Shortening the Sales Cycle: Turning Leads into Deals

Dan Blank -- Expert Business Source, 2/15/2007 7:36:00 AM

James Sagar of Marketing M.O. looks at ways to shorten your sales cycle. In a four part series, he explores these solutions:

1. Creating truly qualified leads.
2. Ensuring that your sales materials, messages and processes align to your prospects goals.
3. The bottom line: viewing your value proposition, brand and pricing from the eyes of a potential customer.

To improve your qualified leads, you must do the following:

• Understand which leads are more likely to result in a sale.
  Are you targeting the right clients and organizations? Who has a more dire need for your products and services? Are you speaking to the decision-maker? Are you reaching them at the right time?

James offers a number of ideas to focus your sales message and allow you to target only the most qualified leads, weeding out tire kickers.

To shorten your sales cycle, you should also look at optimizing your internal processes and improving your sales execution. Some common problems that you may be experiencing are:

• Prospects are getting stuck at a specific stage.
• Prospects are moving through your pipeline at a very slow pace.
• Prospects have moved through the process but aren’t closing.

Here are some tips to improve your sales process and selling skills:

• Match your sales process to the prospect’s needs
• Make sure your literature, sales tools and website tie into and support each step.
• Take a hard look at your website and sales tools. 
• Make sure you deliver the strongest materials at the right time. 
• Have your prospects commit to your sales process stages and timeframes upfront.

Find details here. The last part in James’ series should be posted soon.