How to create a sales process flowchart (+ examples & template)

A core element of any effective sales team is staying on top of each lead’s status in the sales process. When you’re juggling contact information, company details, deal stages, and follow-ups, things can quickly get messy and negatively impact your bottom line. Inconsistent performance and a lack of visibility are common pain points that a clear process can solve.

That’s why sales managers and high-performing teams rely on a sales process flowchart to create a uniform, repeatable structure for their sales cycle. In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to create a sales process map, break down the key stages, and provide examples. We’ll also show you how to bring it to life with a dynamic template on monday CRM.

TL;DR: A sales process flowchart visually maps out the key stages a lead moves through, from initial contact to a closed deal, creating a standardized and scalable workflow for your entire team.

What is a sales process flowchart?

A sales process flowchart, or sales process map, is a visual diagram that breaks down the step-by-step journey a potential customer takes, from becoming a lead to a loyal customer. It outlines every key stage and interaction, ensuring every team member follows the same playbook for qualifying, nurturing, and closing deals.

This applies to both B2C (Business to Consumer) and B2B (Business to Business) sales. A good sales flowchart doesn’t just track leads through these steps; it also acts as a central repository for all relevant information about your interactions, including contact details and notes from calls that outline a lead’s pain points.

While a static diagram is a great start, the best sales process flowcharts are interactive and live inside a platform like monday CRM, allowing for real-time updates and effective communication between team members working on the same account.

Why a sales process flowchart is crucial for scaling your sales

Potential customers rarely move in a straight line through the sales funnel. They often move back and forth between stages, which makes tracking their journey so important. Without a clear process, you risk approaching them with the wrong message, which could jeopardize the sale.

A sales process flowchart provides the clarity needed to prevent this. It also helps measure results and identify opportunities for improvement. By looking back at the process, you can get an idea of how long each step took, where deals stalled, and what actions led to success. Teams with a formal sales process see significantly higher revenue growth because they can pinpoint what works and replicate it.

These data points help you refine your sales strategy, improve forecasting accuracy, and ultimately scale your operations efficiently. You can look back on deals closed in a quarter and see how long it took on average for a lead to sign a contract or how many follow-up calls it took to move them to the next step.

The 7 key stages of a winning sales process

While every business is different, most successful sales processes include these seven key sales stages. Understanding each one is the first step to building your own flowchart.

Stage 1: Prospecting

This is the process of finding potential customers or leads. It can involve everything from cold calling and email outreach to responding to inbound leads generated from your website with monday.com forms.

Stage 2: Preparation

Before you make contact, you need to do your homework. This stage involves researching the lead, understanding their business and pain points, and preparing your approach to ensure the conversation is relevant and valuable.

Stage 3: Approach

This is your first direct interaction with the lead. The goal is to make a strong first impression, build rapport, and determine if they are a good fit for your product or service through a qualification process.

Stage 4: Presentation

Here, you demonstrate how your product or service solves the lead’s specific problems. A successful presentation is tailored to the lead’s needs you uncovered during the approach stage, not a generic sales pitch.

Stage 5: Handling objections

Leads will almost always have questions or concerns. This stage is about actively listening to their objections, addressing them with confidence, and reinforcing the value of your solution.

Stage 6: Closing

This is the moment of decision. The closing stage involves negotiating terms, sending a quote or proposal, and getting the final sign-off to make the lead an official customer.

Stage 7: Follow-up

The work isn’t over after the deal is closed. This final stage involves nurturing the new customer relationship, ensuring a smooth onboarding, and creating opportunities for repeat business or referrals.

How to create a sales process flowchart in 5 steps

Now that you understand the core components, here’s how to build your own sales process flowchart.

Step 1: Analyze your current process

Start by looking at what your team is already doing. Talk to your top-performing reps to understand the steps they take to close deals and identify any common patterns or best practices.

Step 2: Define your sales stages

Using the 7 stages above as a guide, customize them to fit your specific business. Clearly define what needs to happen for a lead to move from one stage to the next. This creates clear, actionable sales process steps for everyone to follow.

Step 3: Identify key information to track

For each stage, determine what information is critical. This could include lead source, contact details, deal size, key decision-makers, and notes from every interaction. On monday CRM, you can create custom columns for each data point.

Step 4: Build your flowchart visually

Map out the stages and the flow between them. A platform like monday CRM makes this easy with a visual sales pipeline where you can create columns for each stage and simply drag-and-drop deals as they progress.

Step 5: Automate and refine

Set up automations to handle repetitive tasks. For example, you can automatically notify a manager when a deal reaches a certain value or send a follow-up email when a deal has been idle for too long. Continuously review your flowchart and use sales analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t.

Ready to build your own? Get started with our free Sales Pipeline Template.

Sales process flowchart examples you can use

A sales process flowchart can be simple or complex depending on your needs. For a standard B2B sales process, you might include detailed sub-stages for legal review or security sign-off. For a simpler B2C process, the flowchart might focus more on initial contact and quick follow-ups.

The key is to make it a living document. A static drawing is a good start, but a dynamic workflow on a digital platform is where you’ll see real results. Below is an example of how a sales process flowchart looks as an interactive sales pipeline on monday CRM.

From static chart to dynamic workflow with monday CRM

A flowchart on a whiteboard is a plan. A workflow on a platform is a sales engine. The real power of a sales process flowchart is realized when it becomes an automated, intelligent workflow that your entire team can use every day.

This is where a platform like monday CRM transforms your process. You can bring your flowchart to life with a fully customizable and automated visual sales pipeline. With features like AI-powered lead enrichment, automated follow-up sequences, and real-time sales analytics dashboards, you turn a simple diagram into a system that actively helps you close deals faster.

Instead of just tracking steps, you can automate them, measure their effectiveness, and get insights to constantly improve. That’s the difference between a static chart and a dynamic workflow.