Don’t worry, you are not alone on this one. It is a challenge we all face.
A common problem in a B2B sales environment is the long sales cycle. And this is getting worse. The greater the competition, the more complicated the client’s world becomes, the more the alternatives for a client are, the more complex decision making processes gets, and the more educated all clients become (this could have adverse results but it does not), the longer the sales cycle gets.
When does a sales cycle actually begins? According to most, it starts in the phase leads are converted into prospects and when you start working with them. They are not necessarily a hot opportunity yet, but you see signs that a deal might be there.
In B2B sales, you can easily see sales cycles reaching from 3 to 6 months for a light SaaS platform sale, to 4 to 9 months for semi big deals, reaching 9 months even 24 months for big ticket enterprise sales.
As a company, when you are in the start of your growth face, or even before when you try to onboard the first clients, waiting half a year or a year to sign a contract when your lead generation alone may take another few months to produce good leads, is not efficient and productive.
You cannot risk waiting too long. Can you reduce the sales cycle?
You should try reducing the sales cycle. The question is HOW.
Think about the different stages of the sales cycle and try to find ways to speed up the process in each one by reducing them or making them more efficient.
For this particular exercise, we should look the sales cycle starting from the lead generation phase and not from the prospecting one, and curry on the exercise until the contract is signed.
To reduce the sales cycle, you need to reduce the time the client decides to buy from you. The below are some ideas that can be adopted:
- While still in the lead phase, it is good that you educate your clients so that they know about you and your value proposition even before your first meeting. Imagine someone that speaks to you for the first time and knows exactly the value they will get if they become your client. How much time this could save you in your sales process.
- Reduce the number of meetings you conduct while working in an opportunity. Try to do an exploratory call, a demo and a feedback session in one meeting if possible.
- Try to engage from the beginning the right stakeholders from the company.
- Make sure there is a timeframe set and known from the beginning.
- Make also sure from the beginning there is a budget in place.
- Ask about the formal decision and onboarding process.
- Do things in parallel, for example draft your contract and send it to the client even before he asks for it.
- Arrange for your client to speak to a reference client from the beginning of the discussions.
In general, one can think of the various stages and the actions that take place in each of the stages in a sales cycle. Try to move some of the actions in the previous stage. If you manage to change the way you conduct prospecting and running an opportunity you will see significant reduction in the sales cycle.
Happy selling.