A shared language for sales-process quality.

Process area 1

Direction & ownership

Define the sales process before measuring it.

Choose its start and end, its owner, its decisions and its handovers. Agree what a good outcome means.

Ask: Who can decide that the process is ready to move forward?

Process area 2

Market & qualification

Make the reason to pursue a customer explicit.

Describe the customer need, fit, constraints and evidence required to continue. Revisit the decision when new information changes the opportunity.

Ask: What evidence would make you stop pursuing this opportunity?

Process area 3

Customer requirements

Separate a stated request from a confirmed requirement.

Record who supplied each requirement, what it means and how acceptance will be judged. Keep assumptions and unresolved questions visible.

Ask: Has the customer confirmed the interpretation and acceptance basis?

Process area 4

Solution & feasibility

Check the ability to deliver before promising.

Review capacity, dependencies, timing, capability and risks with the people responsible for delivery. Record unresolved conditions.

Ask: Which dependency could invalidate the current proposal?

Process area 5

Offer & commitment

Make the promise reviewable.

Connect the scope and conditions of the offer to requirements and feasibility evidence. Name who owns the next decision.

Ask: What is being promised, on what evidence, and subject to which conditions?

Process area 6

Contract & handover

Confirm that the receiving team can take responsibility.

Bring scope, commitments, assumptions, open issues and ownership into the handover. Treat receipt and acceptance as different steps.

Ask: Has the receiving owner accepted the handover and its unresolved items?

Process area 7

Outcome & feedback

Compare the actual outcome with the expected result.

Define measures consistently, record the baseline and timing, and distinguish observed results from estimated contributions.

Ask: What changed, what did you observe, and what remains an assumption?

Process area 8

Learning & improvement

Turn feedback into a specific change.

Choose an improvement, its owner and its review date. Check later whether the change helped, using the same definitions.

Ask: What will you change next, and how will you know whether it worked?

Worked example · fictional

A promise is not ready just because a date is written down.

Harbour Services is preparing an offer with a customer start date. Sales has recorded the requested scope, but the delivery owner has not confirmed capacity.

The useful next step is to make the gap explicit: the start date remains conditional until the delivery owner checks capacity against the agreed scope. Record the owner, the evidence needed and the next review point.

This turns an assumption into a question that can be resolved. It does not establish that the offer is safe, approved or ready to sign.

Evidence, assumptions and decisions

Evidence

Something identifiable that supports a statement: a confirmed requirement, a capacity review or an observed outcome.

Assumption

A statement used for planning that still needs to be checked. Keep its uncertainty visible.

Decision

A choice made by an accountable person with an understood basis and any conditions recorded.

SaleQMS helps structure the review. Your organisation remains responsible for its decisions.

Ready to build a working record?

Use your own documents to apply these questions, or open Complete for the structured commitment review, saved work and ROI scenario tool.