Free Template:
Easy Fix to Shorten
Your Sales Cycle
Table of Content
Introduction
Selling a product is never as straightforward as it seems. A sale is dependent on both the seller and buyer agreeing on terms favorable to each. Unless both can negotiate to an agreeable amount and walk away with a fair share, the chances of closing a sale is low.
The sales funnel consists of several stages, starting with awareness of the product and creating an interest in the same. Depending on the urgency or utility of the demand, they then consider whether or not they need to buy the product. The sales funnel ends with an evaluation of the product, and its subsequent purchase by the buyer.
A buyer undergoes this entire sales cycle before making a purchase. Now the process might seem lengthy; however, there are fixes to cut it short. Well, more of hacks. We have summarized seven of the most effective versions to ensure that your sales cycle become short.
To learn more, keep scrolling down.
What is a Sales Cycle?
Depending on how well your business is doing and the length of the ‘sales cycle,’ audiences can evoke different reactions.
Shorter marketing and sales cycles benefit businesses immensely. They help cultivate and nurture more leads, generate more revenue, and close more deals in lesser time.
This not only saves money and time; but redirecting the same to scout new leads can again boost revenue. Shorter sales cycles also give customers less time to rethink their decisions. This ensures that fewer deals fall apart at the last minute.
Shorter sales cycles also help establish a constant momentum within businesses. This allows salespeople to stay focused on the job while giving them regular targets to meet. They also force organizations to remain innovative and on top of the competition by constant revision of goals and objectives. This gives customers a more fabulous pool of options to choose from.
But it’s all easier said than done.
The duration of a sales cycle isn’t always dependent on the salesperson. More often than not, sales cycles depend on market conditions and buyer behavior as much as it does in the sales department. There is also no one-size-fits-all solution to decrease sales cycle time, as it depends on the business. This adds a constant sense of uncertainty about the future.
There isn’t a single sales manager in the world who doesn’t want shorter sales cycles. But the real question here is- are the efforts of the sales people directed in the right direction?
There are plenty of things that sales departments can do to boost sales cycles.
This article lists out seven strategies to shorten your business’s sales cycle. It also offers FREE TEMPLATE that you could use in devising your own sales strategy.
Whether you are a start-up or an ambitiously growing company, our templates will help you better understand best practices to help shorten your B2B sales cycle.
But let’s get on with understanding these hacks better!
7 Ways to Speed up Your Sales Cycle
1. Communicate Efficiently
When you get a lead, respond immediately. If your audience has a problem, respond quickly. One of the most overlooked aspects of sales is timely communication. Companies that take lesser than an hour to respond to emails are seven times likelier to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers about their products.
This statistic shows just how many customers companies lose every month due to complacency. Reach out to your customers before they reach out to you. Establish your image as that of a responsible person.
2. Automate Regularly
Sales, Marketing Automation, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platforms have been hugely successful at increasing lead counts.
They also save countless hours that would be otherwise spent analyzing data and completing repetitive tasks. By letting platforms automate your campaigns for you, your sales team can focus on actually pursuing and contacting leads.
Automation increases the volume of Qualified Leads by 451%, while also reducing overhead by 12%.
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3. Be Transparent
As tempting as it may seem to mask product deficiencies, pointing them out can be beneficial. Customers appreciate a salesman who is upfront and honest when selling a product/service.
If there are any expenses you know they aren’t expecting, let them know in advance. Nobody likes last minute inconveniences. Letting them know that you genuinely want them to have a pleasant experience with you can go a long way.
A relationship founded on trust is more organic and brings more benefits than a horde of not-so-loyal ones. This also ensures that deals don’t fall apart due to unexpected objections in the 11th hour. It also means that you can filter out deals that have a low chance of occurring, early on in the sales cycle.
4. Use your contacts
Leverage your social circles, and try recommending your product to leads through former or current co-workers, friends, or acquaintances.
Promoting your product through social contact is more effective than cold-calling or sending too many emails.Click to tweet
Your contact’s recommendation lends credence to you and your product/service, increasing the chances of a quicker sale. In case, your customer likes your product/service; you can ask them to endorse or recommend it to their contacts and get new leads as a result. This also shortens the sales cycle for you don’t have to wait for customers to respond.
These people are already interested in your business and know much about it. Therefore, the process for making a sale reduces by half.
5. Train Your Salesman
Equipped with the power to find their information, the modern customer has taken on a different role. Hence, it is necessary for salespeople to adapt accordingly. Research has also shown that many sales teams are guilty of inefficiency.
These are worrying statistics from iMarketingProfs point out exactly why sales cycles take longer. Salespeople need training that will allow them to achieve and report targets more frequently. This will put the onus on them to update their own goals. This can help you further shorten your sales cycles.
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6. Prioritize Customer Experience
Digital marketing places emphasis on buyers’ journey and optimal customer experience. Sending regular and personally tailored automated messages to your customers allows them to feel more valued.
This helps increase engagement with them significantly. The sales department also need to put less effort as these messages target the audiences, giving them precisely what they are looking for. You can save time and money and invest it in speeding the sales process further.
7. Don’t rush it
There is nothing more off-putting to a client than a desperate salesperson. While this may sound counterproductive to the article, rushing a sale makes the customer suspicious and less likely to buy from you.
It is necessary to acknowledge and respect the fact that some clients will take their time to make a decision. Sometimes, it’s just best to wait it out.
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Conclusion
A faster sales cycle is difficult to achieve, but by no means is it impossible.
Numbers don’t lie, and they place much of the blame on human error. Salespeople and companies alike have been guilty of being too complacent about their sales strategies. Delays in communication and poorly executed sales strategies cost companies millions of dollars in missed opportunities. While the concept of a complete sales process is rare, minimizing error could help companies speed up the cycle.
So, keep the tips mentioned above in mind and speed-up the sales process.Always remember, the faster the sales process, better are your chances to increase revenue.Click to tweet
Do you think we missed out any other hacks to double-up the process? Leave a comment below.
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Joseph Cruz
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