Best Practices to Shorten B2B Sales Cycle Process

Managing your B2B sales process is one of the most challenging parts of running a business. After all, your revenue intake is dependent on closing deals and working to move your leads quickly through the sales pipeline. However, B2B sales can take a long time to work through, which means that you aren’t always getting the most out of your sales cycle.

Increasing the number of closed deals and finding steps to shorten your B2B sales process is key to ensuring that you don’t lose out on opportunities and continue to build and develop strong relationships with your customers. In order to successfully improve your B2B sales cycle process, there are some best practices you can implement that help you reach your sales targets and revenue goals.

What is sales engagement? Read this blog.

What are B2B Sales Process Steps?

The B2B sales process refers to the steps that are taken during the sales cycle from first contact to sale and everything in between. Each business has a unique sales cycle and steps, but there are many ways in which the overall process can be improved. By taking care to manage your cycle and finding areas for improvement, you can help create more consistency in your sales and cut down on unnecessary steps that slow things down.

When you expedite your sales process, you can move your leads through the sales funnel much more quickly, which also allows you to close more deals and bring in more revenue without letting it sit on a step in the middle of your process. When your sales process is optimized, you can grow faster, bring in more prospects, and manage your budgets more effectively.

Best Practice #1: Create B2B Sales Process Templates

One of the reasons that a typical B2B sales cycle takes such a long time to work through is that each interaction you have with a potential customer is different. When there are unpredictable factors and complications that arise, it can be hard to create a singular process that works for every occasion. However, there are ways in which you can build B2B sales process templates that make some of the heavy lifting easier.

There are many repetitive tasks of a sales process that can be automated to help you get some time back in your schedule and avoid making simple mistakes. Pre-planned sequences of touchpoints in your channels ensure that you don’t miss important communications that can help move a lead through your cycle. Phone, email, text, video, and social templates can be created to automate your sales steps.

Best Practice #2: Qualify Your Leads

Too often there is the assumption that a busy salesperson is a great salesperson. While being in sales does require a strong work ethic, there is also a big risk of spending a lot of time in an ineffective way. If you are spending hours following up with every single one of your leads, you might not be getting the most out of your day. 

Qualifying your leads is a huge step towards improving the sales cycle and moving leads through your B2B sales process. When you can find the leads that are motivated to buy, have pain points that your products or services can address, and fit your ideal customer profile, you can identify which leads will close fastest. That means no more wasted time on prospects that don’t want to move quickly or aren’t going to end up closing with you.

Best Practice #3: Keep Your Tools Updated

The software programs you use in your sales process are the tools that take you to the finish line. When you don’t keep your tools updated, you can risk missing important touchpoints and slowing down your entire sales process. For example, if your CRM is full of cold leads and lost deals, you can easily confuse contacts or send out emails and communications to those who don’t want to receive them. 

Keeping your tools updated, clean, and organized ensures that your internal team is able to function effectively and without unnecessary complications. That also means that you can get a better picture of your sales process steps and find additional areas for improvement that you might not have noticed with a cluttered tool chest.

Best Practice #4: Understand How Your Value Addresses Customer Pain Points

A large part of bringing a lead through the sales process is being able to convey your value to them. After all, if you can’t convince a lead that your products or services are the best fit, they won’t close a deal with your organization. In order to help convince your prospects that your solutions are the answer they are looking for, you need to fully understand what pain points they are struggling with.

Researching your customers to understand their common pain points and learning specific issues at the beginning of each new sales call will help you be able to quickly position yourself as the perfect fit for a customer’s problem. That allows you to make a connection with a lead and move them through the cycle.

Best Practice #5: Build Human Connections

Customers, even in B2B sales, want to have human connections with their suppliers and vendors. When a lead feels like they are just a number in your system and not a valued member of a business relationship, you can risk not just slowing down the sales process but losing potential business. That means that even processes that can be completed with AI or other digital automation tools, like phone dialing, should be done with a human connection whenever possible.

Building human connections and relationships with your customers is key to helping them know that they have value within your organization. That builds trust in your business, which in turn helps your leads move through your sales cycle.

Close More Deals and Increase Your Revenue

Shortening your B2B sales process helps you close more deals and bring in more revenue. Implementing the best practices listed above is the first step towards improving your overall sales process and helping your team move prospects through your sales funnel. When you have more control over your process and take the time to optimize your B2B sales steps, you’ll see success and be able to grow your business faster.