Sales & customer operations
The work between pipeline stages.
A functional sales team runs far more than prospecting and closing. It researches accounts, validates problems, gathers approvals, protects the forecast, and carries context into the customer relationship.
This is an inferred reference inventory for a functional mid-market B2B sales organization, not a product package or a claim about a specific customer.
- Starts with
- Account selection, inbound demand, and outbound prospecting
- Moves through
- Discovery, solution validation, approvals, and close
- Ends with
- Handoff, adoption, renewal, and expansion
Every unit is a chain of handoffs.
These are the recurring algorithms that make the unit work. Each one turns an input into a decision, a next step, or a more complete case for the next owner.
Commercial strategy and system design
Define the commercial model, operating rules, and shared records that keep the sales motion consistent.
- Define ideal customer profile
- Define disqualifying customer profile
- Segment the market
- Define vertical or industry plays
- Estimate market size
- Define territory model
- Assign account ownership
- Design account coverage
- Plan sales capacity
- Set quotas
- Set activity expectations
- Define sales stages
- Define stage-entry criteria
- Define stage-exit criteria
- Define forecast categories
- Define pipeline coverage requirements
- Define lead-response SLAs
- Define sales-to-marketing SLAs
- Define sales-to-success handoff criteria
- Define compensation rules
- Define commission crediting
- Define pricing architecture
- Define packaging
- Define discount guardrails
- Define approval thresholds
- Define sales playbooks
- Version and retire playbooks
- Define pipeline and revenue metrics
- Define CRM required fields
- Define operating cadence
Market and account intelligence
Maintain the market, account, contact, and buying-committee context used to decide where to focus.
- Build account universe
- Import target accounts
- Normalize account names
- Deduplicate accounts
- Enrich firmographic data
- Enrich technographic data
- Identify subsidiaries and parent companies
- Classify industry
- Classify company size
- Classify geography
- Score account fit
- Detect buying intent
- Detect funding or growth signals
- Detect leadership changes
- Detect hiring signals
- Detect technology changes
- Detect regulatory or market triggers
- Detect relationship signals
- Tier accounts
- Prioritize accounts
- Assign accounts to territories
- Identify whitespace within an account
- Create account plans
- Research account strategy
- Map business units
- Discover relevant contacts
- Map reporting relationships
- Map buying committee
- Identify likely champion
- Identify economic buyer
- Identify technical buyer
- Identify procurement owner
- Identify blockers or detractors
- Build relationship map
- Maintain account intelligence
- Re-score account priority
Demand capture and lead management
Capture inbound interest, apply ownership and qualification rules, and give every lead a documented next step.
- Capture form submission
- Capture chat or conversation
- Capture event registration
- Capture referral
- Capture content response
- Capture inbound email
- Record source attribution
- Validate consent
- Normalize contact data
- Deduplicate contact
- Match contact to account
- Enrich contact
- Classify persona
- Classify buying intent
- Score lead
- Score account
- Combine account and contact scores
- Route lead by territory
- Route lead by segment
- Route lead by product or use case
- Route lead by round-robin rules
- Check account ownership
- Check rep availability
- Start response-time clock
- Assign lead
- Notify owner
- Schedule first response
- Book meeting
- Confirm meeting
- Classify response
- Accept lead
- Reject lead
- Request more information
- Place lead into nurture
- Recycle lead
- Disqualify lead
- Reopen dormant lead
- Escalate SLA breach
- Measure speed to lead
- Measure lead acceptance
- Measure conversion by source
Outbound prospecting
Create targeted direct and partner demand, manage follow-up work, and convert relevant engagement into conversations.
- Define prospecting campaign
- Select target segment
- Build account list
- Build contact list
- Filter contacts by role
- Research account
- Research contact
- Identify likely business problem
- Form a problem hypothesis
- Select relevant proof or point of view
- Draft outreach
- Personalize outreach
- Select communication channel
- Build sequence
- Schedule touchpoints
- Check deliverability
- Suppress unsubscribed contacts
- Suppress active opportunities
- Suppress customer contacts
- Launch sequence
- Monitor delivery
- Classify replies
- Detect positive intent
- Detect objection
- Detect unsubscribe
- Detect referral
- Route positive reply
- Respond to objection
- Schedule meeting
- Follow up after no response
- Pause sequence
- Resume sequence
- End sequence
- Move prospect to nurture
- Convert prospect to lead
- Convert prospect to opportunity
- Measure reply rate
- Measure meeting rate
- Measure opportunity rate
- Compare campaign variants
- Identify partner type
- Recruit partner
- Qualify partner
- Approve partner
- Onboard partner
- Train partner
- Certify partner
- Share collateral
- Share leads
- Register deal
- Approve deal registration
- Protect registered deal
- Qualify partner-sourced lead
- Coordinate co-selling
- Coordinate partner demo
- Coordinate proposal
- Track partner influence
- Track partner source
- Calculate partner compensation
- Approve referral fee
- Approve reseller margin
- Allocate partner credit
- Forecast channel pipeline
- Review partner performance
- Renew partner relationship
Qualification and discovery
Establish fit, business need, urgency, and a credible path to a buyer decision before investing more resources.
- Create opportunity
- Associate account
- Associate contacts
- Record source
- Record opportunity type
- Identify use case
- Confirm business problem
- Confirm affected process
- Confirm current workaround
- Confirm business impact
- Confirm urgency
- Confirm desired outcome
- Confirm budget context
- Identify decision process
- Identify decision criteria
- Identify economic buyer
- Identify champion
- Identify technical evaluator
- Identify procurement path
- Identify legal path
- Identify security path
- Identify implementation constraints
- Identify competition
- Identify “do nothing” risk
- Score qualification
- Apply qualification framework
- Accept opportunity
- Reject opportunity
- Disqualify opportunity
- Return opportunity for more discovery
- Set next step
- Set next-step owner
- Set next-step date
- Create mutual action plan
- Define close date
- Define stage
- Define forecast category
- Detect stalled opportunity
- Detect missing stakeholder
- Detect missing next step
- Detect false close date
- Reactivate dormant opportunity
- Record loss reason
- Record no-decision reason
- Prepare meeting brief
- Review account history
- Review prior interactions
- Set discovery agenda
- Open meeting
- Confirm participants
- Confirm business context
- Map current-state process
- Identify systems involved
- Identify handoffs
- Identify repeated work
- Identify backlog or delay
- Identify owner ambiguity
- Identify failure modes
- Identify manual work
- Identify data gaps
- Identify approval points
- Identify compliance constraints
- Identify user groups
- Identify affected metrics
- Quantify operational impact
- Quantify financial impact
- Quantify deadline exposure
- Capture customer language
- Capture objections
- Capture requirements
- Capture assumptions
- Separate facts from hypotheses
- Define success criteria
- Define minimum viable scope
- Confirm problem with stakeholders
- Confirm urgency
- Confirm decision process
- Write discovery summary
- Validate discovery summary
- Share next-step plan
Opportunity and stakeholder management
Manage the human decision system around each opportunity with explicit evidence, coverage, risks, and dated next steps.
- Identify buying committee
- Map stakeholder influence
- Map stakeholder sentiment
- Identify champion strength
- Test champion access
- Identify executive sponsor
- Identify economic buyer
- Identify technical approver
- Identify legal approver
- Identify security approver
- Identify procurement owner
- Identify implementation owner
- Identify end-user representative
- Identify internal opposition
- Identify competing priorities
- Identify decision criteria
- Identify decision sequence
- Identify approval thresholds
- Identify required meetings
- Plan executive alignment
- Plan stakeholder outreach
- Multi-thread the opportunity
- Share tailored materials
- Track stakeholder engagement
- Detect single-threaded risk
- Detect champion risk
- Detect political risk
- Resolve stakeholder conflict
- Confirm consensus
- Confirm final approver
- Confirm decision date
- Update opportunity amount
- Update close date
- Update stage
- Update forecast category
- Submit rep forecast
- Roll up manager forecast
- Roll up executive forecast
- Compare forecast to quota
- Calculate pipeline coverage
- Calculate weighted pipeline
- Detect forecast movement
- Detect slipped close date
- Detect stale activity
- Detect missing next step
- Detect unsupported commit
- Detect single-threaded deal
- Inspect deal evidence
- Inspect call notes
- Inspect mutual action plan
- Review deal risks
- Review upside opportunities
- Challenge forecast
- Reclassify forecast
- Remove dead pipeline
- Create recovery plan
- Run forecast meeting
- Record forecast decision
- Track forecast accuracy
Solution and commercial validation
Validate solution fit, delivery readiness, value, pricing, scope, and the proposal before formal approval.
- Translate problem into use case
- Gather requirements
- Classify requirements
- Separate must-have from nice-to-have
- Perform fit-gap analysis
- Define solution boundary
- Define non-goals
- Map required systems
- Map required data
- Assess data quality
- Assess integration feasibility
- Assess security requirements
- Assess privacy requirements
- Assess compliance requirements
- Design solution
- Design workflow
- Design user experience
- Design permissions
- Design audit trail
- Design human approval points
- Prepare demo environment
- Build demo scenario
- Tailor demonstration
- Run solution demonstration
- Capture technical questions
- Assess product fit
- Assess implementation effort
- Design proof of concept
- Define proof-of-concept success criteria
- Scope pilot
- Plan pilot data
- Run proof of concept
- Evaluate proof of concept
- Decide whether to proceed
- Produce technical validation summary
- Produce implementation outline
- Estimate delivery effort
- Check delivery capacity
- Identify delivery risks
- Obtain delivery approval
- Select package
- Configure scope
- Select pricing model
- Calculate price
- Calculate implementation fee
- Calculate recurring fee
- Calculate usage fee
- Apply standard discount
- Request non-standard discount
- Check margin
- Check commercial guardrails
- Build business case
- Build ROI model
- Build cost-of-delay model
- Validate assumptions
- Prepare proposal
- Prepare statement of work
- Prepare implementation plan
- Prepare timeline
- Prepare success measures
- Prepare security packet
- Prepare compliance packet
- Prepare procurement packet
- Prepare references
- Prepare executive summary
- Review proposal internally
- Approve proposal
- Present proposal
- Collect customer feedback
- Revise proposal
- Compare competing proposals
- Handle pricing objection
- Handle scope objection
- Handle timing objection
- Handle risk objection
- Handle incumbent objection
- Handle procurement objection
- Negotiate scope
- Negotiate price
- Negotiate terms
- Negotiate timeline
- Record concessions
- Obtain concession approval
Legal, security, procurement, and close
Coordinate formal reviews, resolve approval blockers, execute the contract, and create complete operational records.
- Classify deal risk
- Route legal review
- Route security review
- Route privacy review
- Route compliance review
- Route insurance review
- Send security questionnaire
- Complete security questionnaire
- Gather evidence
- Respond to customer questions
- Review data-processing terms
- Review confidentiality terms
- Review liability terms
- Review indemnity terms
- Review intellectual-property terms
- Review service levels
- Review termination terms
- Review payment terms
- Review implementation obligations
- Track redlines
- Classify redlines
- Resolve standard redlines
- Escalate material redlines
- Approve exception
- Reject exception
- Assemble procurement package
- Register vendor
- Complete supplier forms
- Validate purchase-order requirements
- Confirm budget approval
- Confirm buying authority
- Track approval status
- Escalate overdue approval
- Maintain approval history
- Confirm verbal commitment
- Confirm final scope
- Confirm final price
- Confirm signatories
- Generate order form
- Generate contract
- Send for signature
- Track signature
- Resolve signature issue
- Validate purchase order
- Validate billing entity
- Validate tax information
- Validate payment terms
- Confirm start date
- Confirm implementation contact
- Mark contract executed
- Mark opportunity closed won
- Mark opportunity closed lost
- Sync contract to CRM
- Sync contract to billing
- Create customer record
- Create project record
- Create subscription
- Create invoice schedule
- Confirm booked revenue
- Credit commission
- Validate commission
- Prepare internal handoff
- Prepare customer handoff
- Schedule kickoff
Sales to customer handoff
Transfer the signed customer context, commitments, and dependencies so delivery can start without avoidable gaps.
- Transfer opportunity context
- Transfer discovery notes
- Transfer requirements
- Transfer scope
- Transfer success criteria
- Transfer stakeholder map
- Transfer risks
- Transfer commitments
- Transfer pricing assumptions
- Transfer timeline
- Confirm implementation owner
- Confirm customer owner
- Confirm executive sponsor
- Run internal handoff
- Run customer kickoff
- Confirm deliverables
- Confirm acceptance criteria
- Confirm first-value milestone
- Reconcile sold scope with deliverable scope
- Escalate oversold expectation
- Resolve missing information
- Create customer success plan
Account management, renewal, and expansion
Monitor customer health, protect renewals, and turn proven needs into qualified expansion and advocacy paths.
- Monitor adoption
- Monitor usage
- Monitor customer health
- Monitor open issues
- Monitor stakeholder engagement
- Identify risk signal
- Classify risk
- Create recovery plan
- Escalate customer issue
- Coordinate internal response
- Run account review
- Run executive business review
- Review achieved outcomes
- Review unmet outcomes
- Update account plan
- Identify expansion signal
- Identify cross-sell opportunity
- Identify upsell opportunity
- Identify new business unit
- Identify referral opportunity
- Request reference
- Request case study
- Request testimonial
- Identify renewal date
- Prepare renewal plan
- Forecast renewal
- Detect renewal risk
- Build renewal proposal
- Negotiate renewal
- Process renewal
- Process contraction
- Process churn
- Record churn reason
- Reactivate former customer
Sales management and enablement
Give managers and sellers a repeatable cadence for inspection, coaching, capacity planning, and skill development.
- Review rep activity
- Review pipeline hygiene
- Review opportunity quality
- Coach deal strategy
- Coach discovery
- Coach objection handling
- Review recorded calls
- Score call quality
- Identify skill gap
- Assign training
- Certify rep
- Onboard new rep
- Ramp new rep
- Assign mentor
- Review territory performance
- Rebalance territory
- Reassign accounts
- Review quota attainment
- Review compensation
- Plan hiring
- Plan capacity
- Run win analysis
- Run loss analysis
- Run no-decision analysis
- Identify recurring objection
- Update messaging
- Update playbook
- Test new sequence
- Test new qualification rule
- Compare experiment results
- Retire ineffective process
Revenue operations and exceptions
Keep revenue data, controls, approvals, and recovery paths reliable across the commercial operating system.
- Maintain CRM schema
- Maintain field definitions
- Enforce required fields
- Normalize picklists
- Deduplicate records
- Merge accounts
- Merge contacts
- Maintain account hierarchy
- Maintain territory rules
- Maintain routing rules
- Maintain ownership rules
- Monitor integration sync
- Reconcile CRM and billing
- Reconcile CRM and contract system
- Reconcile CRM and marketing system
- Maintain source taxonomy
- Maintain campaign attribution
- Maintain opportunity attribution
- Maintain revenue attribution
- Audit stage changes
- Audit forecast changes
- Audit discount approvals
- Audit contract records
- Manage user access
- Manage role permissions
- Maintain consent records
- Maintain retention rules
- Produce sales dashboards
- Produce forecast dashboards
- Produce conversion reports
- Produce cohort reports
- Produce rep performance reports
- Produce data-quality reports
- Reconcile metric definitions
- Investigate reporting discrepancy
- Lead arrives without enough data
- Lead routes to wrong owner
- Account has conflicting ownership
- Duplicate lead appears
- Duplicate opportunity appears
- Rep misses response SLA
- Rep becomes unavailable
- Contact unsubscribes
- Contact changes company
- Opportunity goes silent
- Opportunity has no next step
- Opportunity has no economic buyer
- Opportunity is single-threaded
- Opportunity slips repeatedly
- Opportunity exceeds expected cycle time
- Customer requests unsupported scope
- Technical validation fails
- Proof of concept fails
- Security review stalls
- Legal review stalls
- Procurement stalls
- Discount exceeds authority
- Delivery capacity disappears
- Contract is signed with missing information
- Customer expectation exceeds sold scope
- Payment is delayed
- Customer escalates
- Renewal becomes at risk
- Expansion opportunity conflicts with delivery capacity
- Closed-lost opportunity becomes active again
The system prepares the case. People make the call.
- Evidence
- Account, contact, activity, quote, contract, and customer records should connect before a decision is requested.
- Control
- Software can prepare research and approval packets. Named people decide qualification, price, terms, forecast, and customer commitments.
- Measure
- Start with one path and baseline response time, approval wait, stage age, rework, or handoff completeness.
A concrete starting point
See how deal approvals break between systems.
Follow one commercial request from trigger to approval, with the source records, dependencies, owner, and human decision visible.