Sell More Quicker

From SalesDog.com:

3 Tips to Shorten Your Sales Cycle
by John Costigan

Here are three changes you can make to close more deals in less time.

Over my many years as a sales trainer to the Fortune 500, I've found one issue in particular plagues virtually every salesperson's career. I've heard countless tales, from veterans and rookies alike, of the deal that "got stuck." If you're an entrepreneur handling your own sales, you've probably also suffered at the hands of those indecisive customers who jeopardize your bottom line by stretching the selling cycle to unbearable lengths.

Wait a minute! Did I just hear you blame a sales obstacle on a customer? Repeat after me: There is no such thing as a bad customer. There are only bad salespeople. Before you can really apply any of the tips I am about to describe you must embrace the fact that, to get to the next level in your career, you have to focus on the one thing you can always change, your own behavior.

That said, here's the very first step you must take to improve your productivity and close more deals, faster:

Get to power!
There is nothing that will shorten the selling cycle more effectively than getting to the right level early on in the sale cycle. I find it mind boggling how much time sales pros spend courting lower level people who are not the real decision makers and who waste their time with requests that almost never lead to a sale.

The main reason why salespeople start at a lower level is a lack of self-confidence. One of the best ways to overcome your insecurity is to make sure the first call you make is to an A-level executive's office. Here's why: by reaching, say, the CEO's office, you will have an opportunity to find out exactly who is responsible for what in that organization. Specifically, you'll learn who is directly responsible for fixing the problem that your solution addresses.

At that point, you can ask to be transferred to the appropriate contact and actually claim you were referred by the CEO's office. Not only will you have saved yourself a great deal of time you might have otherwise spent jumping through hoops for lower level people, but now you also hold the referral trump card. Moreover, if the deal gets stuck, you can always contact a higher-ranking person than the one you were dealing with because the sales cycle started at power!

The second step you must take in order to boost your productivity and shorten the sales cycle is:

Uncover the customer's pain
One of the most important lessons that I try to impart to my students is that people buy emotionally and justify logically. Therefore, one of the most important parts of our jobs as salespeople is to find out exactly what is at stake for the customer if he does not do something about the problem that your solution can fix. Find out how much the issue is costing him, personally.

As sales pros, we have a tendency to get on the phone and skip straight to questions like: "Have you had a chance to look over my proposal? How does my deal work?" You had better believe me when I tell you that will not help you close the deal. Instead, try "Mr. Customer, let me ask you a question. I was driving into work this morning and was wondering: Why do you want to do the deal with us? You mentioned you wanted to fix this issue in Q1. What happens if you don't?" By asking these questions, you are essentially setting the stage for them to sell you more than you are selling them.

How so? By making them very aware of the consequences that dragging out a decision will have, not only on their company, but also on their careers and their day-to-day work lives. How much more paperwork will they have to deal with if the problem persists? How many more meetings will take place that fail to put a stop to the issue? Once you have forged a connection between the customer and your solution, then you will be ready to help them sell it logically.

The third step you must take in order to boost your productivity and shorten the sales cycle is:

Find out exactly how much your time is worth
To some, this may seem obvious but you would not believe how many hours salespeople spend on the job doing things that have absolutely nothing to do with selling. Recent studies have indicated that the average sales rep gets a measly 4 to 6 hours per week of face time with customers. If you don't believe me, try asking yourself how many hours you spent filing expense reports, creating spreadsheets and tracking the pipeline in the past week. If that number is enough to make you gasp, try dividing a year's income by 1,780. (That is roughly how many working hours there are in a year.) Now you have a good idea of how much it costs you, personally, not to turn more time into opportunity.

Having been a sales rep myself, I am aware that busy work comes with the territory. As much as you wish you didn't have to deal with it, there's a spreadsheet waiting for you at the end of every day. To fix this problem, you must do two things:

Learn to work smarter
You must constantly improve your processes so that tasks will not take longer to complete than necessary.

Stop working for free
You must ensure that the face time you manage to secure with your customer is quality time and that you are not jumping through a lot of hoops for nothing. Always make sure the next step is in sight before you get cracking on that proposal. Try: "Mr. Customer, my biggest fear is that you are asking me to do all this work for you and then I'll get back to you and nothing else will happen." Express to them that you would love having their business but, first and foremost, they must commit to getting their problem fixed. You may find it difficult to say this to a client, but once you convey that you are trying to make the best use of not only your time but also theirs, most will appreciate, rather than resent, you.

Good luck and good selling!

John Costigan, president and founder of John Costigan Companies, conducts sales training classes around the world for a list of clients that reads like a "who's who" in the corporate world, including Hewlett Packard, SAS, Exxon-Mobile, Standard Register, Tommy Hilfiger, Concerto, and Slazenger Golf. Visit his site at www.JohnCostigan.com.

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