Have a Long Sales Cycle? Here’s How You Shorten It
If you’ve discovered that your sales cycle is drawn out over many weeks and months, but you’re not sure what can be done to speed up the process, you’re not alone.
There are some highly effective strategies that you can use to shorten the sales cycle in your B2B business.
With strategic planning and taking a personalized approach in their marketing efforts, B2B companies can optimize their sales pipeline for a quick progression from first contact to closed sale.
The Importance of Getting to Know all Decision Makers
As a B2B company, you’ll need to make an effort to get to know each person who is involved in a particular company’s decision making process involving purchases and budget allocation.
It’s not uncommon for one person within the company to branch out and do research on products and services that will benefit the company’s growth. And the role of each person within the company is vastly different. This means that you can expect each person to have a different value proposition.
For example, although they operate as part of the same company, the CEO has different goals than the CFO. Different challenges. Different views. Different pain points.
So, one may say, “Yes,” while the other says, “No.” But by becoming familiar with each person’s challenges, you’ll need to tailor your content in a way that speaks more strongly to each person’s pain point (and objections). Especially since selling one person doesn’t mean you make the sale if you haven’t convinced the rest of the team.
The more personal your content is, the more compelling it will be. Your goal is to get every one of the decision makers on board with the purchase, as opposed to closing the sale around just one person who doesn’t have the final say.
Tips for Shortening the Sales Cycle:
- Don’t sell based on logic, but rather sell by engaging the buyer’s emotions first.
Highlight the benefits of your product or service and address it in ways it will play into solving the problem for that person.
2. Each person will not convert the same way or at the same time.
So, create different channels for them to convert. Think beyond basic email subscription forms. How can they get information visibly, audibly, conveniently, and faster — with less hassle?
Similarly, each person receives information in a way that is different from the next person. Think about other channels of communication that can play into distributing information to your prospects. Some of these could include: social media, blogs, form fills, videos, or chat.
3. Tailor each piece of content to speak to the pain point of each person during the buyer’s journey process.
By implementing these strategies, you can greatly reduce the run around time it would take a staff member to gather information on a company and report back to the other decision makers.
And, by utilizing communication channels that appeal to each person’s preferred way of learning, you can shorten what would otherwise be a potentially long sales cycle.
