The Closed Won Framework

Introduction

Why this framework exists

The modern sales environment is more complex than ever. Teams are often juggling multiple tools, managing complex buyer journeys and trying to hit increasingly ambitious targets. While revenue goals climb higher, the systems that support sales teams often remain fragmented or outdated. The Closed Won Framework exists to fix that. The goal? To win more deals, more consistently, and with less waste.

Who this is for?

Whether you're a founder building your first sales team, a sales director struggling with inconsistent performance, or a commercial director trying to bring order to chaos, this framework is for you. It's also valuable for marketing leaders who want better alignment across the GTM engine and for customer success teams that depend on clean handovers and predictable pipelines.

The impact of disjointed sales operations

When process, tech and data aren't aligned, everyone feels it. Reps spend more time on admin than selling. Managers rely on gut feel instead of accurate dashboards. Prospects slip through the cracks due to miscommunication or unclear ownership. Forecasts become unreliable, and leadership starts making decisions in the dark. Over time, this disjointedness costs revenue, productivity and morale.

What Can Your Business Get From This?

More revenue, less waste

A disorganised sales system bleeds money. From chasing unqualified leads to spending hours manually updating CRMs, inefficiency quietly eats away at profits. The Closed Won Framework helps eliminate waste by creating a structured, repeatable sales process that focuses your team's energy on what works. Less time spent fixing broken workflows means more time selling - and more revenue.

Predictable pipeline and forecasting

Many businesses operate in a constant state of uncertainty. Forecasts are little more than guesses and sales targets feel arbitrary. By standardising your sales process and improving your data, you create a pipeline that is not only predictable but also trustworthy. With defined stages, accurate data entry and better visibility, you'll be able to forecast with confidence.

Better alignment across GTM teams

Sales doesn't happen in a vacuum. Deals start with marketing and end with customer success. When each team operates in silos, handovers become sloppy and customer experiences suffer. This framework promotes alignment by ensuring that all teams are working from a shared definition of success. Marketing knows what a good lead looks like, sales knows how to qualify and close and CS knows exactly what was promised.

Happier reps, less admin

Most reps didn’t get into sales to update CRMs or chase internal approvals. They want to sell. The Closed Won Framework helps automate admin-heavy tasks, clarify responsibilities and reduce confusion, freeing reps to focus on high-value activities. Happier reps are more productive, more coachable and more likely to stay.

Faster onboarding for new team members

A scalable sales system isn’t just about helping top performers - it's about raising the floor for everyone. With a clear, documented process and the right tools in place, new hires can ramp quickly and hit quota faster. Instead of shadowing peers and guessing what “good” looks like, they have a playbook to guide them.

Other business-wide benefits

• Improved customer experience thanks to consistent handovers and messaging
• Reduced tech costs by eliminating duplicate or underutilised tools
• Better decision-making through access to real-time, reliable data
• Easier compliance and auditing with clearly documented processes

In short, adopting this framework transforms your sales operations from reactive to proactive. It gives your team the tools, knowledge, and structure they need to consistently win and grow.

The Best Way to Approach It

Think systems, not silver bullets

Sales success is rarely the result of a single hire, tool, or play. Instead, it’s the result of systems - interconnected processes, tools, and habits working together. This framework is designed to help you build and strengthen these systems. You’ll notice that every section touches the others: a better process improves your data, which powers your tech, which empowers your people.

Build for scale, not chaos

It’s tempting to build processes around individual personalities. Your top rep likes it a certain way, so you build tools around them. But what happens when that rep leaves or you add five new hires? You need systems that scale. That means clear processes, consistent CRM usage, and automation where possible. The rule of thumb: if it only works for one person, it doesn’t work.

Crawl, walk, run – phased implementation

Don’t try to boil the ocean. It’s better to get something live and iterate than to chase perfection. Start by identifying your most painful friction point—is it data quality? Tech sprawl? A broken handover from SDR to AE? Fix that, then move on. Build momentum by delivering visible wins early and often.

Collaboration across departments (Sales, Marketing, Ops)

You can’t optimise sales without involving other teams. Marketing generates the leads, RevOps supports the infrastructure, and Customer Success retains the clients. Regular cross-functional meetings, shared dashboards, and unified definitions of success (like what qualifies as an MQL or SQL) help avoid misalignment.

Done is better than perfect

Many teams delay progress chasing a mythical perfect system. But your market changes, your team changes, and your product evolves—your sales systems should evolve too. Treat your sales operations like a product: launch a version 1.0, gather feedback, and improve it continuously. It’s better to have a 70% solution implemented today than a 100% solution stuck in planning.

PILLAR 1: Process Design

Why process matters

A good sales process isn’t just a series of stages in your CRM - it’s the foundation of how your team works. It’s what enables predictable results, scalable growth, and a consistent buyer experience. Without a defined process, you’re flying blind. Every rep is improvising, which makes results unpredictable, coaching difficult, and forecasting impossible.

Characteristics of a good sales process

• Buyer-aligned: It should map to how your buyers make decisions, not how you wish they did.
• Repeatable: Each stage should have clear exit criteria that are followed by everyone.
• Trackable: It must live in your CRM in a way that generates data you can act on.
• Flexible enough to adapt: Your process shouldn’t be so rigid that it breaks under edge cases.

Steps to design a scalable process

1. Map your buyer’s journey
   Start with the buyer—not the seller. Understand the key stages of how your best customers evaluate, purchase, and implement your solution. Talk to recent customers, listen to call recordings, and document key milestones.
2. Define sales stages with exit criteria
   Create clear definitions for each stage in your sales pipeline. What must happen for a deal to move from “Qualification” to “Demo Scheduled”? This prevents deals from skipping ahead prematurely or getting stuck in limbo.
3. Standardise key activities per stage
   For each stage, list the core activities reps should be completing: discovery questions, sending a case study, looping in legal, running a demo, etc. This forms the foundation for training, automation, and reporting.
4. Integrate with your CRM (we recommend HubSpot)
   The process should live inside your tools. Custom properties, workflows, playbooks, and reporting should all align to your stages and definitions. Your CRM becomes the single source of truth.
5. Account for multiple sales motions
   Do you sell direct and via partners? Self-serve and enterprise? You might need process variants, but keep the core consistent. Align everything to a master methodology, even if execution differs.

What a sales stage framework could look like:

Stage 1: Qualification – Is this a real opportunity?

Stage 2: Discovery – Do we understand their goals, pain, and decision process?

Stage 3: Solution Alignment – Have we positioned the right solution and value?

Stage 4: Proposal – Is pricing agreed and has legal/procurement reviewed?

Stage 5: Verbal Commitment – Are we selected and awaiting signature?

Stage 6: Closed Won – Deal signed and implementation starting.

Ongoing optimisation

Processes aren’t static. Review them quarterly. Interview reps, listen to calls, and track stuck deal reports. Are deals dying in Discovery? Are you losing too many at Proposal stage? Fixing small friction points can yield massive returns over time.

PILLAR 2: Customer Data

Use segmentation for better targeting

Good data enables smarter targeting. Group your leads and customers by criteria like industry, deal size, persona, or product interest. This allows for more personalised outreach, more relevant reporting, and stronger campaign performance from both sales and marketing.

Set up dashboards that drive action

Don’t just build dashboards for the sake of reporting. Build dashboards that prompt action. For sales reps, this might be “Deals Closing This Month” or “Stuck Opportunities.” For managers, “Pipeline by Stage” or “Activities Per Rep.” For leadership, “Forecast vs. Target” and “Revenue by Channel.” Every user should have a dashboard tailored to their role.

Clean your data regularly

Make data hygiene a habit. Run quarterly audits to check for duplicates, outdated records, incomplete fields, and inactive contacts. Encourage reps to update and archive old deals. You can also use tools like Insycle, Dedupely, or native HubSpot workflows to automate parts of this.

Build a data-first culture

Data quality isn’t just an ops problem—it’s everyone’s responsibility. Show reps how good data helps them close more. Tie data usage to KPIs, commission, and performance reviews. Celebrate teams that consistently maintain clean, useful records.

Clean data = clearer insights, faster decisions, and better outcomes. When your data works for you, you’re no longer guessing—you’re steering the ship with confidence.

Why clean data is a competitive advantage

Inaccurate or incomplete data leads to misrouted leads, missed opportunities, poor reporting, and frustrated salespeople. Clean, structured data is the fuel for your CRM, your automation, your segmentation, and your forecasting. Without it, you're guessing.

Data you must capture

Contact details: Name, email, phone, role, buying authority

Company info: Industry, size, location, key accounts

Engagement history: Emails, calls, meetings, page views

Deal data: Pipeline stage, deal size, close date, lead source

Custom fields: Pain points, budget, decision-makers, competitors

The 3 layers of sales data

Core CRM fields – Essential for basic contact and deal tracking.

Qualification data – Enriches records to support better segmentation and targeting.

Behavioural data – Captures engagement and signals like email opens, content downloads, and web visits.

How to structure your CRM

• Use dropdowns, not free-text, wherever possible
• Separate contact, company, and deal objects
• Tag leads by source, campaign, and lifecycle stage
• Use custom views and properties for different teams

Using data to drive decisions

• Prioritise accounts based on firmographic and engagement data
• Segment outbound based on high-conversion profiles
• Run win/loss analysis by deal size, industry, or rep
• Identify stalled deals with no recent activity

Common pitfalls to avoid

• Letting reps create fields ad hoc
• Using too many “open text” fields
• Ignoring inactive leads in your CRM
• Treating data cleanup as a one-time project

Clean data is foundational. Without it, even the best tools and processes won’t work as intended. Invest in data hygiene now, and future-proof your sales team’s success.

PILLAR 3: Technology

Audit your current sales stack

List every tool your team uses, what it’s for, and how often it’s used. Look for overlaps, gaps, and underused platforms. If a tool isn’t adding measurable value or simplifying life for your reps, consider replacing or removing it.

Build around a central CRM

Your CRM should be the single source of truth. All leads, opportunities, activities, and communications should be logged there—automatically where possible. Avoid letting your reps “live in spreadsheets” or bounce between disconnected systems.

Integrate key tools

Connect your CRM to marketing automation, proposal software, contract tools, billing platforms, and reporting dashboards. This reduces manual work and ensures everyone’s working from the same data. Use native integrations where available and middleware (like Zapier or Make) when necessary.

Automate the boring stuff

Reps shouldn’t be manually assigning leads or logging activities. Set up automation for lead routing, task creation, email sequences, and follow-ups. Focus on automating the admin, not the relationship-building.

Don’t overcomplicate it

More tech isn’t always better. Every new tool adds complexity, cost, and training overhead. Keep your stack as lean as possible, and only add tools that support your core process. Ask: “Will this help us win more deals, faster?”

PILLAR 4: People

People > Process > Tools

Even the best systems fall apart without the right people. Your reps are the frontline of your GTM strategy—and they need the support, skills, and motivation to perform. That means clear enablement, intentional coaching, and a culture that sets them up to win.

Create a structured onboarding plan

New reps should never be left to figure things out on their own. A great onboarding program includes:

• CRM training (how to use your tools properly)
• Sales process walkthroughs
• Role-playing for key stages (discovery, objection handling, closing)
• Product training and ICP deep dives
• Shadowing experienced reps
• Ramp targets and check-ins for the first 90 days
• Document everything and give new hires a playbook to follow.

Enablement is ongoing, not a one-off

Sales enablement isn’t just onboarding—it’s a continuous investment. Regularly update your materials, train on new messaging, and host refreshers on process and tools. Create an enablement hub with templates, email scripts, call examples, and talk tracks reps can use day-to-day.

Build a coaching rhythm

Top-performing teams coach consistently. That means:

• Weekly 1:1s focused on performance and pipeline
• Call reviews to sharpen discovery and closing skills
• Deal reviews to stress-test pipeline health
• Peer feedback and collaborative learning sessions

Use your CRM and call recording tools to bring real examples into coaching conversations. Celebrate wins, but also dig into losses to learn and improve.

Set clear expectations and accountability

Every rep should know what success looks like. That includes:

• Weekly activity expectations (calls, demos, follow-ups)
• Stage-by-stage conversion benchmarks
• Deal hygiene standards (e.g. updating notes, logging next steps)
• Quota and performance metrics

Hold people accountable through regular reporting and performance reviews—but support them with training and guidance.

Create a feedback loop from the field

Your sales team is closest to the market. Encourage them to feed insights back into the system:

• What objections are you hearing most?
• Which personas are converting best?
• What tools are getting in the way?
• What messaging is landing?

Use these insights to improve your process, positioning, and product over time.

Don’t forget manager enablement

Sales managers are often under-supported. Invest in their development too—through leadership training, regular peer groups, and clear expectations around coaching, not just hitting numbers. A great manager can multiply the performance of an entire team.
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Embedding the Framework Into Your Business

A framework is only useful if it lives and breathes in your business.

It’s one thing to define your process, align your tools, and coach your team—but the real work is embedding this into how you operate every day. The goal is consistency without rigidity: a repeatable engine that still adapts to change.

Make your CRM the single source of truth

All roads should lead back to your CRM. That’s where deals live. It’s where activities are logged, forecasts are built, and decisions are made. Every tool in your stack should either push data into it or pull clean data out of it.

Don’t allow spreadsheets or side channels to become crutches. If it’s not in the CRM, it doesn’t exist.

Drive adoption through habit, not hype

The best way to get people to use the framework is to build it into their workflow. That means:

• Reps using pipeline views and activity lists daily
• Managers running pipeline reviews from the CRM, not Excel
• Leaders reviewing dashboards that align with GTM goals
• Coaching sessions that pull real examples from recent calls
• Enablement that updates alongside evolving playbooks
• Make it part of the job—not an extra task.

Audit and iterate regularly

The market changes. Your team evolves. Your process should too. Run regular reviews of:

• Pipeline conversion rates
• Deal velocity
• Win/loss reasons
• CRM adoption
• Rep feedback

Use this data to refine stages, messaging, qualification criteria, or reporting. Don’t rip everything up—just keep making it 10% better each quarter.

Get cross-functional buy-in

This isn’t just a sales project. Marketing, customer success, product, and finance all touch the revenue process. Get their input and buy-in:

• Marketing to align campaigns with ICP and pipeline stages
• Success teams to ensure clean handover and track renewal/upsell
• Finance to verify forecasting and revenue recognition
• Product to understand deal blockers and prospect feedback

Cross-functional alignment is what turns a GTM process into a GTM strategy.

Celebrate process-driven wins

Don’t just celebrate closed revenue—celebrate the things that led to it:

• Clean pipelines
• Perfectly qualified deals
• Fast follow-ups
• Creative outbound
• Great call examples

Recognition reinforces the behaviours you want to see more of.

Create champions across your team

Don’t centralise everything through RevOps or leadership. Build a bench of champions—high-performing reps, proactive managers, and process-minded team members who love the system. Let them help roll out updates, train new hires, and keep the framework alive in the day-to-day.

Make this your culture

When the Closed Won Framework is truly embedded, it shows up in how your team talks, sells, reports, and solves problems. It becomes second nature. You’ll hear reps saying things like:

“That deal’s not at proposal stage yet—we haven’t nailed the pain.”
“Forecast is light this month—let’s look at what stalled in Discovery.”

That’s when you know the machine is working.

Final Word

This framework isn’t about control - it’s about clarity.

It gives your team the confidence to know what good looks like, the systems to scale what works and the data to make faster, smarter decisions. It removes friction, shortens sales cycles and frees your reps up to do what they do best: sell.

Most importantly, it gives you a foundation that can scale with your business - without breaking under pressure.

If you don’t have the time, team or headspace to implement the Closed Won Framework and set up HubSpot yourself, we’ve got you. We’ll do the heavy lifting—so you can focus on growing your revenue, not wrestling with your CRM.