Automation in sales and marketing is about improving the ability to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time via the right channel.

Automation or repetition of more generic, higher volume tasks is more likely at the early stages of engagement and lead nurture and then post sale around delivery. More personal, higher value (and higher cost) sales tasks and activities can then be undertaken with qualified leads to close the sale.

The first challenge facing most companies is that processes are often not well defined. In sales, often large portions of the sales cycle are not defined at all. Put five salespeople from the same company selling the same goods to the same market into a room and within 15 minutes you will hear ten different sales processes described. Business Process Management typically hasn't penetrated every corner of the business, and the sales department tends to be the last wilderness to tame. There has also been a lack of useful tools to implement BPM automation within the dynamic world of solution sales.

With the tool set problem address; you can now get to the work of defining the processes.  For each solution sold into each market, create a methodical list of major and minor steps to effectively qualify leads and then the steps to provide the highest probablity of closing those qualified leads.  At the end of the sales cycle you should stand alone as the only choice.  If not, go back and tighten up the qualifying phaes. 

I've been a salesman in a company which did a very good job of defining both marketing communications and the sales process. It was much easier to manage the business than at any of my previous employers. Just defining and executing the processes, using Customer Centric Selling, for example, really turned the company around because we could cookie cut a lot of the activities after creating them and we could use history to predict the future much better than our competition and make necessary changes far enough in advance to get back on track.