What sales process optimization means on a small team
Your sales process is the set of steps a deal goes through, from first contact to signed. Optimising it means finding the step where most deals stop, and changing that step until fewer do.
Big companies have a revenue operations team for this. On a team of 3 to 30, it's you, a spreadsheet and an afternoon a month. That's enough, as long as you work on one step at a time.
Count how many deals reach each step
Start with last month. Write down your steps and count how many deals, calls or people reached each one. Keep the steps you already use. For most teams it's something like this:
- Leads contacted
- Conversations, where you reached a person
- First meetings booked
- Proposals or quotes sent
- Deals won
Then work out the rate for each step: the number that reached the next step, divided by the number at this one. That's the step's conversion ratio. Five steps give you four rates.
If your steps aren't written down anywhere, or each rep uses different ones, fix that first. The sales pipeline management guide covers how to set stages everyone uses the same way.
Find the step that leaks
The lowest rate isn't always the leak. Some steps are always low. Cold outreach to conversations will nearly always be the smallest number on the page, and that's normal.
Look for the step that's worse than it should be. Two comparisons tell you:
- Against your own past. Which rate dropped compared with last quarter?
- Against your best rep. Where is the gap between your best rep and the rest of the team widest?
A step that's fallen, or where one rep does far better than the others, is a step you can fix. Your best rep is doing something there that the others aren't.
Made-up example: a team of six reps sells software to small clinics. Last month they logged this:
| Step | Count | Rate to next step | Last quarter | Best rep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leads contacted | 400 | 40% | 42% | 45% |
| Conversations | 160 | 40% | 55% | 62% |
| First meetings | 64 | 63% | 60% | 65% |
| Proposals sent | 40 | 30% | 32% | 33% |
| Deals won | 12 |
Proposals to won is the lowest rate, at 30%. But it's the same as last quarter, and the best rep isn't far ahead. Conversations to first meetings is the leak: it fell from 55% to 40%, and the best rep books 62%.
The manager listens to four calls. The best rep offers two meeting times before she hangs up. The others promise to "send some info" and book later, so a deck goes out by email and the lead goes quiet.
The fix is one change. At the end of every conversation, offer two times, and send the deck after the meeting is booked. The numbers are invented; count your own.
Time can leak too. A deal that sits at one step for weeks is a leak even if it closes in the end. Check your sales cycle length step by step, and look for where deals wait longest.
If counting each step by hand is what stops you, ActivityTracker shows the conversion rate at every step, counted from what you already log, and names the weakest step with a fix.
Remove a step before you add a tool
When a step leaks, the reflex is to add something: a new tool, a sign-off, another meeting. Try taking something away first. Most leaks come from a step that makes it harder for the buyer or the rep to move forward.
Things teams often find they can cut:
- The "let me send you some info first" email before a meeting is booked.
- A second discovery call that repeats the first.
- Manager sign-off on every small discount, which leaves a quote waiting for two days.
- A form reps fill in after each call that nobody reads.
- A weekly pipeline meeting that reads the CRM aloud.
Add a tool when the fix needs something you can't do by hand, such as reminders that have to go out on a certain day. Buy it after you've proved the change works on paper.
Run each change for a month, then compare
Change one step. Leave everything else alone. Then run it for a full month.
A week is too short. A slow week, a holiday or one big deal will swamp the difference. Two changes at once means you won't know which one worked, or whether one helped while the other hurt.
At the end of the month, count the same steps in the same way and put the two months side by side. Keep the change if the rate at that step went up and the steps after it didn't fall. If nothing moved, drop it and try the next idea for the same step. If the rate went up, move on to the next leak.
Keep a short log: the month, the step, what you changed and what happened. After six months you'll have a record of what works on your team, which is worth more than any benchmark from another company.
Get reps to follow the change
A process change only works if reps do it on Tuesday afternoon when nobody's watching. Most changes die in the second week.
- Show them the counts. Reps take a change more seriously when they can see the step where their deals are stopping.
- Let the best rep explain it. "Here's what I say at the end of a call" lands better from a peer than from you.
- Make the new way the easy way. Put the two-times line in the call script and the booking link in their email signature.
- Check it every week for the month. One line in the team meeting: how many conversations ended with a meeting booked?
- Coach the rep, not the team. If one rep's rate hasn't moved by week three, listen to their calls in your next 1:1.
- Don't change it again mid-month, even if week one looks bad. You'll undo the test.
What doesn't work
- Rewriting the whole process at once. You can't tell what helped, and reps stop following any of it.
- Comparing against an industry average. Another company's funnel has different buyers, prices and reps.
- Fixing the last step first because it's closest to revenue. Fix the step that leaks, wherever it is.
- Counting from memory. If calls and meetings aren't logged, the counts are guesses, and so is the fix.