Approximately 44% of small businesses have less than three months of cash reserves, so they no longer have the luxury of being indifferent about how long their sales processes take. When the sales cycles for larger orders start to stretch on too long, it can put immense pressure on the cash flow of your business. There can be a notable effect on the motivation of sales reps, too, as they struggle to see the results of their labor.
A shorter sales cycle is, in almost every situation, worth striving for. It allows you to see revenue faster and continue to grow by closing more deals. Sales teams will feel more dynamic and be able to take pride in their work. There’s far less tension in the company when there’s less time spent worrying about whether or not a deal will come to fruition.
If you want to shorten your sales cycle, here are five simple methods to try.
A generic demo that you built out for a company in a totally different industry to them, with the screen freezing every five seconds, will not help your cause. They need to be able to see what your product would look like in practice for them if you’re going to gain the confidence to sign the deal.
You can use a product like Walnut to host your demos on the cloud with zero downtime. Walnut puts an end to the presenter’s nightmare of needing to make excuses for the poor performance. It also allows you to rapidly customize the demo, depending on the prospective client, by changing the logos and branding features.
A personalized demo means the client needs less imagination to picture themselves using the product and will result in faster sales cycles.
Hopin’s team found that big-name clients often wanted additional features that weren’t ready yet. Many startups would apologize and try to convince the clients to take them on anyway. This wastes everyone’s time and could force price haircuts. Hopin’s strategy was instead to prioritize their development based on what their potential customers were asking for.
As Hopin’s marketing lead Dave Schools recalls, “We didn’t say no. We said, ‘Yep, we’ll have it well before your event.’ You determine what you can build based on the logo. You can then put that on your website and have a case study and word of mouth.”
Do you want to close the big deal badly enough to commit to this degree of agile product development?
You can speed this process up by using secure cloud-based contract management software such as ContractZen. This means everyone who needs to can access the documents safely and securely.
You can manage the entire process from within the platform, including allowing e-signatures, which is perfect for busy decision-makers. You can add automated reminders too, to ensure nobody misses a deadline for signing.
When discussing terms with a potential client, you can instantly access the contract through smart searching and version control, without needing to embarrassingly filter through your emails. Having documents managed in this way can speed up the process, and the reduction in the potential for human error gives a better impression to the client.
Every moment your sales reps spend chasing a dead deal distracts them from what might be high-value leads. To make your team more efficient, you should automate as much of the process of disqualifying leads as possible.
There are many options available for lead scoring, and you should choose whatever suits your industry the best. These platforms can use algorithms to match the leads against different behavioral, demographic and psychographic criteria to come up with a score. You can then decide to implement a rule that sales reps should only talk to leads who have scored more than your chosen benchmark.
This frees up time significantly and means sales reps can spend more energy in closing the leads which are most likely to convert. This extra attention will speed up the process and bring valuable revenue to your business.
Even the best salespeople can sometimes get mixed up between different buyer’s committee members or fail to pass on crucial information to their teammates.
This is why you should create a deal-relationship map. You plot out all of the key stakeholders on the client-side and how much power they hold for the decision. It means everyone involved in the sales process can see at a glance where they should focus their efforts for the best chance of success. It can be the basis of sales meetings where the team can strategize together on what the next steps should be.
You can use Lucidchart’s “account mapping” templates to accomplish this in a simple way, where anyone in the team can view and edit. It can result in less time wasted by talking to the wrong people, which speeds up the overall process.
A slick process using proper document management and cloud-based demos can be a winning combination to get those first customers on board. When a business is winning big deals regularly, it’s able to pursue its mission and focus on delivering for customers. This creates a virtuous circle as happy customers make future big deals even easier. The end result is a healthy and profitable company.
A shorter sales cycle is, in almost every situation, worth striving for. It allows you to see revenue faster and continue to grow by closing more deals. Sales teams will feel more dynamic and be able to take pride in their work. There’s far less tension in the company when there’s less time spent worrying about whether or not a deal will come to fruition.
If you want to shorten your sales cycle, here are five simple methods to try.
Upgrade your demos
Most clients are used to potential suppliers promising them the moon, so it’s the demo that they really pay attention to. They might like the idea of your product, but the decision hinges on whether you can impress them with the demo.A generic demo that you built out for a company in a totally different industry to them, with the screen freezing every five seconds, will not help your cause. They need to be able to see what your product would look like in practice for them if you’re going to gain the confidence to sign the deal.
You can use a product like Walnut to host your demos on the cloud with zero downtime. Walnut puts an end to the presenter’s nightmare of needing to make excuses for the poor performance. It also allows you to rapidly customize the demo, depending on the prospective client, by changing the logos and branding features.
A personalized demo means the client needs less imagination to picture themselves using the product and will result in faster sales cycles.
Prioritize development for big logos
When looking at tactics to close big deals, it makes sense to look at the startups which have grown their client base rapidly in a short period of time. Hopin, the virtual events platform, is now the fastest-growing European startup ever. Founded in 2019, the company can already name The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and TechCrunch as clients.Hopin’s team found that big-name clients often wanted additional features that weren’t ready yet. Many startups would apologize and try to convince the clients to take them on anyway. This wastes everyone’s time and could force price haircuts. Hopin’s strategy was instead to prioritize their development based on what their potential customers were asking for.
As Hopin’s marketing lead Dave Schools recalls, “We didn’t say no. We said, ‘Yep, we’ll have it well before your event.’ You determine what you can build based on the logo. You can then put that on your website and have a case study and word of mouth.”
Do you want to close the big deal badly enough to commit to this degree of agile product development?
Make deal documentation easily available
Contract negotiations can be long and painful for big sales agreements, with many people needing to read each version. It can be easy for a key stakeholder to be reading an outdated version that holds up the entire process.You can speed this process up by using secure cloud-based contract management software such as ContractZen. This means everyone who needs to can access the documents safely and securely.
You can manage the entire process from within the platform, including allowing e-signatures, which is perfect for busy decision-makers. You can add automated reminders too, to ensure nobody misses a deadline for signing.
When discussing terms with a potential client, you can instantly access the contract through smart searching and version control, without needing to embarrassingly filter through your emails. Having documents managed in this way can speed up the process, and the reduction in the potential for human error gives a better impression to the client.
Disqualify leads ruthlessly
It’s an unfortunate reality that many leads end up being dead ends, and any sales rep can attest to the frustration this can cause. Chasing low-quality leads and repeatedly being ghosted saps the morale of the team and wastes their time.Every moment your sales reps spend chasing a dead deal distracts them from what might be high-value leads. To make your team more efficient, you should automate as much of the process of disqualifying leads as possible.
There are many options available for lead scoring, and you should choose whatever suits your industry the best. These platforms can use algorithms to match the leads against different behavioral, demographic and psychographic criteria to come up with a score. You can then decide to implement a rule that sales reps should only talk to leads who have scored more than your chosen benchmark.
This frees up time significantly and means sales reps can spend more energy in closing the leads which are most likely to convert. This extra attention will speed up the process and bring valuable revenue to your business.
Create a deal-relationship map
No matter what you’re selling, there will always be a person or people on the other side whom you need to convince. For an accelerated sales cycle, it’s crucial to understand these decision-makers and what their opinions are.Even the best salespeople can sometimes get mixed up between different buyer’s committee members or fail to pass on crucial information to their teammates.
This is why you should create a deal-relationship map. You plot out all of the key stakeholders on the client-side and how much power they hold for the decision. It means everyone involved in the sales process can see at a glance where they should focus their efforts for the best chance of success. It can be the basis of sales meetings where the team can strategize together on what the next steps should be.
You can use Lucidchart’s “account mapping” templates to accomplish this in a simple way, where anyone in the team can view and edit. It can result in less time wasted by talking to the wrong people, which speeds up the overall process.
Final thoughts
Sales can be a high-stress environment for many, but shortening the sales cycle can create a much better atmosphere.A slick process using proper document management and cloud-based demos can be a winning combination to get those first customers on board. When a business is winning big deals regularly, it’s able to pursue its mission and focus on delivering for customers. This creates a virtuous circle as happy customers make future big deals even easier. The end result is a healthy and profitable company.