Shrinking the Sales Cycle

There is nothing worse than long, drawn out sales cycles. Here a three tips on how to shrink your sales cycle that you can implement today:

Target Client Criteria

These criteria are focused on high level information, readily available through public or privately purchased database resources (industry, revenue, # of employees, location(s) etc…).  In addition, data about your current clients can help drive these criteria. This will narrow your list of prospects to a more manageable size initially and will most likely represent more business than you could ever execute.  This pool of companies exists at the top of your sales funnel.

Buyers/Stakeholders

Understanding who you typically sell to or who you will spend your time proactively pursuing is critical to speeding up the sales cycle. The way a CEO looks at the world is different than the way the CFO or Director of Purchasing look at the world.  You need to understand who they are, what their challenges are and how your solution either adds value or is not a fit.  Each step is meant to push a prospect through or out of your pipeline as quickly as possible.

Qualifying Criteria

Once you have an interested prospect, what are the characteristics of a good client for your business?  This information is generally the stuff you can’t find publicly.  You can only find it out through deeper research and talking with your Buyers/Stakeholders.  Examples include: Does their culture fit ours? Do they have budget set aside? Is there or are they willing to set a timeline for a decision and going live? Keep these to a maximum of 10 questions.

If you consistently utilize these “filters” to maintain focus on finding your “best fit” clients, you will speed up your sales cycle significantly.  These should be applied to direct sales activity, networking events, industry trade shows, coffee meetings, board activities – any activity a Sales Professional in your organization is responsible to execute.

As a Sales Professional you will make your quota and you will enjoy your job.

As a Sales Leader your team will have clarity on their roles and you will be able to ask them three simple questions to keep them focused.

Now go sell something!