6 Tactics That Will Shorten Your Sales Cycle

A streamlined sales cycle can directly impact your company’s bottom line. Learn what steps you can take to have a more efficient and shorter sales cycle.

Sales cycles vary in length for different businesses, but there are a few tactics that all sales reps can use to shorten the sales cycle and accelerate their sales process. This blog post will discuss seven of the most effective ways to help you close more deals in less time!

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1. Identify the right target audience

When your sales team is trying to shorten the sales cycle, one of the most important things you can do is make sure you’re selling to the right people. Trying to sell to customers who aren’t interested in your product or services is a wasted effort and will only result in a long sales cycle, so eliminate cold leads now. Do your research and target prospects that are more likely to be interested in what you’re selling.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when trying to identify your buyer personas:

• Who is my ideal customer?
• What needs or pain points do they have?
• What are their purchase behaviors?
• What’s the best way to communicate with them?

Leverage a few of these industry tools to make the process of identifying your target audience easier:

• Lookalike Audiences on Facebook
• Google Analytics
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• CRM platform

2. Be transparent about pricing

Once you’ve identified your target audience, the next step is to be transparent about pricing. Many times, sales cycles are lengthened because decision makers feel like they’re being left in the dark about pricing. That’s why it’s always a good idea for salespeople to be upfront with companies about what they can expect to pay for your product or service. This will help you close the sale in less time by getting rid of any budgeting surprises later on.

Here are the top benefits of making transparency a company priority:

• Pricing transparency builds trust
• Pricing transparency weeds out unqualified leads
• Price transparency emphasizes value proposition

To ensure that you’re being transparent about pricing, consider implementing the following tactics:

• Include pricing on your website
• Be clear about what’s included in your services
• Create pricing tiers
• Publish case studies or testimonials
• Use a pricing calculator
• Offer free trials or demos through email
• Invite pricing questions from buyers at the end of the sales pitch

3. Use social proof

One way to drive a shorter sales cycle is by using social proof. Social proof is the idea that people are more likely to buy things if they see that other people have already bought them.

Here are a few different examples of how marketing teams in any organization can use social proof to close deals:

• Publish customer testimonials on your website
• Include customer logos
• Incorporate user-generated content into your platform
• Share milestones with key clients
• Build a team of brand ambassadors

4. Create a personalized experience

Another tactic you can use to shorten your sales cycle is by creating a personalized experience for your buyers. In today’s age of big data, there are more opportunities than ever before to collect and use data to create a truly personalized customer experience.

Some ways you can personalize the buyer’s journey throughout the sales funnel include:

• Sending personalized emails
• Creating targeted landing pages
• Creating educational content for each stage of the buyer’s journey
• Using data to segment your target market
• Custom branded gift boxes and corporate gifting

The goal is to make your buyers feel like you understand them as an individual and that you’re offering a solution that is tailored to their specific needs. When you implement an intentional personalized marketing strategy, you can shave weeks off your sales cycle by building trust and rapport with your clients from day one. Direct mail is a leading solution in this space.

Building authentic connections is difficult in a time when more people than ever are working remotely and are lost in a sea of screens. Open rates for direct mail can reach as high as 90 percent compared to the far smaller 23 percent open rate from email marketing. Cut through the noise and attract new customers while retaining current ones with the help of a sending platform like Sendoso.

Custom branded gift boxes are an excellent way to make a great first impression with a qualified lead. They help you stand out from the competition and show that you’re paying attention to the little details. Plus, corporate gifting is a fantastic way to build strong, long-term customer relationships with your clients.

Managing contacts, assembling, packaging, and mailing custom gift boxes wastes a lot of time and energy that your sales team can’t afford to lose. For these reasons, partnering with premier gifting platform Sendoso makes perfect sense.

Here’s how it works:

• First, customize the perfect sending strategy, fully streamlined with your current programs and campaigns.
• Next, choose from limitless sending options such as curated gift baskets, or custom branded boxes complete with handwritten notes.
• Simply click to send from the tools you’re already using, including Salesforce and Marketo.
• The Sendoso warehouse team sends the order out promptly, delivering worldwide.
• Watch Sendoso’s Send Tracker as it shows you the progress of your send in every stage, then time your follow-up perfectly and connect with recipients as soon as they receive your package.

Encourage a CTA with your physical impression to complete this personalized sales experience and watch as your ROI blooms before your very eyes!

5. Recognize and address objections upfront

In order to streamline your sales cycle, you need to be aware of and prepared for objections that may come up. By acknowledging and addressing objections upfront, you can save yourself much time (and sometimes money) later on in the process.

Some common objections include:

• Budgetary constraints: “I need to allocate this money somewhere else.”
• Lack of trust: “I’ve never heard of this product and I don’t want to get stuck in a contract.”
• No urgency: “I don’t see how this is relevant to my industry or how it can help solve my problem.”

Gather plenty of background information on your potential buyers and anticipate their objections. Effective salespeople lead with empathy, welcome questions, and respond appropriately. In doing so, a positive two-way conversation occurs that builds rapport with clients and shortens the sales cycle.

6. Focus on your highest-performing channels

Your highest-performing channels are the ones that generate the most leads at the lowest cost. To find your highest-performing channels, track where your best customers come from. Look for patterns in how they found you and what led them to convert. Then, double down on those channels by allocating more of your budget to them.

Final Thoughts

These practical strategies are great ways to integrate your marketing efforts and sales strategy to ultimately win the race to a faster sales cycle. The marketing department and sales department both play a vital role in streamlining your sales pipeline. When they work together on a regular basis to analyze buyer behavior, pool additional resources, and collaborate on the entire process, your B2B sales cycle will run like a well-oiled machine.

Want to learn more about how Sendoso is helping sales teams shorten their sales cycle? Check out how this company shortened their sales cycle by 50%. Or take us for a spin and request a demo to see how we can shorten yours today!