How To Compress the Sales Cycle

Trying to go fast can slow down an opportunity. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to compress the sales cycle. You do want to produce the results your prospective client wants faster, so they receive the benefits now. You also want to book the revenue for your company now, too.

Achieve all of the outcomes necessary at each stage. In the discovery stage, gain all of the information, access, and commitments you need to successfully move the opportunity forward. To ensure you gain all the commitments you need, you need to know what your sales process requires of you. You’ll also need to plan your sales calls.

Time is lost by doing in three meetings what might be done in one. If discovery takes more meetings, then booking those meetings one after the other speeds things up. You lose time by failing to ask for an obtain the commitments you need.

Present when you are certain your proposal has the support and is something to which your prospective client can say “yes” to. Deals move faster when you do the work to dial in your proposal to meet the needs of the stakeholders who determine whether or not to move forward with you and your solution.

You lose time by presenting a solution that isn’t right, or by ignoring the needs of some stakeholders. When you do the work of tailoring the proposal before presenting, you make it easy for your prospect to move forward with your solution.

Map out the rest of the process with your prospect. By asking for a verbal commitment and gaining the commitments for meeting to resolve your prospect’s concerns and fears, you help them make a decision faster and with greater confidence.

You create a lot of slack in the time it takes to win a deal by failing to gain agreement on the next steps you and your dream client will need to take together after your proposal. You also add time by not asking for a verbal commitment and by leaving your prospect to resolve their fears and assess their risks on their own.

To win deals faster, do better work at every stage of your sales process. Plan your calls. Know your outcomes. Earn the right to ask for the commitment to move forward at every stage.