Almost all salespeople agree that the shorter the selling cycle, the better. Why?
Long selling cycles have two negative consequences:
- You’re less likely to be prospecting for new clients while working on an existing opportunity. Consequently, your pipeline thins out. And if the deal you’re working on falls apart, you have fewer opportunities on which to fall back.
- The longer you work on an opportunity, the more emotionally tied to it you become and the more likely you are to make concessions (which typically eat into profits and your commission).
The reasons for long selling cycles
For some salespeople, the amount of time it takes to secure an initial appointment with a prospect is excessive. For others, the amount of time spent defining and developing the opportunity is extreme. And for many, it’s the amount of time it takes to secure a decision after submitting a proposal or making a presentation that stretches the selling cycle beyond reasonable limits. (Can you relate?)
Five specific strategies to shorten your selling cycle
Don’t start the cycle unless there is a compelling reason to do so. The initial contact with a prospect should focus on uncovering the prospect’s “pain” – a current or impending need or desire that can be fulfilled by your product or service. If your prospect doesn’t have a real compelling reason to buy your product or service they are not a real prospect.
Call at the top. A big waste of time for many salespeople is focusing too low in an organization – on people who neither have final buying authority nor play a significant role in the decision process. It’s imperative that you quickly determine who controls the corporate coffers and makes buying decisions and make contact with them before you begin to craft solutions.
Deal with potential roadblocks early in the process. If your experiences suggest that for your particular type of sale there are likely to be roadblocks to concluding the sale, bring them up as early as practical. The sooner you uncover and deal with it, the better. If the roadblock can be removed, continue the selling process. If not, then end the process and re-direct your efforts.
Disqualify opportunities as soon as possible. Be as diligent qualifying prospects’ eligibility to become customers as they are qualifying you to become a product supplier or service provider. Have they explicitly expressed the need or desire to obtain your product or service? Are they in a position to invest the resources required to obtain it? Will they be able to make a buying decision in a timely manner based on criteria to which you have both agreed? Do their delivery and implementation schedule requirements fall within the range of your capabilities? If the prospect doesn’t measure up to your benchmarks, discontinue the process and find a prospect that does.
Obtain firm commitments. To keep the selling process moving forward, each step in the selling process should lead to the next step in a predictable and mutually agreed to manner. Obtain firm commitments as to the potential outcomes (yes, no or a clear next step) at the time you schedule the meeting. If it is going to be a NO, when do you want to find out, now or three months from now?
If you start with the right people for the right reasons, deal with potential problems in the early stages of the process, rigorously qualify opportunities, and ensure that you and your prospects are on the same page at each stage, you’ll be able to complete the selling process in a shorter period of time, which in turn means more sales – and more commissions.