What You Can Learn From the Super Compressed Sales Cycle

Let’s look at three kinds of opportunities that live in your pipeline.

The first are so-called opportunities that seem to clutter up your pipeline forever. These are really prospects at best, and often they’re something less. The second group is made up of serious opportunities that need to be managed through the client’s buying process.

But the final group is perhaps the most interesting. These opportunities zip in fast and very quickly move from target to close. They totally distort the picture of what’s going on in your pipeline. Here’s why they move so quickly.

You’re Way Out In Front

The great advantage that accrues to those that nurture opportunities and build relationships in front of a deal is the speed that opportunities are won once the client decides to buy. When you have done the value creating and relationship building, your dream client has already decided to buy from you even before they have the green light internally.

The long, slow work of nurturing your dream clients over time massively compresses the sales cycle when your dream client does decide to buy whatever it is your sell.

Massive Dissatisfaction

Nothing creates urgency like dissatisfaction. The bigger the client’s problem, the faster they move. And if the problem is expensive or costs them their own clients, you can count on a seriously compressed sales cycle.

When your dream client doesn’t have time to spare, they move through the stages of their buying process like lightning, shortening your sales cycle.

So What About the Slow Movers

What’s interesting about this is what it says about your slow movers.

Is your opportunity moving slowly because your dream client is doing their due diligence and moving methodically—and slowly—through their buying process? Or is it that you haven’t really nurtured the relationships and built value in front of the opportunity?

Is the opportunity moving slow because there really isn’t any dissatisfaction and nothing really compelling your dream client to move? What could you do to make your solution more compelling and build more dissatisfaction?

There are lessons to learn from the super-compressed sales cycle opportunities you win. Can you apply those lessons to the slower moving opportunities in your pipeline?