B2B sales process: 6 steps and tips for a small sales team

The B2B sales process is the set of steps your team takes to sell to another business, from finding the right company to the work starting.

• Six stages are enough for a small team: find, first call, proposal agreed, proposal sent, decision, won and started.
• Each stage has an exit rule, something the buyer has said or done that you can point to.
• Each deal has one owner, and one person owns the list of companies to call.
• Most deals stall because the next step was never agreed, so end every call with a date.
• Review open deals once a week for 30 minutes, and write the process on one page.

The company, the names and every number here are a made-up example. The one outside rule, on calls in Singapore, was read from PDPC on 2 November 2026.

As of November 2026.

B2B means one business selling to another. A B2B rep finds companies that fit, works out who decides, and takes them from a first call to a signed deal. The differences from selling to consumers shape the whole process:

A stage is only useful if everyone on the team would put the same deal in it. So each one ends with an exit rule.

Write these rules down, and use the same words in whatever you keep deals in.

You're on the first call to find out four things, and to leave with a date:

• What's the problem, in their words, and what's it costing them?
• Who else has a say, and who signs?
• When do they need it fixed, and why then?
• What have they tried already?

Before you hang up, agree the next step and put it in both calendars: "Can we take 30 minutes on [day] to go through what a proposal would include? I'll send the invite now." A first call that ends with "send me something" hasn't moved.

The proposal that comes back signed is the one the buyer has already agreed to, piece by piece. Stage 3 is a call where you go through the scope, the price range and the start date out loud, fix what they push back on, and only then write it up.

That saves two kinds of waste: proposals written for buyers who were never going to buy, and prices that come as a surprise. If they won't give you 30 minutes on the outline, they won't give the proposal much more.

A made-up example: a small company selling IT support to offices, with three people selling.

• Farah, the founder, owns the list of companies to call and the weekly review, and takes the largest deals herself.
• Daniel and Mei each own their deals from first call to signed. Nobody else chases a deal they don't own.
• Whoever wins a deal hands it to the person doing the work, with notes, in a 15-minute call the buyer joins.

Write down who covers when someone's on leave, and who decides on a discount. On a small team, a stalled deal is often one where two people each thought the other had it.

Deals stall in the same few places, and each one has one thing that moves it.

A deal that hasn't moved in a month, with no date agreed, is a lost deal until they say otherwise. Mark it lost or not now, with the reason, so the list only shows deals that are alive.

To shorten your cycle, measure it first. Take the deals you won last quarter, count the days from first call to signed, and look for the stage where most of those days went. Sales cycle length has the sum.

Four counts tell a small team whether the process is running: first calls held, proposals agreed, proposals sent and deals won. Work back from the month's target to see what the week needs.

In the made-up IT support team, 1 in 2 first calls led to a proposal last quarter, and 1 in 3 proposals was won.

Two first calls a week each is a number everyone can check during the week, and when it comes up short, the first place to look is the list of companies you're calling. The sales plan template turns this into a one-page plan.

Go through the list together and ask three things about each deal:

• Is it in the right stage, by the exit rules?
• What's the next step, and what's the date?
• If it hasn't moved since the last review, why not, and what will move it this week?

Then look at the four counts against the plan. If a deal needs a longer talk, book it as a separate call with its owner so the other two can get back to selling.

Everything above fits on one page: the stages with their exit rules, who owns what, the first-call questions, how you chase, and the weekly review. Give it to every new hire on day one.

Then change it when it's wrong. If deals keep stalling at the same stage, the exit rule before it is probably too easy. Fix the rule on the page, and tell the team what changed.

• Stages named after what the seller did ("demo done") when they should say what the buyer did.
• Writing a proposal before the buyer has agreed what's in it.
• Deals with no owner, or two.
• Calls that end without a date for the next one.
• Keeping dead deals on the list because it makes the month look better.
• A process that only exists in the founder's head.

A marketing call to a company, about the company's own needs, is outside the Do Not Call rule. PDPC's example is a seller phoning an HR manager on her business number about a product for her company. Once he asks if she'd like something for herself, he's back inside the rule, which means a registry check from the last 21 days or her clear consent. The exclusion doesn't reach anyone acting in a personal or domestic capacity, so check the numbers on any list of sole owners or personal mobiles.

Palby Sales Tracker counts activity and pace, and your deals stay wherever you keep them. Rename the starting tiles to First call, Proposal agreed, Proposal sent and Won. Each is a tap on a rep's phone, and the board moves within seconds, with each tile's count for this week or any dates. Needs you today lists anyone with no entry for 3 days, then whoever is furthest behind their weekly goal, so you see who's gone quiet during the week. There's no CRM to feed it. See how activity tracking works.

• PDPC, Advisory Guidelines on the Do Not Call Provisions, revised 1 February 2021, pdpc.gov.sg, read 2 November 2026
• PDPC, How to check numbers against the Do Not Call Registry, pdpc.gov.sg, read 2 November 2026