#Business, #Return On Investment, #Sales Cycle, #Sales Investment, #Sales Training, #Salespeople | Sep 15, 2020
How do you turn people who have never heard of your company into customers who make regular purchases? It’s all about the sales cycle. If you want your business to succeed and your personal goals and ambitions to be met, then you need to understand how the sales cycle works and how you can harness it to your advantage.
The first stage is to accept that every product or service has a sales cycle, and it almost always follows the same path. Some businesses just manage to do it all a little bit faster – and that’s what you’re aiming to follow.
What is the sales cycle?
In essence, it is the collection of steps that allows salespeople to take a lead and turn it into a sale. The cycle generally follows this route: Prospecting – initiate contact – identify needs – present offer – manage objections – close and sale – then you repeat. There are additional steps that you can add to your sales cycle.
Whether you recognize the above or not, you already have a sales cycle. The goal is to try and hone it so that is as efficient as possible. By doing this you can raise more revenue, bring on more salespeople, increase your margins, and grow the business.
The key to an effective sales cycle is to be consistent. Set up your process and make sure that your salespeople follow it. Try to make it transparent so that everyone can see what is working and what is not and create it in such a way that it is easily repeatable. You need to make sales handoffs easier so that changing from one salesperson to another is as seamless as possible.
Try to get better at prioritizing, as knowing when and where to spend most of your time is fundamental to good selling. A better sales cycle means you get a better ROI on your sales investment.
Examples of the sales cycle
According to research by the Sales Management Association, 90% of all companies that use a formal, guided sales process were ranked as the highest performing.
In addition, a study by Harvard Business Review showed that businesses with a standardized sales process see up to a 28% increase in revenue as compared to those that do not.
What these numbers seem to show is that having a structured sales process is good for business. It might be time to try and implement a sales cycle for your business. Outline where it is that you want to get to, and then put steps in place to help you get there.
If you would like some help creating your sales cycle, then get in touch with us here at Sales Academy. We can help you to understand the power of the sales cycle and set up training for staff to get them on board with the process.
Email mike@thesalesacademy.com for more information about creating and implementing your own sales cycle. Success won’t be far behind.
