Updated recently
Last updated:
Quick Answer: 5-step sales process: A sales process that works for small teams has five stages — qualify, discover, propose, decide, expand — and the value comes from the exit criteria, not the stage names. Each stage should have a written entry condition, a written exit condition and one named artefact it produces. If a deal cannot progress without an artefact existing, the pipeline becomes honest instead of hopeful.
Key takeaways
- Exit criteria beat stage names. “Proposal sent” is a stage; “scope agreed and a decision date booked” is an exit criterion.
- Qualification is the cheapest time to disqualify. Hours spent on a deal that was never winnable are the largest hidden cost in sales.
- Discovery produces the artefact that everything else consumes: a written statement of the buyer’s problem in their words.
- Proposals that require a meeting to explain are not proposals. If the buyer cannot read it alone, the proposal has not done its job.
- Expand is where most small businesses lose money. The second sale is cheaper, faster and usually skipped.
What this guide covers
- The five stages, their entry and exit criteria, and the artefact each produces
- How to write exit criteria that are actually testable
- What a qualification filter looks like in a small business
- How to structure a proposal that sells without a meeting
- How to run the decide stage without pressure
- Why expand belongs in the process at all
Why most small teams need a written process
A business of three or four people does not need a sales methodology. It needs four or five written statements of what has to be true before a deal moves forward, and a shared understanding of what each stage produces.
Without it, three things happen consistently. Conversations with interested people get logged as pipeline, because there is no definition of qualified. Stage names mean different things to different people, so the forecast is a guess dressed as a report. And nobody notices a deal going quiet for three weeks, because nothing in the system says a stage has an exit condition.
The cost is not the sales conversation. It is the hours spent on opportunities that were never going to close, plus the forecasting error that makes the business plan unreliable.
The process below is deliberately short. Five stages, written on one page, with a single artefact per stage.
Stage 1: Qualify
Entry: a new enquiry, referral, or inbound request.
The test: four questions, asked before significant effort goes in — is there a real problem, can this be bought, why now, and what else are they considering? A deal that fails two of the four is put on hold with a reason rather than worked.
Exit criteria: the problem is named in the buyer’s own words, the problem has a cost the buyer recognises, a decision timeline exists, and the buyer has confirmed what else they are looking at.
Artefact produced: a one-paragraph qualification note in the CRM. If it cannot be written in a paragraph, the qualification is not finished.
The artifact matters more than it looks. Writing the buyer’s problem in their own words is the earliest test of whether you actually understood it — and a paragraph you cannot write is a discovery you have not done.
Stage 2: Discover
Entry: qualified opportunity.
The test: the buyer can articulate the problem, the cost of not solving it, and what happens if nothing changes.
Exit criteria: the problem is quantified (in the buyer’s units), the impact of the current state is understood, the decision process is known — who approves, what precedent exists, what internal materials are needed — and a next meeting with the right people is booked.
Artefact produced: a written summary of the situation, sent to the buyer for confirmation.
Sending the summary back is what turns discovery from a conversation into an agreement. Buyers correct it, and the corrections are exactly where the real objections live. A buyer who replies “almost right, but the delay is in approval rather than delivery” has just told you what will sink the deal.
Stage 3: Propose
Entry: discovery complete with a confirmed decision process.
The test: you can state, in the buyer’s language, what outcome you are proposing to produce and how you would know it worked.
Exit criteria: the proposal is written, states scope and price together, shows the cost of the problem and the expected return, includes a reference or evidence from a comparable customer, and states what happens next with a date.
Artefact produced: the proposal document, plus a meeting to walk through it.
Two rules keep proposals from becoming a meeting invitation to a lecture. First, it must be readable alone — if the buyer needs you there to understand it, it is a document for you, not for them. Second, price and scope appear together with the value framing, never as a number on its own. The mechanics of that framing are in selling value instead of competing on price.
Stage 4: Decide
Entry: proposal delivered and reviewed.
The test: the buyer has told you what they need in order to proceed, or you have asked and learned it.
Exit criteria: a decision date exists, the approver has been involved, any remaining objection is answered, and the next step is booked in the calendar with the people who will do it.
Artefact produced: a signed order, a documented “no”, or a scheduled decision conversation.
The “no” matters as much as the signature, and is where most teams cheat themselves. A deal that stops responding should be closed out with a real reason, because a false-open deal poisons the forecast and hides the real pattern. The mechanics of recovering a stalled decision are covered in handling the “let me think about it” objection.
Stage 5: Expand
Entry: customer has signed and received the first delivery.
The test: the first outcome has been experienced by the customer, not merely delivered.
Exit criteria: the customer has confirmed the result, the natural next purchase has been identified, and a second conversation has happened at the moment of value.
Artefact produced: a second purchase, a renewal at full price, a referral, or a documented reason the customer is not expanding yet.
This stage is in the process because it is where the money actually is. A customer who buys once is a transaction; a customer who buys twice is a relationship, and the second sale costs a fraction of the first and closes in days rather than months. Most teams treat expansion as something that happens if it happens, which is why most teams leave most of it on the table.
Writing exit criteria that work
The most common failure in a sales process is a criterion that cannot be tested. “Good interest” and “strong engagement” are feelings; they will be interpreted differently by each person and will not help anyone decide what to do next.
A testable criterion answers a yes/no question about observable facts. Not “the buyer is engaged” but “the buyer has booked the technical review”. Not “they see the value” but “they have confirmed the cost of the problem in hours per week”.
Three habits make the difference:
Write them as a question with a yes/no answer. If a criterion cannot be answered yes or no, rewrite it.
Make them observable to someone who was not in the room. If only the salesperson can tell whether it is met, it is not a criterion.
Attach the artefact. Every stage has one document, note or record. This is what makes the pipeline auditable later — and it is the raw material for forecasting, which is covered in sales forecasting made simple.
| Stage | Key question | Artefact | Typical time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qualify | Is this worth pursuing? | One-paragraph qualification note | 1–2 conversations |
| Discover | Do we understand the problem? | Written situation summary, buyer-confirmed | 2–4 conversations |
| Propose | Are we recommending the right outcome? | Written proposal with scope, price and proof | 1–2 weeks |
| Decide | Will they proceed, and when? | Signed order or documented no | 1–4 weeks |
| Expand | Will they buy again or refer? | Second purchase, renewal or referral | At the moment of value |
Making the process live
One page. Five stages, entry criteria, exit criteria, artefact. If it does not fit on one page, it will not be used.
Everyone uses the same definitions. A stage that means something different to the founder and the salesperson produces a pipeline nobody trusts.
Review weekly, by stage. Not by person. Look at where deals are stuck: a lot sitting in discovery for two months means discovery is too slow or qualification is too loose.
Change one thing at a time. If you rewrite the stages, the criteria and the meeting format in the same week, you will not know which change produced the result.
Do not automate it before it is written. A CRM should enforce the process you designed, not invent one for you. Teams that automate an undefined process end up with an expensive system that nobody updates, which is the standard failure described in why CRM implementations fail.
Related reading
- The Secret Behind Consistently Closing More Deals
- Why Prospects Say “Let Me Think About It” and What to Do Next
- Why CRM Implementations Fail
- Sales Forecasting Made Simple
Frequently asked questions
What are the five steps of a sales process?
Qualify, discover, propose, decide and expand. The value is not in the names — it is in the written exit criteria and the single artefact each stage produces. Qualification tests whether the opportunity is worth pursuing and produces a one-paragraph note. Discovery produces a buyer-confirmed summary of the problem. Propose produces a written proposal with scope, price and proof. Decide produces a signed order or a documented no. Expand produces a second purchase, a renewal or a referral at the moment the customer experiences the result.
How do we write exit criteria for each sales stage?
Make each one a yes/no question about observable facts, answerable by someone who was not in the sales conversation. Not “the buyer is engaged” but “the technical review is booked”; not “they see the value” but “they have confirmed the cost of the problem in hours per week”. Attach one artefact per stage — a note, a summary, a proposal, an order — because the artefacts are what make the pipeline auditable and the forecast possible.
Do small businesses need a formal sales process?
A formal methodology, no. A one-page process with five stages, written exit criteria and one artefact per stage, yes — because the alternative is three or four people using different definitions of “qualified”, no idea which deals are actually moving, and no way to notice a deal going quiet. The page takes an afternoon to write and an hour a week to run. What matters is that everybody uses the same definitions.
How many pipeline stages should we use?
Five is a good default for a small team because it is the fewest that still separates genuinely different activities. Fewer stages merge “discovering the problem” with “writing the proposal”, which hides the step where most deals actually stall. More than six adds admin without adding information for a team of this size. The right test is whether you can answer “where is this deal stuck?” — if yes, your stage count is adequate.
How do I stop the pipeline becoming inaccurate?
Three habits. Define qualified with specific criteria rather than enthusiasm, so it can be tested. Give each stage an exit criterion that must be demonstrably met, so deals cannot slide forward on optimism. And close out dead deals with a real reason rather than leaving them open — false-open deals are what turn a forecast into a guess, and the review rhythm that keeps this honest is in sales forecasting made simple.
Should expand really be part of the sales process?
Yes, because that is where a disproportionate share of the profit sits. The second sale costs a fraction of the first and closes in days rather than months, and it is the stage most often skipped because it feels like marketing rather than selling. Define the natural next purchase for each offer, then time the conversation to the moment the customer experiences the first result — that is when the renewal decision is actually being made, not when the contract ends.
