sales management
5 ways to shorten your b2b sales cycle
Shortening the sales cycle has become a priority for companies working with b2b sales in recent years. And rightly so, the more time that passes by, the more difficult it can become to close opportunities.
How mature is your sales team?
Imagine a sales person who was just hired for a B2B sales position. What type of sales organization will she be joining? Will she be treated to a full introduction program and learning the ropes from top performers? Will her sales manager assign realistic goals and dedicate time to coach her? Will she receive a steady flow of marketing qualified leads where there is already promising customer engagement?
Should B2B sales people prospect?
Historically, sales people have been responsible for both generating new opportunities (prospecting) and closing deals in the pipeline (opportunity management). However, this stance is being challenged. Spurred on by the trend towards inbound sales teams, and the importance of adding more value during the sales process, the sales space is a buzzing with ideas on how organizations can manage their sales efforts more effectively.
Motivation…Also a Sales Manager’s Job
Over the years I have heard from numerous CEOs and sales managers alike that believe that they should not have to help motivate their people to do their jobs. They believe that if they just hired “highly motivated” people they can just let them go. Well I say “Good luck with that.”
Are you doing ”busy-work” or progressing towards your sales targets?
If there’s something that we all have in common, I’d reason it is time. How we choose to spend it determines how we feel and what accomplishments we achieve. A big problem is that there’s often a conflict between what’s important and what’s urgent, between short and long-term gains. Checking emails every five minutes may increase your dopamine levels, but it probably won’t take you much closer to your sales targets.
Generalization: poison or potion?
As human beings, we make thousands of decisions every day. Most of them are made unconsciously, based on past experiences and established routines. Without even reflecting, we constantly adopt a process called generalization – to make our world easier to understand, we lump and categorize information in terms of how objects and situations are like or unlike others. As part of this process, we also ignore and distort information to better fit with our world-view, purpose and intent.
