With some successful companies, selling more of their products or services isn’t an issue. The problem they have is getting their customers to say, “Yes” more quickly. Put differently, they need a way to shorten their sale’s cycle.
The good news is, making your sales cycle shorter doesn’t require a series of complex moves and infrastructure changes. Here are some easy ways to get more sales, more quickly:
Live Chat is better than Chatbots
Many internet business experts recommend chatbots to save time and increase sales. To some extent, they are right. You can set up Chatbots to answer relevant questions and represent your company when an actual customer rep is not available. However, that’s the extent of their usefulness.
Because Chatbots only answer the most basic questions, their usefulness is limited. Business-to-business customers often make purchases in the six-figure range. Never trust a bot to handle an account that wants to hand over that much money. When a live, breathing, knowledgeable person talks to the customer first, questions are answered, and purchase decisions are made more quickly.
Show the prices
There are multiple reasons why you would want to hide the price of your product on your website. Perhaps you want only the most qualified leads to get in touch and discuss pricing. Maybe you want to show them a demo first so that they see the value before getting sticker shock. Or, just maybe, you want to stand out from the competition.
While that does make sense to an extent, even the priciest of products need the price displayed very prominently. The reason is simple: No matter how cheap or expensive your product is, everyone has a budget. One of the reasons why your sales cycle is lengthy might be because you’re not disclosing your pricing early on. If a prospect sees the price tag immediately, they know whether they can afford the product so that they don’t waste everyone’s time.
Use the right social proof
Experts agree that social proof is one of the best ways to get more sales. However, it takes a lot more than slapping a customer review on your homepage to convince your customers to buy. Not all social proof is good, and not all social proof will work for your kind of industry.
Make the customer as familiar with the person giving the social proof. If there is a testimonial or a review, make sure to mention the person’s company, position, and what you’ve done for them or sold to them. A testimonial from a CEO or CFO of a company in the same industry might mean a lot more than the same testimonial by a branch manager.
Moreover, tinker with the format as well. Video testimonials can be extremely effective in the right location and at the right stage of the sales funnel. However, they demand more work from the customer side, so they can be challenging to create.
The bottom line is that many business owners give up on social proof for the same reason they give up on content marketing: It takes a lot of work and persistence to see the results. But once you do it the right way, your sales team will love the results.
Prune your CRM
Ask an average business owner how often they clean up their sales customer relationship management, and most will look at you in a very confusing way. After all, why would you delete someone’s contact data, even if they’re not a good lead?
However, there are multiple benefits to pruning your CRM. First, your sales team will have an easier time getting in touch with the right people since they won’t have to waste time with outdated contacts or people who gave a hard “No” the first time around.
Second, you will improve your email marketing metrics. When you’re sending to an uninterested list, your bounce rates are going to shoot through the roof, which hurts your overall metrics. Also, if you pay per email contact, each bad lead is dead weight that costs you every month.
Conclusion
Making your sales cycle shorter might seem like a lengthy, arduous process that involves your entire sales team. Actually, it’s a series of smaller changes that have a major impact on how soon a prospect turns into a closed deal.
Reducing your sale’s cycle can put a strain on inventory and supplies, leading to short-term cash flow issues. Allied Financial Corporation can help you keep up with the demands of growth with accounts receivable financing.
Contact us today.