If you want to improve your sales, you often buy software first. That’s the wrong place to start. teamspace is the tool – it models and automates a process it cannot replace. A good sales process is built in layers, from the top down: first the goal, then the sub-goals and metrics, and only right at the end the way it is mapped in the system. This process guide first describes exactly that path – and then shows what the core process actually looks like in teamspace.
Guiding principle: The maturity of a sales operation shows in the data, not in the software. A tool doesn’t turn an unclear process into a good one – it just makes it visible faster.
Five layers: from goal to lived practice
Before you set anything up in teamspace, clarify the layers above it – and keep one layer below in mind: the people who ultimately live the process. Each layer answers a different question and builds on the one before:
- Goal & core question. At its heart, sales answers one question: How do we continuously win the right orders? “Continuously” and “the right” matter just as much as “win” – predictability and quality of orders, not just quantity.
- Sub-goals – three perspectives. The core question breaks down into three dimensions you steer separately:
- Pipeline (future): Is what we are building right now enough for the coming months? – Opportunity volume, revenue coverage.
- Closing (past): How well do we turn opportunities into orders? – Conversion rates.
- Activities (present): Are we actively looking after the right people? – Relationship quality.
- Measurable data. You can only steer what you measure. Typical metrics per dimension: pipeline value and weighted forecast (future), win rate (past), opportunities without a next activity, activities per employee and last & next contact with VIPs (present). Which ones they are in detail, and whether teamspace delivers them, is set out in Key figures for the sales process.
- Modelling in the tool. Now – and only now – teamspace comes in. Contacts, sales opportunities, stages, probabilities and analyses are the building blocks with which you map and automate layers 1–3.
- Rollout & training – the people. A mapped process is still only a promise. Value emerges when the team actually lives it: every lead captured, every opportunity maintained, every activity documented – consistently and reliably. That takes rollout, training and jointly agreed conventions (When does an opportunity count as “qualified”? When as lost?). This closes the loop back to maturity: the data in layer 3 only fills up if the people in layer 5 play along. Helpful here: Rolling out teamspace in your company and Practising teamspace: exercises for beginners.
The crux: most people jump straight to layer 4. Then you have a well-maintained CRM – but without a defined goal (layer 1), without metrics (layer 3) and without a team that truly lives the process (layer 5), your sales don’t get any better, just more digital.
Stocktake: where do we stand today?
Every improvement starts with an honest stocktake: How do we really do it at the moment? Not how the manual says it should be done. A maturity-level scale helps here – six levels, from “not at all” to “fully automated”:
| Level | Maturity | How to recognise it |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Unplanned | No structured overview; opportunities live in people’s heads and inboxes. |
| 1 | Manual | Excel lists, scattered notes, partly documented. |
| 2 | Structured | Defined steps, but unsystematically linked and without analysis. |
| 3 | Assisted | CRM in use, opportunities maintained, first analyses. |
| 4 | Largely automated | Automatic analyses, forecast and reminders. |
| 5 | Fully automated | End-to-end steering with live dashboards and forecasting. |
Honestly place your sales at one level. The jump almost always succeeds one level at a time: nobody leaps straight from “Excel” (1) to “live dashboard” (5) – the path runs via a well-maintained CRM (3) and the first reliable metrics (4).
Where do we want to go?
The target picture is not “level 5 for everyone”. It’s the level that fits your size, your market and your effort – and that can deliver the layer-3 metrics you genuinely need.
And here’s an important point about working together: we provide the core process – the stages from first contact to order are set up in teamspace and proven. But the details – what your stages are called, which probabilities are realistic, when an opportunity counts as “qualified”, which metric keeps you awake at night – we don’t know those, you do. A good approach therefore emerges jointly: we bring the model, you bring your sales, and in the configuration the two meet.
The core process in teamspace
This is what the predefined core process looks like – the chain along which everything can be modelled. Every stage has its own article; the list of steps at the top of this page is the short version.
1. Capture first contact. At the start there is a contact (person) and an organisation (company). The CRM introduction gives you the overview.
2. Classify the relationship. teamspace sets prospect, customer or supplier largely automatically – whoever receives a quote is a prospect; whoever places an order becomes a customer. The ABC analysis per relationship (top 20% = A, middle 60% = B, weakest 20% = C) makes top customers and concentration risks visible. The everyday tool for this is activities and follow-ups.
3. Open an opportunity. Once a concrete sales project emerges, you open a sales opportunity with a target value and a contact person. From here on it counts in the pipeline. Background: Sales opportunities – introduction.
4. Steer through the funnel. The opportunity moves through the stages and statuses of the funnel. With each stage the probability rises, and teamspace calculates target value × probability = current value – the common currency of your pipeline. If you want to understand the model behind it: Understanding the sales funnel, stage & CRM status.
5. Make a quote. In the “Quote” stage the opportunity becomes a quote with line items and prices – send it, follow up, and on acceptance convert it into an order.
Transition: With the won order (CRM status
Ordered) sales ends and the billing process takes over.
6. Analyse the pipeline. Here the loop closes back to the layer-3 metrics: the analysis of sales opportunities and the CRM & sales reports show pipeline value, forecast, win rate and stalled opportunities – split by bottlenecks and rejections.
Going deeper
These articles belong to sales but aren’t needed for every start:
- Creating and sending campaigns – reach larger address pools via a mail sequence.
- Key account managers, VIPs and service notes – look after important customers in a targeted way.
- Configuring the CRM – rating models, custom fields and activity types (for administrators).
You’ll find the complete list of all articles on the sales process at the bottom of the process page under “All articles for this process”.
Related topics
- Understanding the sales funnel, stage & CRM status Sales opportunities Concept
- The sales process on teamspace.de – goals, maturity levels and metrics at a glance