{"id":1542,"date":"2008-04-30T09:45:31","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T14:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/shortening-the-sales-cycle\/"},"modified":"2008-04-30T09:37:25","modified_gmt":"2008-04-30T14:37:25","slug":"shortening-the-sales-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/shortening-the-sales-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Shortening The Sales Cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salesopedia.com offers a good article this week on a timely topic – How to Shorten Your Sales Cycle<\/a>.\u00a0 The author cuts to the quick on an issue we encounter frequently:<\/p>\n

To begin with, many sales people just don’t know how long their sales cycle is, we ask and we hear things like “depends” (sometime it fits), “it changes” (it always seems longer during Daylight Savings Time), and the all time favorite, “well you know it’s different in our business”. Well it’s not really.<\/p>\n
Underlying this is the fact that many reps and organizations do not know what their sale looks like, they have not deconstructing their sale, identified the basic building blocks to identify and truly understand what it should look like and when efficiencies can be had. One facet of this process is covered in “Working Backwards From Your Goals”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
True.\u00a0 We see this often when we start with a new customer by profiling their sale.\u00a0 It is amazing how few salespeople can define their sales cycle.\u00a0 Clearly it varies to some degree, but I always tell them their guess is better than mine.\u00a0 So how do you fix it?\u00a0 Simple:<\/p>\n
While there are a number of ways to affect the length of the sales cycle, by far the easiest to implement with the highest rate of return, no technology required, is to always secure a next step with your prospects.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This approach really is simple – it just takes a slight bit more effort to accomplish.\u00a0 Many salespeople end a call or meeting with some form of “I’ll call you next week.”\u00a0 That’s it.\u00a0 No clear next step, no future commitment, no clarity.\u00a0 The better approach is to ask this way, “I’ll call you next week.\u00a0 One thing, what topics should I be prepared to discuss?”\u00a0 That short question will do more to qualify an early-stage prospect than any other a salesperson could ask at that point.\u00a0 Yet, most do not use it.<\/p>\n
The author sums up this approach nicely:<\/p>\n
In most instances, a next step does not always have to be quantum leaps, just remember that even a small movement forward gets you that much closer to close. But if you don’t secure a next step, have you advanced at all?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Salesopedia.com offers a good article this week on a timely topic – How to Shorten Your Sales Cycle.\u00a0 The author cuts to the quick on an issue we encounter frequently: To begin with, many sales people just don’t know how long their sales cycle is, we ask and we hear things like “depends” (sometime it fits), “it changes” (it always seems longer during Daylight Savings Time), and the all time favorite, “well you know it’s different in our business”. Well it’s not really. Underlying this is the fact that many reps and organizations do not know what their sale looks like, they have not deconstructing their sale, identified the basic… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[601,212,602,600,358,142,34,603],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-oS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}