How to Build a Sales Process Flowchart

By
Rana Bano
February 26, 2022
min read
Updated
September 20, 2023
Photo credit
Creating optimal sales processes is essential to building a productive sales team. A flowchart will help you show your process visually to your organization.
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Introduction

Does your sales team need a little more organization? 

Maybe your sales reps are asking more questions than you can answer or are struggling to meet their monthly quotas. Perhaps they’re unclear on exactly how to move a prospect from the early stages to close the deal. 

If this sounds familiar, we have some good news: an outlined sales process gives your sales team a high-level overview of the series of actions to take when they want to close more deals.

The best sales professionals are artists — they use the process framework to improvise and optimize their work to better connect and engage with customers. With a strong foundation to stand on, they can easily convert and retain a happy customer.

Today we’ll help you take your sales process to the next level by showing you how to build a sales process flowchart. 

What is a sales process flowchart?

A sales process flowchart is a document visualizing and outlining a prospect’s decision tree, along with the recommended actions a sales rep should take at each main stage of the sales process. It provides teams with benchmarks and ensures they have a proper structure to meet sales quotas and goals.

As it illustrates each step of the process, managers, sales ops and sales enablement use the sales process flowchart to train new reps, helping them understand how to identify qualified leads and move them through the pipeline. It also helps longer-tenured reps get insight and clarity on their own processes.

Why is a sales process flowchart important for business?

The sales process flowchart helps you to achieve sales goals by clearly mapping out the protocols your reps should follow to improve the odds of converting prospects into customers. Think of it as a sales framework that makes it easier to identify areas for improvement and make the necessary adjustments.

A sales process flowchart can be an incredible tool to improve your sales productivity and effectiveness. Here’s a short list of tasks you can use it for:

  • Provide sales representatives with a visual road map for closing more deals.
  • Create certainty for both sales staff and customers on the steps to follow during the sales processes.
  • Break down the sales strategy into easy-to-follow stages.
  • Control and optimize the sales process and conversion.
  • Make sales projections against targets based on when customers are likely to sign.

In fact, companies with a formal sales process increased their revenue by 28 percent compared to those without one, according to Harvard Business Review

This makes sense because a flowchart ensures each sales team member understands their role role and purpose. It also aids communication between sales reps and management by outlining the specific procedures required to execute a sale successfully.

How to build a sales process flowchart

Your sales process flowchart should clearly outline each step of the sales process, including prospecting, discovery, demoing, handling objections, closing sales and customer onboarding.

Here are the five steps to build a sales process flowchart for your sales team:

  1. Buy the right flowchart software.
  2. Outline the steps of the sales process.
  3. Ask sales reps for feedback and buy-in.
  4. Measure and monitor team success.
  5. Improve sales process over time.

Let’s discuss these steps in more detail.

Step 1: Invest in the right software

The right technology can make a huge impact on your sales operations. And flowcharting is no different. 

Use an advanced sales process flowchart software or online whiteboards to break down the pipeline into clearly defined stages and share the relevant content with your team. Many tools also offer flowchart templates that you can customize according to your requirements.

That’s not all. You can leverage several other tools to make the process more effective.

For instance, Scribe makes it super easy to tap into the know-how of top-performing sales reps. You can use the plugin to auto-generate step-by-step guides to lead your team through the flowchart and any tools and processes used.

Once you have the right software, it's time to create your flowchart.

Step 2: Outline the important steps of your organization's process flow

Examine your current sales process, taking note on each stage. Lean on internal tools, like a CRM, to identify patterns, steps and room for improvement.

Here’s an example. step one might be the introduction to your lead, followed by lead qualification and booking a demo. You can also have different stages for providing the prospect with resources and pitching a proposal. The last two steps would be closing the deal and initiating post-sales.

Once you’re done outlining the most important stages, map each step on the flowchart software to a buyer journey stage.

We recommend considering the following steps when building your flowchart strategy.

  • Prospecting and qualifying: Limit time spent on pursuing unqualified leads. Help sales reps identify high-quality leads that are more likely to convert.
  • Pre-approach: Sales reps need prospects to warm up to them — and to the idea that your service is the answer to their problems.
  • Approach: After building a rapport with prospects, sales reps should introduce themselves formally and your organization.
  • Accessing needs: Sales reps need to understand the prospect's needs and how your product resolves them.
  • Presentation: Time to take things to the next level! Sales reps will present the pitch and show the product in action.
  • Dealing with objections: Prospects are likely to have objections. Sales reps should be prepared to tackle these confidently and effectively.
  • Commitment: The final moment where the prospect chooses you over the competition.
  • Follow up: No deal is closed until you get the money in the bank. Sales reps may need to give the lead the final push to sign the contract and become a paying customer.

Your process doesn’t have to be exactly the same as this. It depends on what works for your company. Remember, once you create a sales process flowchart, it’ll formalize a sales process that everyone will follow. So make sure you're leaning on your team's unique goals and success metrics when you put pen to paper.

Step 3: Get feedback and buy-in from your team

Considering it's your sales reps who would be communicating with customers, you definitely want their feedback when creating your organization’s sales process flowchart. 

Ask reliable sales reps the following questions:

  • What factors do they think are most important in the sales process?
  • How do they think their job can be improved?
  • Which stages do they find most plagued with bottlenecks, and what are those bottlenecks?
  • What kind of content is most helpful in moving leads down the sales funnel?

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you figure out what’s working and what isn’t. And since different sales representatives have different selling styles, everyone's perspective is a piece of the larger puzzle. With this input, you can create a chart that accurately depicts how the whole team functions.

Step 4: Measure and monitor your team's success

You'll have a flowchart at this stage, but the job is far from over.

Measure how well your team is doing. For example, think of how quickly reps respond to customer inquiries and questions. Or how long it takes for leads to go from one stage to another. 

"Look for opportunities to make interactions with prospects and customers more meaningful, leading to more sales and repeat business. After all, the main point of creating and leveraging a sales process flowchart is to improve sales efficiency and bolster growth so that everyone can benefit and bring in more revenue" - says Denis Ristić, General Manager at AskGamblers

Look for opportunities to make interactions with prospects and customers more meaningful, leading to more sales and repeat business. After all, the main point of creating and leveraging a sales process flowchart is to improve sales efficiency and bolster growth so that everyone can benefit and bring in more revenue.

Step 5: Enhance and add more detail to the flowchart over time

Flowcharting is an ongoing initiative. 

You want to create something simple that’s easy to understand and helps sales reps identify opportunities. But once you’re past the introductory stage, you'll want to add more detail over time. There's always an opportunity to make changes and evolve as you learn more. A well-defined flowchart can ensure your sales team achieves organizational objectives and hits sales quotas.

For example, add useful information to support each stage. Document potential factors influencing a lead’s progress. Or you can create specific roles to guide your team in the sales process, helping them identify different pain points and use cases.

Supplement your sales process flowchart with Scribe

Once you've created your flowchart, it's time to train, support and uplift your sales team. Use Scribe's auto-generated step-by-step guides to build SOPs in seconds. Whether you're adopting technology, onboarding a new rep or simply aligning the team on how things are done, Scribe saves you hours on process documentation.

Ready to try Scribe?

Scribe automatically generates how-to guides and serves them to your team when they need them most. Save time, stay focused, help others.