and better customer experiences.

The “repeatable” aspect of your sales process extends beyond the customer-facing aspects of the sale. It also covers how you manage your pipeline, track performance, and make data-driven adjustments to improve future results. It also encompasses the software you use to facilitate this.

Synonyms

• Standardized sales process
• Consistent sales process
• Scalable sales process

Importance of a Repeatable Sales Process

If you have a sales process that isn’t repeatable, you won’t be able to scale it across your team or effectively measure its success. You also won’t be able to teach new team members anything about it since every team member will have a different way of doing things.

It’s a remarkably inefficient use of resources — reps don’t know how to qualify leads or what to look for in a good one. Frankly, it’s not a great experience for the customer, either. They get sold to differently depending on the sales rep they speak with.

Perhaps most importantly, you can’t scale a process like this. Even if you’re able to successfully achieve sales growth, the second you start hiring additional reps or expanding to new markets, you’ll have to start over from scratch. And if one of your top-performing reps leaves for another company, you won’t be able to take what they succeeded with and apply it to future sales reps.

Standardizing the process changes everything. It…

• Creates consistency in the sales experience for customers
• Makes it easier to train new sales reps (proper sales training yields a 353% ROI)
• Helps reps qualify prospects
• Enables scalability and growth
• Allows you to track and measure performance accurately
• Facilitates consistent sales quota attainment

Not to mention, your investors will love you when you can show them how your sales process is repeatable, predictable, and scalable. And your team will crush their sales goals, making them more likely to stay with your company.

Benefits of a Repeatable Sales Process

When you standardize certain aspects of your sales process, your sales team is the immediate beneficiary. They have structure guiding them toward success, making them feel more confident and prepared during every interaction with a potential customer. Revenue growth follows shortly behind.

Let’s dive into the essential benefits of having a repeatable sales process:

Better-equipped sales reps

77% of buyers say they refuse to interact with a salesperson lacking product knowledge. Your sales reps will have an easier time demonstrating their product knowledge when they have a process for doing so.

Better customer targeting

When you clearly define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and map out your customer journey (both part of standardizing your sales process), your reps have a starting point for prospecting. They’ll reach out to more of the right customers, and their time will be put to considerably better use.

Improved lead qualification processes

Part of standardization is using a qualification framework like BANT, SPICED, or MEDDIC. Requiring your reps to follow a clear qualification process helps prevent them from wasting time on unqualified leads. In turn, this boosts conversions. Long-term, it also increases CLV since deals you do close are likelier to get value from your product.

Predictable forecasting

With a repeatable sales process, you can analyze historical data and see how many deals typically close in each stage of the funnel. This information allow you to make more accurate sales forecasts and determine smart sales targets.

Easier expansion and new member onboarding

When your company starts hiring new reps or expanding into new markets, having a repeatable sales process in place means there’s less guesswork involved. New reps will know exactly what’s expected of them and how to achieve success.

Improved customer experience

Customers want consistency throughout their buying journey. When every sales representative follows the same process, customers receive a more uniform experience, leading to increased satisfaction and higher likelihood of referrals.

More accurate data analysis

By having a repeatable sales process, you can better track and analyze key metrics such as conversion rates, deal size, and sales cycle length. This helps identify areas for improvement and enables data-driven decision making for future strategy adjustments.

Higher employee and customer retention rates

When your team is consistently achieving their sales quotas, they’re more likely to stay with your company long-term. Conversely, when they don’t have a framework for achieving their goals, they won’t feel connected to the role. Worst case, they won’t even understand the point of it.

As for your customers, a repeatable process for prospecting, qualification, and movement through the sales pipeline means you’re closing more customers who align with your ICP. These are the people who won’t churn because they genuinely get value from your product. Without standardization, you’re almost certainly closing customers who don’t actually need your product.

Faster revenue growth

All these things combined contribute to faster growth. When your reps are more equipped, targeting the right customers, qualifying leads efficiently, making accurate forecasts, and providing a consistent customer experience, you’re going to grow your customer base a lot faster.

Elements of a Repeatable Sales Process

To build an effective sales process, you first need to know what pieces you need to fit together. From there, you’ll align everyone on your sales team and define how you’ll track and manage each of these elements.

Now, let’s dive into the key components that make up a successful, repeatable sales process:

1. Stages of the sales process

Start with the different stages of your sales process. These are:

• Prospecting — Finding potential customers
• Outreach — Reaching out to them
• Qualification and discovery — Determining if a lead is a good fit for your product, then learning about their challenges, needs, and decision-making process
• Demo/proposal/presentation — Showing how your product can solve their problems
• Objection handling — Listening and responding to sales objections
• Negotiation — For complex B2B sales, finalizing contract terms
• Closing — Securing the deal and turning a lead into a customer
• Follow-up — Maintaining communication with the customer after the sale to ensure satisfaction and foster long-term relationships

At each stage, you need specific activities that each seller does. We’ll cover these in more detail later.

This is especially true during prospecting, outreach, and qualification, where reps set up the foundation for closing. If they don’t target the right prospects or qualify them with the right questions, the likelihood of closing (and retaining) decreases significantly.

2. ICP, target accounts, and decision-makers

Your ICP is the ideal customer that your product or service solves for. To have a repeatable sales process, you first need to know exactly who this is. Realistically, you will probably have more than one ICP, so we recommend creating a buyer persona for each.

Next, you’ll map these profiles to organizations (companies) and specific decision-makers within those companies. That way, all your reps are aligned on who to target with their prospecting efforts, and who to avoid.

Within each buying group, there will be multiple decision-makers. In fact, this is the case for more than 78% of all sales in the B2B space. And in a firm with 100-500 employees, there’s an average of seven decision-makers in each buying group.

You need a sales methodology that maps out (a) how you gather information on decision-makers in the initial qual call and (b) how you appeal to them in later stages of the process.

3. Consistent messaging

Messaging is everything. It’s what draws in inbound leads. And it’s how you guide leads through the funnel. Your messaging needs to be consistent across all channels — email, social media, phone calls, demos, etc.

For example, let’s say your company sells a marketing automation platform. On LinkedIn and Facebook, you advertise your product as: “Automate repetitive tasks and scale your marketing processes.”

But on your website, the homepage headline reads: “Experience personalized customer engagement at every touchpoint.”

The messaging on social media emphasizes efficiency and automation, while your website suggests that the main value lies in personalization and customer engagement. This tanks conversions and causes sales misalignment.

Maybe the product does both. But if your plan is to draw customers in through one value proposition, you have to continue the conversion funnel with that piece of messaging (leaving alternative messaging for other collateral). Otherwise they’ll get confused and, as a result, click away from your landing page.

4. Performance metrics and KPIs

Sales metrics are how you measure the success of your repeatable sales process. There are a few metrics that should be on every team’s leaderboard, like lead conversion rate, average deal size, and the number of Closed Won opportunities.

But there are plenty of additional metrics that speak to how effectively you’ve streamlined the sales process for your customers:

• Sales efficiency — How much revenue you generate per sales rep, customer contact, or dollar spent to close the deal (there are several ways to measure it)
• Pipeline velocity — How quickly deals move through each stage of the sales process
• Sales cycle length — The time it takes to close a deal, measured from first contact to Closed Won (this is different than win rate)
• Win rate — What percentage of leads convert into customers (this is different than conversion rate)
• Conversion rate — How many leads convert from one stage of the proces to the next (e.g., MQL-to-SQL or sales demo to negotiation)
• Customer lifetime value (CLV) — How much revenue a customer generates for your business over their entire lifespan as a customer

You’ll also want to measure qualitative metrics like customer satisfaction, as well as team-specific sales KPIs like activity levels and response times. These will give you a more holistic view of your sales process and help identify areas for improvement.

5. Sales enablement tools

Sales enablement plays a foundational role in the success of your sales team. It’s all about providing your reps with the information, resources, and tools they need to effectively communicate the value of your product or service to potential customers.

Some essential sales enablement tools include:

• CRM (customer relationship management)
• CPQ (configure, price, quote)
• Meeting recording and playback software
• Email tracking and automation tools
• Sales training platforms
• Content management systems

Having these tools in place makes it easier for sellers to present the right information to buyers, offer actionable insights, and create a smooth buying process. Tools like these also help with tracking and analyzing sales calls and data, so you can make better decisions on how to improve your processes.

6. Sales training and coaching

Sales training and coaching your sales reps need a framework otherwise they’ll leave because they have no idea what the point of the job even is. Without an adequate sales kickoff (SKO) and initial training to show them what they’re supposed to achieve and how, sales reps won’t know how to handle objections, give demos, or close deals.

But that’s only the start. Sales training should continue throughout their employment with your company. 84% of sales training is lost after three months.

Even if a rep has been selling for years, there will always be new techniques and sales strategies. And there will always be ways reps can refine their approaches.

There are a few ways to approach ongoing training. Routine sales meetings, QBRs, and deal reviews  are great places to start. Also work in weekly live call or call review sessions to help your reps work through objections and sales scenarios.

You can also offer access to sales training courses, workshops, and conferences for continuous learning and development.

7. Sales playbooks and guided selling

Sales playbooks and guided selling are two special types of sales enablement tools (they’re also built into DealHub CPQ).

They work like this:

• Your sales leaders build a sales playbook, which is basically a collection of best practices and strategies for selling your product.
• Then, guided selling tools help reps follow the playbook. They provide step-by-step prompts and guidance through configuration to help reps direct customers through the purchase process.

There are several advantages to this. It creates a truly consistent approach to sales that’s proven to be effective (hence the “play” in playbook).

How to Develop a Repeatable Sales Process

Now that you know what goes into a solid repeatable sales process, here are the steps you can follow to create one:

1. Audit your current sales process.

Before any kind of sales innovation can take place, you need to know what isn’t repeatable about your current workflow. There’s no point in changing something that’s already scalable and working quite well for you.

Look for:

• Where your reps are struggling
• What roadblocks customers face during the sales process
• Areas where you can improve efficiency and effectiveness

The best way to do this is to ask your reps. Talk to them about their experiences in the sales process and ask for their input on what needs improvement.

It’s also helpful to analyze your sales data and metrics to pinpoint where customers are dropping out of the sales funnel and focus your attention there.

2. Identify key stages and milestones.

Next, map out the different stages of your sales process, including the associated milestones or actions that need to be completed in each stage.

These could include things like:

• Initial contact with a lead
• Qualification calls
• Product demos for qualified prospects
• Negotiation and contract finalization
• Handoff to customer success or account management

Document everything in the sales process. This will serve as the skeleton of your repeatable sales process.

3. Set best practices within those milestones.

For each key milestone, establish best practices for your reps to follow. These will be based on successful past experiences, industry standards, and expert advice.

Some examples of best practices include:

• Asking open-ended questions during qualification calls
• Showing the value of your product through case studies and testimonials during demos
• Following a specific negotiation strategy to close deals more effectively

The key here is to have a consistent approach that all reps can follow, rather than each rep doing things their own way.

4. Create your sales playbook using CPQ and CRM.

Based on your findings in the first three steps, create a comprehensive sales playbook that outlines your key stages, milestones, and best practices. This will serve as a guide for your reps to follow and refer back to throughout the sales process.

To create a playbook, you need to implement a solid CRM and a CPQ tool like DealHub that supports it. For additional storage, you might want an online document management system or knowledge base platform (though your CPQ and CRM should support this).

5. Train and coach your sales team

Product knowledge, sales technology, and activities at each pipeline stage are all points of focus when it comes to sales training and coaching.

Make sure your reps have a solid understanding of your product, the sales technology they’ll be using (most importantly, your CRM and CPQ), and how to handle objections and close deals.

6. Continuously monitor and refine the process.

Selling in a changing market requires you to adapt your processes continually. As such, a repeatable sales process is more than just a one-time fix; it’s an ongoing tool that evolves with the market.

Regularly check in with your reps and create a feedback loop where they can give their two cents on how your repeatable process plays out on the sales floor.

Leveraging the Sales Tech Stack for Repeatability

Your sales stack is integral to a repeatable sales process. Without the right integrated software, you won’t be able to streamline the handoff between different stages. And you won’t have the workflow automation required for standardization and repeatability.

The two most important tools in your tech stack, as mentioned above, are CPQ and CRM. In addition to their respective functions (quote-to-cash automation and customer data/sales pipeline management), the two systems complement one another.

While CRM helps you manage the customer journey, CPQ is where your sales process steps in. With DealHub’s integration with Salesforce, for example, your team can collaborate on deals, manage contracts, and more while managing the entire deal flow within CRM.

Other tools you can use to further improve repeatability in your sales process include:

• Sales enablement AI tools for advanced lead scoring, forecasting, and pipeline management
• Video conferencing and screen-sharing tools for virtual demos and sales calls (especially useful in remote selling)
• Digital signature solutions for faster contract execution and customer onboarding (DealHub already has e-signature built-in)
• RevOps software that aligns sales, marketing, and CS teams while producing analytical data that facilitates high-level decision-making

To integrate sales tools with maximum efficiency, consider the automation capabilities and how they align with your repeatable sales process. You’ll want to automate activities, like lead routing and data syncing, to streamline your sales process. And you’ll want to configure specific events and triggers in CPQ to keep everything running smoothly.

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