A survey of 62 B2B organizations conducted byVantage Point Performance and theSales Management Association, and summarized in aHarvard Business Review (HBR) article, found that organizations that had mastered three sales pipeline practices experienced 28% higher revenue growth.The three practices are clearly defining the sales process, spending at least three hours per month on pipeline management, and training sales managers on pipeline management. Of the three, the first is the most crucial to ensuring efficient, standardized, and streamlined sales processes. Organizations can define a sales process by creating a sales process map.
What is a Sales Process Map?
Process mapping is a management tool that organizations use to visually depict a business process. The most commonly used process map is a flowchart. But many others are used depending on the type of process that is being mapped. For example, aswimlane process map is useful for depicting the employees responsible for completing specific tasks.A sales process map depicts how an organization’s customers progress through each stage of the sales process. As the authors of the HBR article cited above explain, having a formal sales process means “having clearly defined stages and milestones that are universally understood…your sales process should align with how your customers move through their buying process.”A sales process map be universally understood and accessible by everyone within the organization. This ensures consistency in the sales process which gets passed on to customers to provide a superior customer experience. The best way to achieve these objectives is by using a standardized notion system to create your process map. is the most effective since it is easily understood by business users and also provides technical users with the ability to represent and implement complex processes.
