An essential component of modern marketing analysis is the ability to shorten the sales cycle without having to put in an overload of upfront resources. With a shorter cycle in place, a company has much more time to create good leads for itself. Over time, this means better revenues and the opportunity to grow the business.
But who says a shorter customer journey means more sales? Let’s take a look at what happens when companies prioritize this to see if it really helps the bottom line.
Improving Clarity in the Target Audience
Companies that understand who they are selling to generally sell more, right? Right. Doesn’t a longer sales cycle mean more time to familiarize yourself with a customer?
Well, you have more time, but you will probably not end up knowing that customer better. Why? A longer sales cycle only helps to introduce more noise into the conversation between you and your customer. This is a natural occurrence when a business cycle is lengthened. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you need a long time to make a sale.
Filtering Out Cold Leads
Even the best businesses will only convert a maximum of 5% of the people who come to their websites. Lengthening the sales cycle only increases the amount of time that you have to spend with the other 95%. These are people who have no intention of buying from you – ever. There’s nothing that you can do about it.
Shortening the sales cycle filters out all of these cold leads. When this happens, you can focus your full attention on the 5% who are actually looking to do business with you.
Giving Your Buyers More Information
Can you fit more information into a shorter sales cycle? Absolutely. Why? You are cutting down on the number of people that you are communicating with. Not only does this let you focus on a less diverse set of personalities, but it lets you give those select few more information about you.
Think about the ongoing argument about school class sizes. No one says that a bigger class lets more children learn. Parents fight for small class sizes because they know the teacher will be able to give more information to each child in that space! The same goes for business. Shorter customer journeys and less people means more information per person!
Aligning Sales with the Customer Journey
Your salespeople are only human. They lose focus over long stretches just like anyone would. This is bad news when you are trying to attract customers and keep their attention. You have to be on your toes at all times for them to view you as a leader.
The shorter your sales cycle, the better your salespeople usually perform. If they see a light at the end of the rainbow (they make the sale after 3 days instead of no sale after 15 days), they are more likely to stay involved in the process. Motivated salespeople are central to your bottom line, so do everything you can to shorten the customer journey for them, not just your customers.
There you have it. A shorter customer journey actually has many advantages, and not all of them actually center around the customer. Do everything possible to cut all of the noise out of the fray when constructing this journey, and you will certainly have an opportunity for a bigger bottom line and less stress getting there!
