HOW TO ACCELERATE YOUR SALES CYCLES

 Most effective retail businesses and sales organizations aim to reach sales targets that will keep their operations active. Besides marketing, sales represent a vital component of a business’ life cycle. Without sales, a retail business or private organization cannot expect to survive nor thrive. In the same manner that various social disciplines can be broken down through steps, sales processes can also be broken down and explained in various steps. A sales cycle is a strategic process that salespeople utilize to turn a lead into a customer.One pertinent issue faced by many businesses relates to the speed of a sales cycle since a slow sale cycle might prove dangerous for businesses in need of cash flow. In this article, I will discuss strategies to accelerate a sales cycle but before expanding on it, I find it necessary to first elaborate on the steps included in the sales cycle. Regardless of various sales viewpoints, simply talking to people about a product or service will not necessarily guarantee a sale. One of the differentiating characteristics of a salesperson is found in the clear intent of selling a product or a service when dealing with potential customers. In other words, an effective salesperson or business will constantly keep in mind to perform a sale when dealing with potential customers. Steps of the sales cycles Though the literature on subjects related to sales is wide and deeply explained, it is widely accepted that the sales process comprises key steps leading to an exchange of money between a lead and a salesperson or business. Most articles and documents discussing the sales cycle tend to present ‘lead generations’ as the first step. However, in this article, I present a different sales cycle designed to solidify the sales while raising trust levels from leads. 1 The sales cycle comprises the following steps: ● The availability of a ready to use service or product. ● The story that comes with the product or service ● The bridge to find leads. ● Leads generation. ● Presentation of a clear sales speech. ● Handling objections. ● Negotiations if necessary. ● Delivery of product after closing the sale. a) The available product or service: Many startups and organizations make the mistake of launching into the market without a clear product or service. As a result, most of them rely on investments from VCs to survive since they can not sell incomplete or non-existent products. The availability of a ‘ready-to-use’ product is the first step to adopt in the sales cycle. An effective product will increase trust levels among leads and will easily turn those leads into sales. The widely known Theranos saga has taught us that great investments combined with great sales pitch presentations will lead to nothing if a product is defective or incomplete. b) The story that comes with the product or service: Companies such as Nike or Coca-Cola have taught the world that great stories can polish the value of a product. The story of a product clearly explains the ‘why’, the ‘what for’ , the result and the advantage of the product. c) The bridge to find leads: You have probably heard the famous sentence that says: “If you build it,they will come”. The sentence has been used by so many startup entrepreneurs who wrongly thought that the creation of a product is enough to bring in sales money. Added to the product and its story, organizations have to find the place where they will find leads or potential 2 customers. I refer to that place as the ‘bridge’ that connects organization and potential customers. The bridge can have many forms such as email marketing, a shopping center, a sales center, a shop, etc… d) Presentation through a clear sales speech: It is very important to have a clear and concise speech describing the product. Furthermore, it is crucial that salespersons clearly explain that they will only redeem the product in exchange for a financial sum. e) Handling objections: Objections from leads can come in many forms and the two most common objections are the ones caused by a lack of affordability and the ones caused by a distrust in the product or service. Affordability objections can be dealt with through negotiations or by silently accepting that a lead will not turn into a customer. Objections caused by distrust in a product should be avoided by building an effective and complete product or service. f) Negotiations: This stage is not mandatory if the leads are willing to pay the price as presented in the sales pitch. However, in case of negotiations, it is absolutely crucial that salespersons negotiate while protecting their profits. A poor negotiation will definitely result in an unprofitable sale or no sale. g) Delivery: Ultimately, a sold product must be delivered to the customer. Organizations ought to pay great attention to the delivery stage since it often represents the most important part of the customer experience. Many bad customer reviews are often caused by the poor delivery of a product. 3 Figure 1: The sales cycle How to accelerate a sales cycle In his well acclaimed book titled: “The Speed of Trust”, Stephen Covey (2006) explains that ‘trust’ is the one factor that can accelerate positive interaction between sales organizations and leads. The lack or a reduced amount of trust is likely going to slow down a sales cycle. Trustworthiness from a sales organization should be manifest at every stage of the sales cycle. 4 Some of the top reasons causing mistrust during the sales cycle are: ● A bad product or a poor service. ● A story embedded with lies and inflated results. ● The inability to physically localize an organization. ● Forceful convincing from a salesperson during the objection and negotiation stages . ● Late, deficient and stressful delivery. ● Bad customer reviews. According to Swan (1985), customers tend to increase their trust toward salespersons or organizations, when they see signs of honesty, reliability and competence. ‘Trust’ is a foundation developed throughout time with consistent actions (Rane et al.,2023). Sales organizations should work at polishing their trustworthiness index at every stage of the sales cycles. A sales cycle powered by trustworthiness will definitely generate sales and good words of mouth. References Covey,S. (2006). The speed of Trust: The one thing that changes everything. Simon & Schuster,UK. Nitin,R., Anand,A., & Saurabh,C. (2023). Enhancing customer loyalty through quality of service: Effective strategies to improve customer satisfaction, experience, relationship, and engagement. International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science. 5. 427-452. 10.56726/IRJMETS38104. 5 Swan,J., Trawick,I., & Silva,D. (1985). How industrial salespeople gain customer trust,Industrial Marketing Management,Volume 14, Issue 3, Pages 203-211,ISSN 0019-8501, https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-8501(85)90039-2.