What a Basic Sales Process Looks Like [Infographic]

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There's a reason why teachers instruct students to make an outline before they start writing a paper. With a defined outline, writers ensure they address each point in the correct order. Without an outline, writers sometimes forget to include a crucial argument, or construct their paper in an illogical manner.

Think of a defined sales process as the outline of selling.

Without a concrete sales process, reps create their own strategies, which gives rise to two negative results:

• Depending on how the rep approaches sales, they might provide a bad experience for the buyer
• Sales managers can't glean team-wide data

If your team doesn't work from a standardized sales process, check out the visual template below. The graphic depicts a basic 10-step sales process:

1. Prospect
2. Qualify
3. Connect
4. Identify Pain and Needs
5. Present
6. Handle Objections
7. Issue Proposal
8. Close
9. Deliver Product/Service
10. Upsell/Cross-Sell

Working from this template, you can customize a sales process that will work for your team. Too many steps? Cut a few. Too few? Add some. But whatever you do, define a sales process -- and hold reps to it.

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<p><strong>Please include attribution to http://blog.hubspot.com/sales with this graphic.</strong><br /><br /><a href='http://blog.hubspot.com/sales/what-a-basic-sales-process-looks-like-visual-template'><img src='http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/53/10_step_sales_process.png' alt='Sales Process Infographic' width='669px' border='0' /></a></p>