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According to the Harvard Business Review , companies with structured, documented and monitored sales processes have high-performing sales teams and achieve 30-percent more revenue than companies that do not. If you’re working on your own , don’t let skeptical sales reps tell you they don’t need a sales process to hit their number, as learning continues long after onboarding ends.

No matter how long your company has been in business, it’s never too early - or too late - to create a defined, measurable sales process. It’s a great way to capture sales tactics that work for your top performing sellers and help underperforming or to succeed.

There are many B2B sales methodologies in the market to help you learn some best practices, but you’ll still want to define your own since your organization’s sales process will be unique to your business. You can borrow selling strategies or tactics from sales thought leaders, competitors, or partners, but remember there are no cookie-cutter sales processes that are one-size-fits-all. Instead, you'll want to customize your approach that takes your team's strengths, and weaknesses, into account.

Here are five steps to create a tailored sales process for your business, regardless of what you sell.

1. Discover the Whys - Your Customers, Your Reps, and Yours

Whether you are a founder, a direct sales executive or even a channel sales manager, it’s important to follow Simon Sinek’s advice and . Why did you start your business? Why do you manufacture, distribute, deliver or sell the products and services you do?

Once you figure out why you started your business or why you chose to lead or enable the sales team where you work, you’ll be on your way to understanding your company’s unique value proposition statement to around.

2. Survey Your Customers and Prospects

Some of the most effective ways to develop or improve your sales process is to ask your customers why they chose you. Did they feel your sales reps took the time to understand their needs and priorities? Did they feel your company had the skills and expertise to complete your project better than your competitors? With active listening, you’ll have more insight into how to create a winning sales strategy.

Take this feedback into consideration when developing your sales process and have your sales team sell to the strengths your customers recognize. This is also an excellent group to use for testimonials or case studies.

You should also talk to prospects that didn’t buy from you to identify gaps in your existing sales approach. Your sales rep may not have been empathetic enough to the prospect’s pain points or a competitor may have a more cohesive win strategy than your team did. Or, your rep may not have effectively asked for the client’s business, and the prospect contracted with someone who did.

If you’re not already performing debriefs after winning (or losing) sizable deals, you’ll want to conduct a win/loss analysis. Be sure to leverage this data to build your sales processes based on your past success and failure. Clozd.com says that only about 20% of B2B companies they surveyed investigate and capture why they won or lost a deal. And sadly, those businesses make incorrect assumptions 60% of the time.

3. Don’t Hide Your Sales Process on PowerPoint

Have you ever been to a sales kickoff meeting where a new strategy is presented on a slide deck and your reps gets excited about adopting a new sales process? Did they forget what they learned a week later? Capture that presentation on video and within the applications themselves. Imagine how much easier it would be to learn how to use new features in Salesforce, only to have it available as you’re using the app itself.

A recorded video presentation with the original audio can be edited down into digestible microlearning topics and stored in context to related information such as:

• Lead and opportunity qualification criteria
• Your company’s sales cycles and how a deal should progress through them
• How to close a deal and ask for the business
• Objection acknowledgement and handling
• Tips from proven methodologies like consultative, account-based or SPIN selling

Going through all the work to create a step-by-step sales process or playbook, then storing it in a static PowerPoint on a file-sharing app is simply a waste of everyone’s time and talents. Keep it current and available at their fingertips for the benefit of your entire team.

4. Create a Customizable Script or Playbook Cheat Sheet

Sales professionals beyond the first couple of years into their career are generally less than enthusiastic about scripted sales calls. Try providing some compelling icebreaker statements for capturing attention on cold calls to encourage your reps to