Thoughtful Thursdays – Is your sales cycle too long?
I believe all sales professionals would like to shorten their typical sales cycle. Imagine achieving an incremental close increase within the same measurable time span. What would that do for your bottom line?
Today’s thought is about ways to shorten your sales cycle.
Before we get into the subject, be mindful that there are some things that take time. For example, there are standard engineering tests that take 100o hours to complete. Some tests can be accelerated, but the results may not be as reliable as full term testing. The point is that there are some things that are not in our control.
When looking to improve any process, it is important to map it and establish a benchmark to measure future results against. Review your sales process, identify the steps and the average effort and duration for each step. If this sounds like an operations assignment, you are right. The process you are attempting to detail is the sales process.
Look for steps that:
- Require the most effort and duration
- Contain words that begin with the letters “re”, such as review, return, re-work and repeat
These may be where the greatest gains can be made. Work on the steps that you have control over or can influence.
Remember that the eventual improvement of your sales cycle will be the benefit of improved execution, not skipping or short-cutting the steps.
A saving of 2% of your time, does not sound like much, but over a year that equates to approximately one working week. Imagine what you might do with another five days to get things done.
Good selling,
Richard
Have a question about sales? Contact me and I will respond.
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