One of the critical KPIs that we measure is the length of the sales cycle. The length of your sales cycle can have a significant impact on your revenue. Knowing the average length of salespeople’s sales cycle will help you identify inefficiencies by different members in your sales team. If you have a sales rep who is closing in a much shorter timeframe than others, then you may want to look at what they are doing differently.
What is a sales cycle?
Sales cycle refers to the steps a salesperson takes to close a new customer. These steps or stages include prospecting, connecting, researching, presenting and closing.
Prospecting
Includes anything and everything you do to drum up leads, from inbound marketing, referrals to using social media like LinkedIn. You’re looking for leads to qualify and fill your pipeline with prospects that are a good fit for your solution and are in the buying cycle for your solution.
Connecting
As you fill your pipeline with quality prospects, you may start to look for a way to communicate with that person or company. You can try to cold call or email, or if you have a mutual connection, you can ask for an introduction or start to engage with them via social media. Use the connecting stage to establish if the prospect is interested in learning more about your solution.
Researching
If your prospect is interested, then do some research. Find out more about them, the company and then ask for a discovery call to further qualify them. Ask questions about their business, their needs or problems, and whether your solution might be a good fit. At this stage, you might decide that this prospect is not a good fit, so feel free to walk away. If they are a good fit, then you can move to the next stage.
Presenting
Sales presentations are built around a pitch that your sales team uses but tailored to this prospect’s business or needs. Ensure that you have all the key decision-makers in the room and give each one time to ask questions or voice their objections. Ensure your presentation speaks to the prospect rather than rehashing a generic presentation that you use for every prospect.
Closing
After the sales presentation, it’s time to ask for the business. If you have left the presentation with actions to complete, be sure to complete them and then ask for the business. Hopefully, it’s a yes, and you can move ahead with this customer, but if it’s a no there may be more objections that need your attention, or you might need to let this one go.
We understand the demand for quality leads and the need for your team to meet those demands. We are here to help and add value by finding tangible, highly qualified leads where we have secured a date and a time for an appointment. These individuals are in your target audience, at the right decision-making level and have an interest in your solution. Taking away this pressure from your Sales team allows them to focus their time on closing deals and generating revenue.
If you are considering outsourcing your appointment setting, contact us by email info@integrileads.com or phone (+353) 00353 87 3932630. Follow us on LinkedIn for all of our latest updates.
