From chaos to quota: Your 30-day sales operations reset

Introduction

You don't need six months to fix sales operations. You don't need a massive budget. And you definitely don't need to hire a dedicated sales ops person before you start.

What you need is 30 days of focused effort and a clear roadmap.

Most sales operations implementations fail because they're too ambitious. Companies try to fix everything simultaneously—territories, compensation, forecasting, CRM redesign, analytics, automation. Six months later, they've accomplished nothing and everyone's exhausted.

The successful approach? Tackle one high-impact area per week. Build momentum through quick wins. Create a foundation strong enough to scale.

This guide gives you the exact 30-day roadmap to transform sales operations from chaos to predictable, quota-hitting machines. No theory. No fluff. Just the specific actions you need to take each week, in order, with measurable outcomes.

Let's begin.

Pre-work: The 2-hour audit (do this before day 1)

Before you start the 30-day sprint, spend two hours documenting your current state. This creates your baseline and helps you measure improvement.

Spend 30 minutes on each:

1. Current state snapshot

• How many sales reps do you have?
• What's your average deal size?
• What's your typical sales cycle length?
• How many deals do you close per month?
• What's your monthly/quarterly quota?

2. CRM data quality check

Export 100 random contacts and companies. Calculate:

• Completeness: What % have all required fields filled? (Target: 80%+)
• Duplicates: How many duplicate records exist? (Target: <5%)
• Accuracy: Spot-check 20 records—are they current? (Target: 90%+)

Document your baseline. Most companies start at 40-60% completeness with 15-20% duplicates.

3. Process mapping

Sketch your current lead-to-close flow on a whiteboard:

• Where do leads come from? (inbound, outbound, referral, partner)
• What stages do deals go through?
• Who's involved at each stage?
• Where do deals typically get stuck?

Take a photo. You'll reference this throughout the 30 days.

4. Tool inventory

List every revenue-related tool you use:

• CRM platform
• Email/calendar tools
• Proposal software
• Communication tools (Slack, Teams)
• Any other sales tools

Note monthly cost and who actually uses each tool. This reveals where you're wasting money and where integrations could save time.

Week 1: Fix your forecast

Week goal: Move from ±30% forecast variance to ±15% through standardised stages and probability weighting.

Time required: 10-12 hours across the week

What you'll achieve: Forecast accuracy improves from ±30% to ±20% immediately, reaching ±15% within 60 days as the team adopts new methodology.

Define your sales stages

Create 5-7 stages maximum. More than that creates confusion.

Standard B2B stages:

• Qualification: Budget confirmed, pain identified, timeline set
• Discovery: Deep needs analysis, stakeholders mapped
• Proposal: Solution presented, pricing shared
• Negotiation: Contract terms being finalised
• Closed-won: Signed contract, payment scheduled
• Closed-lost: Deal lost, reason documented

For each stage, document:

• Entry criteria: What must be true to enter this stage? (e.g., "Qualification requires confirmed budget of £X+ and decision timeline within 6 months")
• Exit criteria: What moves a deal to the next stage? (e.g., "Proposal stage requires formal proposal sent and follow-up meeting scheduled")
• Typical duration: How long do deals normally spend here? (Calculate from historical data)
• Required activities: What must happen in this stage? (e.g., "Discovery requires security call and technical evaluation")

Implementation: Update your CRM with new stage definitions. Share a one-page guide with the entire sales team.

Calculate probability weighting

Pull your last six months of closed deals. For each stage, calculate the historical win rate.

Formula: (Deals that progressed to next stage ÷ Total deals in that stage) × 100

Example calculation:

• 100 deals entered Qualification
• 50 progressed to Discovery
• Qualification → Discovery conversion: 50%
• Therefore, Qualification probability weight: 50%

Continue this for every stage. Your data might show:

• Qualification: 20%
• Discovery: 35%
• Proposal: 50%
• Negotiation: 70%
• Closed-won: 100%

Implementation: Update CRM probability fields with your historical data. Now weighted pipeline = sum of (deal value × stage probability).

Build your forecast dashboard

Create three views in your CRM:

View 1: Weighted pipeline

• Total pipeline value by stage
• Weighted pipeline (applying probabilities)
• Pipeline coverage ratio (weighted pipeline ÷ quota)
• Target: 3-4x coverage for healthy pipeline

View 2: Forecast categories

• Commit: Deals you're confident will close this period (typically Negotiation stage or later)
• Best case: Deals that could close if everything goes right
• Pipeline: Everything else

View 3: Accuracy tracking

• Commit forecast from start of period
• Actual closed at end of period
• Variance percentage
• Track weekly to identify patterns

Week 2: Automate the grunt work

Week goal: Eliminate 8-10 hours per week per rep of manual work through automation.

Time required: 10-15 hours across the week

What you'll achieve: Sales reps save 8-10 hours/week on manual follow-up, routing, and task creation. Time to contact new leads drops from 24 hours to 1-2 hours.

Set up lead routing automation

Stop manually assigning leads. Build automatic routing based on clear rules.

Define territories

Choose your segmentation:

• Geographic (UK North, UK South, London, Scotland)
• Company size (SMB: <£10M, Mid-market: £10-50M, Enterprise: £50M+)
• Vertical (Financial services, Technology, Professional services)

Build routing rules in CRM

Example HubSpot workflow:

• IF company location = "London" AND company revenue > £50M THEN assign to: Enterprise AE - London
• IF company location = "UK" (not London) AND company revenue < £10M THEN assign to: SMB AE - rotate round-robin

Add speed-to-lead alerts

When lead converts:

• Send Slack notification to assigned rep
• Create task: "Contact within 2 hours"
• Send email reminder if not contacted in 4 hours

Implementation: Test with 10 test leads before going live. Fix any routing errors. Enable for all inbound leads.

Implement task automation

Automate the boring repetitive stuff:

Stage change triggers:

• Deal enters Proposal → Create task: "Follow up on proposal in 3 days"
• Deal enters Negotiation → Create task: "Send contract within 24 hours"
• Deal sits in any stage 14+ days → Create task: "Review stalled deal"

Time-based reminders:

• Close date in 7 days + still in early stage → Alert manager
• No activity on deal in 10 days → Email reminder to rep
• Renewal date in 60 days → Create renewal task

Meeting follow-ups:

• After demo meeting → Auto-create task: "Send follow-up email with recording"
• After discovery → Auto-create task: "Send proposal by [date discussed]"

Implementation: Start with 3-5 automations. Add more as the team adopts.

Create email sequences for common scenarios

Build automated follow-up for situations reps commonly forget:

Sequence 1: No-show meeting (3 emails over 7 days)

• Email immediately: "Sorry we missed you—here's a link to reschedule"
• Day 3: "Still interested? Here's what we would have covered"
• Day 7: "Last attempt—let me know if timing isn't right"

Sequence 2: Not now but interested (5 emails over 60 days)

• Day 0: "Thanks for the conversation—here's a helpful resource"
• Day 14: "Quick check-in + case study relevant to your situation"
• Day 30: "New feature announcement that solves [pain point]"
• Day 45: "Quarterly check-in—anything changed?"
• Day 60: "Final check-in—should I close your file?"

Sequence 3: Closed-lost re-engagement (3 emails over 90 days)

• Day 30: "How's it going with [competitor]?"
• Day 60: "New case study—company like yours achieved [result]"
• Day 90: "Quick check-in—open to a brief call?"

Implementation: Build templates, test with 5 prospects, then enable appropriate scenarios.

Week 3: Build visibility with dashboards

Week goal: Replace gut-feel and spreadsheets with real-time data everyone can access.

Time required: 8-10 hours across the week

What you'll achieve: Leadership has real-time visibility into pipeline health. Reps know exactly where they stand. Data-driven decisions replace gut-feel.

Build three core dashboards

Dashboard 1: Pipeline visibility

Build a dashboard showing:

• Pipeline by stage: Bar chart showing deal value in each stage
• Pipeline by source: How much pipeline from inbound vs outbound vs referral?
• Pipeline by rep: Who's creating the pipeline? Who's closing?
• Pipeline coverage: Weighted pipeline ÷ quota (target: 3-4x)
• Stage velocity: Average days in each stage

Share with the entire sales team. Update automatically, not manually.

Dashboard 2: Rep performance

Build a dashboard showing:

• Quota attainment: Actual closed ÷ quota by rep
• Pipeline created this month: New opportunities by rep
• Activities: Calls, meetings, emails by rep (target: 50+ activities/week)
• Win rate: Closed-won ÷ total opportunities by rep
• Average deal size: Bigger deals = fewer needed to hit quota

Use for weekly 1-on-1s. Identify who needs coaching, who needs more pipeline, who's on track.

Dashboard 3: Forecast accuracy

Build a dashboard showing:

• Commit vs actual: Chart showing weekly commit forecast vs actual closed
• Variance percentage: How far off was the forecast? (target: <15%)
• Win rate by stage: Validate your probability assumptions
• Conversion rates: Lead → Opportunity, Opportunity → Closed

Review in weekly forecast meetings. Adjust probabilities if actual data diverges.

Establish weekly review process

Create a consistent rhythm:

Weekly pipeline review (30 minutes, every Monday):

• Review commit forecast for this quarter
• Identify at-risk deals (close date approaching, no activity, stuck in stage)
• Celebrate wins from last week
• Assign action items (who needs to do what by when)

Monthly metrics review (60 minutes, first Monday of month):

• Review dashboard metrics vs targets
• Win/loss analysis: Why did we win? Why did we lose?
• Territory analysis: Any imbalances? Adjustment needed?
• Process improvements: What should we change?

Implementation: Schedule recurring meetings. Share dashboard links in calendar invite. Take notes in CRM.

Week 4: Document and scale

Week goal: Create repeatable processes anyone can follow, even new hires.

Time required: 10-12 hours across the week

What you'll achieve: Repeatable process anyone can follow. New hires ramp 50% faster. Consistency across the team improves.

Create your sales playbook

Page 1: Process overview

One-page visual showing:

• Lead sources → Qualification → Discovery → Proposal → Negotiation → Closed
• Who's involved at each stage
• Typical timeframes
• Success metrics

Page 2-6: Stage-by-stage guide

For each stage, document:

Qualification stage example:

• Objective: Confirm this is a real opportunity worth pursuing
• Entry criteria: Lead responded to outreach, expressed interest
• Key questions to ask:
  • "What budget have you allocated for solving this problem?"
  • "What happens if you don't solve this in the next 6 months?"
  • "Who else is involved in this decision?"
• Exit criteria: Budget confirmed (£X+), pain validated, timeline <6 months, decision process understood
• Common mistakes: Assuming budget, moving too fast, not identifying all stakeholders

Repeat for Discovery, Proposal, Negotiation stages.

Page 7: Qualification framework

Choose and document your framework (BANT, MEDDIC, or custom):

BANT example:

• Budget: £X+ confirmed and allocated
• Authority: Identified economic buyer and influencers
• Need: Validated pain that costs them £Y or prevents £Z gain
• Timeline: Decision timeline within 90 days

Document when to disqualify. Not every lead deserves your time.

Document your territories

Create definitive record:

Territory map:

• List each rep's territory (geography, size, vertical)
• Example: "Jane Smith owns: London, companies £10-50M ARR, all verticals"

Account assignment rules:

• New inbound lead → Route based on company location + size
• Existing account expansion → Stays with current owner
• Strategic account reassignment → Requires VP Sales approval

Conflict resolution:

• Document edge cases and how they were resolved
• Example: "London-based company buying for entire EU region → Assigned to Enterprise team, not London team"

Implementation: Share documents with the entire team. Pin in Slack. Reference during onboarding.

Run team training session

Host 60-minute team training:

Agenda:

• New forecast methodology (15 mins): How stages and probabilities work, why it matters
• Automation overview (10 mins): What's automated now, how it helps reps
• Dashboard walkthrough (15 mins): Where to find pipeline/performance data
• Playbook introduction (15 mins): How to use stage-by-stage guide
• Q&A (5 mins): Address concerns, collect feedback

Follow-up:

• Send recording to everyone
• Share playbook in shared drive
• Schedule 30-min 1-on-1s with each rep for questions
• Monitor adoption over next 2 weeks