All sales reps and managers bemoan the sometimes long and slow-moving pace of a sales process. This is especially excruciating when there’s an impending deadline for a sales quota. Everyone’s thought bubble is always, “How can I make this process move along faster?”
Speeding up the sales process is every sales team’s wish. But how do you do that exactly? Here are 11 strategic steps you should be taking to accelerate the selling process. Consider it your sales acceleration checklist.
1. Detailed and Precise Sales Process
Your sales process should be detailed and precise. And it should be clear to all members of the sales organization. Having a well-defined sales process ensures a smooth flow. You eliminate confusion and miscommunication and your operation functions like clockwork. It will help close more deals, convert more leads, and speed up the process.
Your sales process should help meet business goals; align with your business model; and reflect your own buyer’s process.
2. Smart CRM to Help Manage the Pipeline
Managers need to be tracking their sales pipeline religiously to ensure that it’s healthy, thriving, and running without any hiccup. Keeping a close eye on the pipeline helps keep things moving; bottlenecks are identified and slow-moving leads are also given attention.
Managers need a CRM to do this. And not just any CRM, but one that’s smart, intuitive, and customizable to meet the exact needs of teams and businesses. Managers get the reports they need to track numbers and performance. Members can also collaborate much easier using the platform—and seamless collaboration is important if you want your sales process to pick up speed.
But if you want to maximize the use of your CRM, make sure to employ best CRM practices. Keeping it clean, for one, helps improve the sales process. Regular update contacts; remove useless data (even contacts) that are just cluttering your CRM. Schedule regular data checking, updating, and cleaning. And also make sure that your CRM is always updated to the latest version.
3. Lead Scoring System
Every sales person knows that lead scoring helps move things along. It allows you to identify the most attractive prospects—those that will most likely convert. And you want to focus your energy and attention on these prospects. These leads have shown a need for your product; have the budget; have actively engaged with you and displayed genuine interest, and so on. But you’ll only know this if you have a functional lead scoring system. So start building one now. Part of speeding up the sales process is making sure sales reps are not wasting time on low-quality leads.
4. Automation
Sales reps should automate when possible. Automation “liberates” them from performing repetitive, time-consuming tasks that can otherwise be performed by AI and machines. They now have more time to work on their sales processes and connect with customers—building better relationships with them in the process and increasing their chances of closing deals.
Automation also has a tremendously positive impact on sales productivity: it has allowed salespeople to focus on selling. It also allows sales reps to spend more time with customers. And when they’re focused on selling and spending more time with customers, they can definitely speed up the process. You can start by automating these tasks.
5. Productive Client Calls and Meetings
When you’re meeting with clients, make sure to maximize the opportunity and cover all the bases. The first meeting or call is very important for discovery and qualifying—so make sure you ace every first client meeting.
Use these calls and meetings as an opportunity to guide the prospect through the buying process. Establish the next steps; anticipate their questions and objections; point out any potential setbacks. With proper guidance from you, prospects can navigate through the process more easily. And this will make the sales process much more efficient.
6. Convincing Sales Pitch
Another way to make those client meetings more efficient? Wow them with a convincing sales pitch. If your pitch can answer all their questions, assuage their hesitations or objections; and detail the value you will provide them with, then you can stop the back-and-forth that only makes the sales process longer.
7. Efficient Scheduling
How many times have you had to go back and forth with a client to set meetings because the previous ones were forgotten or missed, you can’t find a common schedule, or you accidentally double book a date and time? This might seem just a nuisance, but this nuisance adds more time to the whole sales process. Having a productive tool for scheduling meetings is a must. You can arrange and track meetings more easily.
8. Personalization
It’s simple: When prospects receive content or messaging that are personalized for them, they feel more compelled to act on it. A report points out that marketing campaigns without content relevancy have an 83% lower response rate. Lack of relevance leads to lack of engagement.
So make sure that your emails are personalized for better lead nurturing. Hyper-personalization is also an effective strategy for more targeted lead nurturing and accelerated sales. With the relevant data, proper systems, and right technology, you can start rolling out a solid hyper-personalized strategy. Employ hyper-personalization best practices to help you get started.
9. Sales and Marketing Alignment
Make sure your sales and marketing teams are aligned and working closely together. Anytime you can bridge communication and collaboration gaps, you are increasing the efficiency of your sales process, and speeding it up. Besides, sales and marketing alignment is also great for revenue: Companies with sales and marketing alignment are 67% better at closing deals and drive 209% more revenue.
For starters, make sure that sales and marketing follow the same lead scoring system so that lead qualification is optimized. Follow these other tips for aligning your sales and marketing teams.
10. Social Proof
You cannot deny the power of social proof. Humans have the tendency to follow the “wisdom of the crowd,” so to speak. Reviews, testimonials, case studies—these are all great examples of social proof that you can leverage for converting your prospects faster.
You can also ask existing clients to send referrals or recommend you to other potential buyers. Referrals tend to be high-quality leads, so make sure to get more of them.
11. Mobility
If you are able to sell and close deals anytime and anywhere, you can accomplish more—and in a shorter time. A mobile CRM allows you to do everything you need to do, and access everything you need to get a hold of wherever, whenever. You’re not hampered by logistics, traffic, and other cumbersome productivity killers. You work in real time, which also means you can address all prospects’ concerns in real time. If you can work this effectively and efficiently, you can expect to shorten the selling process.
These 11 points should help speed up your sales process. But also remember that in sales, patience and perseverance are important attributes. So even if some leads take longer to convert, don’t lose hope. And don't give up!
Photos from Pexels. Main photo by Lukas
