“Oh no! Please!!! I don’t want to talk about a sales process!” Um, yes, you do. Many sales people and, believe it or not, sales managers and leaders deny that they need a sales process. This always surprises me since a good sales process can make everyone’s life so much easier.

Who wouldn’t want to know which deals to spend time on? Or which opportunities are just column fodder and should be left alone? So I started thinking – how do you know when you need a sales process? Here are my top 10 indicators.

You Need a Sales Process When…

1. Inaccurate forecasts lead to deals that continually appear in the pipeline from one quarter to the next, and never seem to close
2. Sales cycles vary greatly, with no consistency across similar markets and solutions
3. You ask your reps how they plan to win, they have no clear strategy
4. Your reps are reactive and lack control of the next steps
5. You’re losing deals or opportunities at the very end of the sales cycle
6. Your reps say your solution’s features are the reason why customers are evaluating your offering
7. Your organization has a low deal capacity per rep
8. Your reps are not reaching the actual decision makers
9. Your reps rush to demos and meetings, or do proposals as a key selling event with little to no knowledge of the customer’s strategic initiatives, their organization’s priorities or needs, and/or the key stakeholders involved
10. You ask reps about deals, they consistently say “I think” and mainly talk from their point of view – not the buyer’s

How Did You Do?

Do any of these ring true to you and your sales organization? If you said yes to all of the above, then you need a sales process and should look into designing a formal one. If you said yes to some and currently have a sales process, then you should look into refining your current one.

But if you said no to all top 10 indicators, then congratulations! This means you most likely have a formal sales process that has been incorporated into the DNA of your organization. It also means your sales team is spending time where customers and prospects need them most – and your reps are consistently meeting/exceeding their quotas. Well done.