“The Visionary B2B sales process In-A-Box”

In B2B, the optimal sales process has changed SO MUCH in the last few years.

Many (most?) sales teams simply haven’t caught up. Here’s why:

In just the last few years, your prospects are making 80% of their buying decision BEFORE your sales team even enters the conversation.

Prospects are more informed than ever, thanks to content marketing, digital advertising, and easy access to insights online.

OK, how does that create a problem?

Too many sales teams haven’t modernised, still operating with these same old outdated tactics of yesterday:

  • Scripted sales calls that most decision-makers have already heard before… or RUN themselves thousands of times
  • “Build rapport” and “relationships” with small talk – the exact same way as every other salesperson in their market
  • The usual sales “tactics” and objection-handling techniques
  • Generic “just checking in” follow-ups
  • … and all the rest of those techniques everyone learned in the stone age from legends like Grant Cardone, Jordan Belfort and Brian Tracy

Meanwhile… technology has reshaped the sales game and is now THE core component of a winning B2B sales process. If you already have a great marketing team producing a steady influx of high-quality leads, but your close rates are still down…

It’s probably because you have a “good” sales process, but it needs to be modernised to compete effectively.

At Visionary, our “B2B Sales Process In-A-Box” service sets our clients up with the most important components to modernise their sales process  and give them an invisible leg up over the competition.

Here’s how we do it, step by step…

 

prospects are making 80% of their buying decision

 

 

 

 

Step 1: A well-configured CRM continually optimises your sales results

A well-configured CRM is the backbone of an effective B2B sales operation.

#FewUnderstandThis

It’s not just a contact database—it’s a real-time insights engine that tells you what’s working and what isn’t. It’s the silent hero working in the background to optimise your business with every deal and every contact.

If you have a failing campaign this is probably the invisible cause. Why?

Because when it’s set up well, your CRM shows exactly where the bottlenecks are and what needs to improve.

“What gets measured gets managed.”… right?

In contrast, a poorly set up CRM gives you minimal or inaccurate feedback on what’s working. So your marketing and sales team aren’t able to adapt and evolve.

Take it a step further…

When your CRM is set up well, it allows you to understand your best deals in profound levels of detail. These are the ones that close easily and bring the best revenue.

Now, you can optimise all of your marketing and sales efforts to bring more of them into the business.

 

 

Key CRM elements that change the game:

Setup of CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and the like are complex. But here are the 80-20 configurations that make a real impact:

 

DEAL QUALITY:

Score your leads from 1 – 4, based on target market fit, intent and potential deal value. Now you’re able to measure where your best deals (scores 1 & 2) are coming from, what they are saying, how they are behaving.

Everyone in marketing and sales understands how good the leads are, so you avoid the usual sales vs marketing blame games.

Marketing can continually optimise towards the BEST deals. And sales can spend their focused time on the BEST deals.

Then, in a year or so, you’ll be able to create lookalike audiences and marketing personas based on your best deals.

Measuring DEAL QUALITY naturally optimises your whole business over time.

 

DEAL SOURCE:

Accurately track where opportunities originate to double down on effective channels.

But remember, automated attribution will almost always be wrong. You need your sales team to ask every lead: “How did you hear about us and what have you seen online?”. Learn more the impact of accurate attribution in this in our Thought Leadership article here.

Now your marketing team can understand WHERE the best deals are coming from. They can allocate budget and split tests accordingly.

Without this field, you’ll double-down on the platform bringing the most QUANTITY of leads, which is usually very different from QUALITY of leads.  Bringing in more leads with less quality results in an “invisible” decrease in your sales close rate.

 

CLOSED LOST REASON:

Force your sales team to choose a reason(s) when a deal is marked as lost.

When combined with DEAL QUALITY, you can understand why you’re losing your best deals. Identify patterns in why deals fall through—then fix them with training, content marketing or product features.

 

Centralised Deals View:

For most operations, marketing and sales should all work from a single Deal view that presents qualified deals, DEAL SOURCE and DEAL QUALITY.

That immediately puts everyone on the same page. Everyone knows, in real-time, how many QUALIFIED deals (scores 1 or 2) marketing is bringing in, and how many qualified deals sales are closing. Everyone is working together, from the same KPIs, with the same data.

This is the holy grail for most B2B marketing & sales operations.

This centralised view creates that “magical” alignment of your marketing and sales team, both working together, rather than blaming each other.

 

CRM Dashboards:

Take it a step further by using the custom dashboards functionality in your CRM to monitor pipeline health and team performance in real time.

Again, what gets measured gets managed.

Now you can paint an accurate picture to management, without the typical “marketing agency mental acrobatics” to try to make your data seem like everything is working.

Without a properly configured CRM, your sales strategy is based on guesswork rather than data-driven decisions.

That’s a very expensive mistake to make, and it’s holding back both your marketing and your sales teams.

 

When it’s set up well, your CRM shows exactly where the bottlenecks are and what needs to improve. “What gets measured gets managed.”... right?

 

 

 

 

Step 2 – Content Marketing is your sales team’s secret weapon

Prospects are learning what you offer, who to buy from, and how everything works long before they ever book a sales call.

Don’t forget…

Up to 80% of the sales process is already completed by content marketing BEFORE the first sales call!

So if you’re not leveraging content strategically, you’re putting your salespeople on the back foot right from the start. ESPECIALLY if your competition has a savvy digital team in their corner.

In a modern B2B sales process you must build trust and authority BEFORE the first conversation.

Take it a step further…

B2B sales cycles are between 3 months to multiple years. And most buying committees will evaluate your proposal alongside a few others. So, while they are making those decisions, they should be seeing your thought leadership on their newsfeed. You want them learning from you, understanding why you’re different, developing an affinity with your sales team by watching them on video.

 

Key content strategies to modernise a B2B sales process:

Here’s what we’ll set up to create the impact:

  • Client Avatar: Create a DETAILED persona to ensure all of your content and all of your salespeople speak directly to the psychology of your ideal customers. Without a detailed Client Avatar, all your messages are inconsistent and random. So the leads you attract will be inconsistent and low quality
  • Sales team videos: Put your sales team on video. Buyers connect better with people than faceless brands. Your prospect should be reaching their first call feeling like they already know, like and trust your salespeople. And, endless “just checking in” follow-ups aren’t necessary when your video content is doing that automatically every day
  • Deep, specific content: Generic “blog” content and ChatGPT social posts simply won’t cut it. To be effective, you’ll need to share specific insights that prospects can’t find anywhere else. If they aren’t learning from you, there’s really no point
  • Advanced retargeting ads: Stay top-of-mind by re-engaging site visitors, ad engagers, and CRM contacts with highly relevant content on their newsfeeds. Learn about Visionary’s unconventional remarketing strategies here
  • Personal Branding: Salespeople should build their own thought leadership presence on LinkedIn. They can take help from the marketing team to do a lot of the legwork on content. But if your salespeople aren’t actively educating prospects on LinkedIn, they simply aren’t doing their job in a modern B2B sales environment

A well-executed content strategy will shorten your sales cycle by warming up leads before they ever speak to a rep. And it will improve your close rate by educating buying committees while they are considering your proposal.

 

If you’re not leveraging content strategically, you're putting your salespeople on the back foot right from the start.

 

 

 

 

Step 3 – A documented B2B Sales Process

Many B2B sales teams operate on gut instinct rather than a structured, repeatable process. Salespeople (understandably!) don’t like to be caged into a detailed process.

However… without a well-defined sales system, you can’t optimise each step, train new salespeople, or measure bottlenecks.

So, if you don’t find a happy medium, your sales process will stagnate.

 

What a winning B2B Sales Process Looks Like:

  • A well documented process: The sales process should be documented step by step in detail. Only then, can you work on it at a birds-eye view, continually optimising and testing.
     
    At the same time, allow your more experienced salespeople the creativity to deviate from the process and use their instinct when they need to.
  • A “Mastermind Slide Deck”, NOT a “sales call script”: In B2B sales particularly, sales scripts are out! If you’re speaking to B2B decision-makers, chances are they’ve been through the same questions in your competitors’ sales processes. They’ve probably run hundreds of sales calls themselves. Following a script, or performing a memorised script, immediately creates a wall.
     
    They will know.
     
    Instead, connect over Zoom and screen share a high-level slide deck that guides the conversation. If you type notes in front of them as they say them, you’re now creating a collaborative masterminding experience – not just a standard sales call.
     
    The deck ensures you run a structured call and don’t forget any of the important questions. At the same time, your sales process stands out as an experience, compared to all the other standard sales calls they attend.
  • Call Booking Strategies: Once a lead puts their hand up for a call, actually getting them on the call is a key bottleneck in many campaigns. A clear workflow is important. Visionary clients will incorporate meeting links, automated emails, SMS warnings, LinkedIn connection requests and more to ensure that initial call happens and they’re getting the best value possible from their ad spend
  • Follow-Up Sequences: When you have remarketing ads running, you can rest assured your deals are always being followed up automatically, in the background, professionally and unobtrusively. But, of course, personalised follow-ups are still important.
     
    At Visionary we provided a documented set of tailored follow-ups leveraging SMS, WhatsApp, phone calls, emails and LinkedIn. When it’s well documented and run with the right tools it won’t take long to execute and it won’t annoy your prospects.
  • Correct attribution and data collection: Measuring the deal source, conversations and messaging that produce closed high-quality deals is SO important. When you’re doing it right, you can continually refine your approach.
     
    When you get this wrong, your business misses out on shocking levels of business intelligence

A documented, testable process is the key to consistent, predictable sales growth that allows you to use a repeatable, efficient process, refine it, and improve it when needed.

 

without a well defined sales system, you can’t optimise each step, train new salespeople, or measure bottlenecks.

 

 

 

 

Step 4 – The right tools for the job

The right tools amplify B2B sales efficiency. But too many teams are either underutilising tech or drowning in unused software. The balance is to use the best tools, but not too many of them.

 

A few sales tools we implement for Visionary clients:

  • Fireflies.AI: Automates call transcriptions and summaries to improve coaching and follow-ups.
  • Powerful CRM Tools configured in innovative ways: HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive, properly configured, drive better decision-making.
  • Proposal Software: Simplifies contract creation and accelerates deal closure. At Visionary, we’ll implement software such as Practice Ignition or Proposify to improve your sales experience.
  • AI Tools for sales team management: AI-driven insights help B2B sales managers optimise team performance.

By integrating the right tools into your process, you reduce manual work and allow reps to focus on selling.

 

The right tools amplify B2B sales efficiency, but too many teams are either underutilising technology or drowning in unused software.

 

 

 

 

Step 5 – Continuous B2B Sales Process Improvement

Even the best B2B sales processes need ongoing refinement.

The highest-performing sales teams continually evolve based on solid data.

 

Here’s how we make it happen:

  • High-Value Reporting: We’ll regularly review data every month and create reports to help you uncover bottlenecks and opportunities. But we DON’T provide the pages of distracting marketing metrics that you’re used to from marketing agencies. When everyone in the team is focusing on the optimal KPIs, the sales process will naturally improve
  • The Visionary “Not-So-Secret Shopper”: Once your sales process is implemented, we perform test inquiries to experience your B2B sales process firsthand. We’ll go through the entire process with your team step by step, and then provide valuable feedback at the end.
  • AI-Powered Call Analysis: Once you’re logging your sales activities, conversations and communications – we use AI tools to identify trends, improvements and coaching opportunities
  • Discovery Call Reviews: Send us your recorded Discovery Calls and we’ll provide feedback and improvement points

Right now, the B2B sales tech is constantly shifting, at a million miles an hour. The only way to stay ahead is to keep testing, learning, and adapting (or bring in a team that’s already doing that for you).

 

The highest-performing sales teams continually evolve based on solid data.

 

 

 

 

The Bottom Line: A great B2B sales process closes more deals.

When B2B marketing generates high-quality leads, but B2B sales teams lack a modernised process to convert them, opportunities are wasted.

A structured, tech-enabled, data-driven sales process is no longer optional.

It’s the difference between hitting revenue targets or falling behind competitors.

If your team is still relying on outdated tactics, the best move you can make right now is to reinvent your approach. What is the fastest way to implement a high-performance B2B sales process?

Work with experts who have a built, optimised system ready to go, out of the box.