Ask most founders: "What's your sales process?"

They describe 3 steps:

1. Find prospects
2. Have a call
3. Send proposal and close

Watch them actually sell and you'll count 23 distinct steps—research methods, outreach timing, email sequences, call frameworks, follow-up triggers, objection responses, proposal customization, negotiation tactics.

The process exists. It's just invisible. Living in your head, not in a system someone else could execute.

Last week you identified WHAT to systematize first (Quadrant 1: high time + high repeatability tasks).
​This week: HOW to make those invisible processes explicit so you can systematize them.

Why Invisibility Kills Scale

Problem 1: You can't hand it off

"Just do what I do" isn't a playbook. First sales hire inherits tribal knowledge that lives in your head. They guess, fail, quit—and you blame them for not "getting it."

Problem 2: You can't improve what you can't see

Which step in your process has the highest drop-off? Where do deals actually stall? You don't know because you've never mapped it.

Problem 3: You can't automate what you haven't documented

AI can't replicate implicit knowledge. "I just know when a prospect is serious" isn't a signal AI can detect. First make it explicit, then make it systematic.

As Scott Hindell puts it: "At a certain point all the obvious things start to go away and you start to pick up patterns and things that weren't very noticeable before."

That's what documentation does—forces you to see the patterns you're unconsciously following.

The Sales Process Documentation Method

Step 1: Record Reality (Not Theory)

Don't write what you THINK you do. Document what you ACTUALLY do.

The exercise:

Review your last 3 closed deals and 3 lost deals. Pull email threads, calendar invites, CRM notes. Map every touchpoint from first contact to outcome.

Note: What triggered each action? What information did you gather? What decision did you make?

Most founders discover 15-20 more steps than they thought they had.

Step 2: Identify Decision Points

Your process isn't linear. It's a decision tree.

Mark every point where you chose:

• Path A vs. Path B (e.g., "sent pricing" vs. "scheduled discovery call first")
• Continue vs. Stop (e.g., "qualified prospect" vs. "disqualified")
• Human intervention vs. Automated (e.g., "I personally reached out" vs. "sequence continued")

What you're looking for: The implicit rules you follow.

"If they respond within 24 hours, they're serious." "If they ask about pricing before discovery, they're price shopping." "If they mention a competitor, I lead with differentiation."

These rules exist. You've never written them down.

Step 3: Document Tribal Knowledge

The "I just know" moments are pattern recognition you can make explicit.

The questions:

• How do you know a prospect is serious vs. tire-kicking?
• How do you decide which deals to prioritize?
• What signals tell you a deal is about to close vs. stalling?
• When do you discount vs. hold firm?
• What makes a "good fit" customer?

Write the signals you're actually responding to. These become your qualification criteria, your prioritization framework, your closing indicators.

Step 4: Separate Repeatable from Unique

Not everything should be systematized.

Repeatable patterns (systematize these): Initial research process for every prospect. Outreach sequence structure. Discovery call question framework. Follow-up cadence after demo. Proposal formatting and delivery.

Unique situations (keep human judgment): Complex multi-stakeholder deals. Custom pricing negotiations. Unusual use cases or requirements. Strategic partnership conversations.

One Elite Founders member thought their sales process was "intuitive and relationship-based—can't be documented."

We walked through 5 recent deals together. Discovered 47 distinct steps. 38 were repeatable patterns. 9 required unique judgment.

We systematized the 38. Freed 14 hours/week. The 9 that needed human touch got MORE attention because the founder wasn't buried in repetitive work.

The Visual Map: Zoom In, Zoom Out

In our Customer Journey mapping workshop, we teach founders to work at multiple levels simultaneously.

Zoom out (30,000-foot view): The high-level customer journey—Awareness → Consideration → Decision → Onboarding → Growth. This is strategic positioning.

Zoom in (tactical level): The specific actions, triggers, and decision points within each stage. This is where your flowchart lives.

Most founders try to build tactics without the strategic map. Or they have a beautiful customer journey diagram with zero executable steps underneath.

You need both: The zoomed-out journey shows you where this prospect is in their buying process. The zoomed-in flowchart shows you exactly what to do at each step.

Start zoomed out. Identify which stage of the journey you're mapping (e.g., "Consideration stage"). Then zoom in and document every step, every decision point, every trigger.

The test: Could you hand this to a smart person and have them run a deal without asking you questions? If no—there are still invisible steps.

What Happens Next

You now have:

• Every step documented
• Decision points identified
• Tribal knowledge made explicit
• Repeatable vs. unique separated

Next week: We take those repeatable patterns and build your lead qualification framework—the first system you'll automate.

The progression: Document → Framework → Automate.

You're on step 1. Most founders skip to step 3 and wonder why automation fails.

In Elite Founders, we do this process mapping in live sessions—walking through your recent deals together to surface what's invisible. Most founders discover 30-40 steps they never articulated. That's where the systematization opportunities hide.

We're working with our January Elite Founders cohort on exactly this—mapping invisible processes across sales, operations, and customer success. Results coming soon.

Reply "Elite Founders" to map your invisible process before trying to systematize it.

Next week: "The Lead Qualification Framework (Stop Chasing Bad Fits)" - You spent 4 hours researching a prospect. 3 calls. 2 proposals. They chose a competitor at half your price. You never had a chance. Here's how to know that in 5 minutes instead of 4 weeks.

Here’s what we’ve been writing about

How to Know If Your ICP Is Too Broad - Read Article​

CRM Automation for Non-Technical Founders - Read Article​

Empowering Your Quest: How We Help

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Thank you again for signing up for this newsletter and the Founder Membership. I look forward to embarking on this exciting journey with you! ​ Alessandro Marianantoni Founder/Director at M Studio ​Check some of my recent LinkedIn posts on Startups, Investors, etc​

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