Article Highlights:
- If the founder still has to step into qualification, sales calls, proposals, follow-up, or deal rescue, the firm doesn’t have a working sales process.
- An effective sales process has: a clean pipeline, qualification and stage rules, required deal data, a sales script, a service overview deck, and proof.
- Most firms break the sales process by adding too many stages, fields, tools, and exceptions before the team can use the basics.
- Governance makes the process stick: run a 30-minute weekly pipeline review and a 30-minute weekly activity review to make adoption stick.
You don’t have a sales process.
It’s literally murdering your growth. We’re talking Gangs of New York on your pipeline and your free time.
You’re not alone. It’s rare to find SOPs, checklists, or a repeatable sales system set up in a PM at services firms. The CRM…is (at best) a list of To-Dos.
Most of the time, it’s completely unusable. There are deals from 2022 sitting in the “Proposal Sent” stage of the pipeline.
The reason service firms don’t build a repeatable sales process is that they:
A) Don’t have time
B) Tried before and failed because it didn’t stick.
So, they run sales ad hoc with the founder jumping in to help close and/or rescue deals, which slows down deals and stunts firm growth.
These firms pay a high Founder Tax to maintain pipeline.
76% say less than half of their CRM data is accurate and complete, and 71% say hidden details inside deals are the biggest blocker to forecast accuracy.
When the sales process lives in people’s heads rather than in the system, the pipeline becomes harder to trust and manage.
I’m gonna show you how to fix that with a working sales process—a PRACTICAL sales process—your team can adapt.
If the founder is in every deal, you don’t have a process
Just because you pay for a CRM and you have a sales team does not mean you have a sales process.
Here’s a simple test: How often do you have to get involved in sales?
- Qualification?
- Sales calls?
- Proposals?
- Follow up?
- Deal rescue?
(Note: These are the five categories we analyze in our Revenue Audit.)
If you don’t have clarity on your sales pipeline…and you can’t get that clarity without jumping on a call with your sellers…you don’t have a sales process.
You have sales activity.
Sales activity can grow a firm to a point. The problem is that when the sales process relies on the founder, you throttle sales momentum. Every time you hit a roadblock, you gotta pull the founder in (who has a bunch of other fires to put out).
The more fingerprints your founder has on the deal, the higher the Founder Tax. And the more a founder is involved in the process, the more likely they are to remain involved. It’s a self-sustaining cycle.
That really sucks if the founder ever wants to step away for a holiday, gets sick, or wants to sell or wants to move into an advisory role.
That dependence makes the business harder to transfer, weaker in a sale, and more likely to require the founder to stay involved after closing.
This is where most firms get stuck.
They think they have a process because they have sales activity.
These are not the same.
You only have a process when the activity can function without direct oversight and regular intervention.
What a working sales process looks like
A working enough sales process has the following components:
- Clean pipeline
- Qualification criteria, stage rules, and movement criteria
- Required deal data and update rules
- Sales script
- Service overview deck
- Proof and objection support
1. Clean pipeline
What it needs:
A clean pipeline holds only real, active deals. Every open opportunity needs a clear owner, a defined next step, a next-step date, and a stage that matches buyer movement. Close weak-fit, stale, and dead deals instead of letting them sit in the pipeline.
What to avoid:
Don’t keep old deals open to inflate the number. Don’t carry deals without a next step. Don’t rely on side conversations to explain what the CRM should already show.
What done looks like:
Leadership can open the pipeline and understand what’s real without contacting sellers. Stale deals are gone. Weak deals are challenged early. The pipeline reflects reality.
What’s needed:
- CRM
2. Qualification criteria, stage rules, and movement criteria
What it needs:
The team needs one shared definition of a qualified opportunity, one clear meaning for each stage, and one set of rules for moving a deal forward. Stages should track buyer movement, not seller activity.
What to avoid:
Don’t build stages around internal tasks, use movement rules that leave room for interpretation, or add edge-case stages because one or two deals got messy.
What done looks like:
Everyone uses the same qualification standard and stage logic. Deals move when the buyer takes a real step. When a deal stalls at one stage, the problem shows up fast.
What’s needed:
- Doc that clearly defines agreed-on qualification criteria, stage rules, and movement criteria.
3. Required deal data and update rules
What it needs:
Every deal should include a short set of required fields. At minimum: deal owner, stage, next step, next-step date, qualification notes, commercial value, and any critical scope or risk notes. The team also needs clear rules for who updates the record and when.
What to avoid:
Don’t turn the CRM into a filing cabinet, add dozens of optional fields nobody uses, or let reps update records whenever they feel like it.
What done looks like:
The team captures the minimum data needed to review, challenge, forecast, and hand off deals. Weekly review doesn’t break because the data is missing. The CRM stays usable.
What’s needed:
- Checklist doc for sellers to follow with activity mapped to each stage
- Pipeline review to reinforce criteria
- Time to collect client data
- PM tool to support sales admin (optional)
4. Sales script
What it needs:
The team needs one practical call guide for the core sales motion. It should cover the opening, qualification, discovery, proof, objection handling, and next-step control. It should help sellers run a consistent conversation without sounding scripted.
What to avoid:
Don’t build a word-for-word script nobody will use, create separate scripts for every edge case, or leave sellers to improvise the hard parts of the call.
What done looks like:
Sellers ask better questions, control next steps, and stay on message. Calls become more consistent. Fewer deals need founder rescue.
What’s needed:
- An approved, clearly mapped-out sales script that reps can follow from a doc.
5. Service overview deck
What it needs:
The deck should lean on expertise and control the conversation, positioning the service firm as the obvious solution to the status quo. It should have use cases and onboarding.
What to avoid:
Don’t turn the deck into a custom proposal for every prospect, focus too early and too often on the firm, sell without providing value first.
What done looks like:
The deck helps the team explain the offer clearly and consistently. Buyers leave with a better understanding of the work, the fit, and the next step.
What’s needed:
- A slide deck that’s 9 – 12 slides MAX
6. Proof and objection support
What it needs:
The team needs a small set of proof assets and objection support that helps deals move. This is mainly case studies and thought leadership written from a sales perspective.
What to avoid:
Don’t create generic case studies or “blogs” often created in a silo by marketing teams that isn’t tied to real work, details, or questions buyers have. Don’t overlook partners.
What done looks like:
Sellers can reduce buyer risk, support claims, and answer recurring objections without pulling in the founder. Proof move deals forward.
What’s needed:
- Detailed case studies that explain your process and results
- Thought leadership that proves expertise/the art of the possible
This is the kind of work we do with our clients and achieve great results.
For example, we helped one firm recover $243K in business. And with this system in place, a client moved an enterprise deal from opportunity to procurement in 13 days.
We build this out through our audit, install, and governance services.
For firms that want to build this independently in-house, we have blueprints.
Overengineering vs. “good enough”
Lower your expectations at the start.
The leading cause of change in an organization is too much complexity, too fast.
Imagine you want to completely cut out cookies and red wine from your diet because beach season’s almost here. If you drink like Jack Sparrow and toss cookies like you’re on Sesame Street, it’s going to be a challenge to make that change overnight.
Instead, you want to step down into change.
Acclimate and expand.
The same is true when building new revenue architecture.
You install an approachable framework. Work with your team to adapt it, reinforcing consistency through the weekly pipeline review and governance.
They’re going to want to change shit day one. Fight that urge unless something simply doesn’t work (it happens).
Instead, get them to jot down ideas for improving the process. And once they’ve had 6 – 8 weeks of using the process, start implementing changes.
Eventually, you’ll give them ownership of the process. It’s theirs to use daily, so it needs some customization. But the core elements will remain the same.
