4 steps to optimize your sales process

Optimizing your sales process requires a strategic approach that goes beyond surface-level analysis. In this article, I break down the steps to help you identify and address areas for improvement, making sure that your efforts have the most significant impact on sales performance.

Step 1 - Identify the optimization opportunities in your sales process

You'll have to zoom in and out when you want to optimize your sales process. More than just looking at how many leads we start with and how many customers we end up with is needed.

You want to look at the conversions between your stages. How successful are you at converting MQLs into SQLs, SQLs into Opportunities, and Opportunities into Wins?

Also, respect the volumes of each. Not just the conversion rates. It's terrific if you convert all your opportunities into wins, but you still need to reach something if the number of wins is way below the target needed to reach something. The problem is then in the volume of the Opportunities.

Step 2 — Prioritize an area

Now that your numbers are clear, it's time to start identifying where you can make the most significant impact - where are you hitting below benchmarks? Improving your conversion from Opportunities into Wins with 10% might have less impact than improving your conversion from MQL to SQL with 3%.

Like anything in business, there are many things you could do to improve, but having a genuine impact takes time and effort. You need to pick one area and identify the steps to rectify and pursue that maniacally.

Step 3 - get input & ideas

Now that you know what area to start working on, identify the blockers to reach your desired number. To get to this, use performance metrics, customer feedback, and input from your sales team. You'll need this combination of three because a single one will not tell the whole story. Your sales team can tell you that the quality of the MQLs is the problem. Your churned opportunities can tell you there needed more friction because it took too many back-and-forths to get a fitting proposal over. Your performance metrics can tell you that there's a problem with no-shows to the meetings/demos.

Step 4 - prioritize and get to work.

Prioritize your found blockers and solutions on a combination of highest impact, lowest effort, and urgency to implement. Tackle the highest-impact, lowest-effort optimizations first, constantly revisiting and fine-tuning your strategy in response to continuous feedback and dynamic market shifts.

So, go ahead and evaluate your sales process, prioritize areas for enhancement, seek input from various sources, and take decisive action. And remember, the optimization journey is ongoing; continuous improvement is the key to long-term success in your sales efforts.