Knowing what the sales cycle is essential for companies that want to improve their results and profit. Only those who master their steps and know how to optimize them can stand out in the market and become a reference.
Sales are an important part of any business, after all, they generate the necessary revenue to keep the company and make the investments necessary for its growth.
Therefore, knowing the stages of the sales cycle is important for you to be able to see optimization points to provide a better experience to your consumers.
In this way, it is possible not only to gain more customers, but also to retain them to build a solid customer base!
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So, do you want to know how to profit more? So, get to know the steps of the sales cycle below and find out how to reduce them!
- Discover how to shorten the sales cycle process
- Do you already know the steps in the sales funnel? So get to work!
What is the sales cycle?
We call the time spent by your company to close a deal and gain another customer as a sales cycle.
This means that he understands all stages of your strategy to gain new customers, from prospecting to post-sales, a decisive moment to convince these people to do business with you again.
Got a little confused? So let's move on to the next topic to better understand the steps in the sales cycle and how they should work in your company.
1. Prospecting
As we talked about earlier, the concept of what is a sales cycle encompasses several steps on which your business' success depends.
So, to start unraveling this strategy, we must talk about the first step,
prospecting.
Here, the main task is to find among the general public people who have more affinity with your area of expertise and, therefore, more chances of doing business with you.
Thus, it is essential that your company develop a persona, that is, the semi-fictitious profile of your ideal customer, developed from surveys among your current consumers.
With this, you can have important information about your tastes and preferences in order to use them when finding and attracting these potential customers, which we will call leads from now on.
In addition, this personal data will also be used in the next steps, as we will see below.
2. Initial contact
Once you've attracted potential customers, it's time to get in touch with your leads. To do so, you can send them an email or make a phone call, for example.
The important thing is that communication takes place in a way that respects your persona's preferences and is as less invasive as possible, so as not to “stun” this potential customer.
Once that's done, it's time to prepare your leads for the next steps in the sales funnel.
3. Qualification
We call qualification the process in the sales cycle of separating leads that have a real buying interest from those that are not yet ready to become a customer.
But it is important to emphasize that this does not mean that you should discard these people, in fact, quite the opposite!
Your task is to continue qualifying those leads that aren't ready yet, sending content about your company so that they stay on your radar.
In this way, you help these people to mature their purchase decision so that they will one day join your group of customers.
4. Presentation
After qualifying them, it's time to introduce yourself to your lead as a solution to your problem.
This then means that it's time for your sales team to make the first contact with this potential customer to finally convert them.
Therefore, it is at this point that the product demonstrations take place, highlighting their qualities according to the problems of their persona.
Once this is done, if everything goes well, then a formal business proposal is presented for the lead to evaluate, but that is the subject for the next topic.
5. Evaluation
Within the sales cycle, it is important to allow time for the lead to evaluate the proposal made by your company, and that is exactly what this step portrays.
This is especially true for cases where a deal will be closed between companies, as more complex, more expensive products and with long-term contracts are usually involved.
Therefore, in some cases it is possible that meetings are held at this stage of the sales cycle, so that it is possible to clarify any doubts that may be preventing the closing of the deal.
6. Closing
If everything worked out in the other stages of the sales cycle, this is when the customer makes a decision that is favorable to your company and closes a deal with your company.
Furthermore, it is important that you make a presentation of your product and detail the first steps for its use.
This way, its implementation by the customer is easier and increases the chances of him being really satisfied with the service provided by your company.
7. After-sales
If you think closing should be the last step in the sales cycle, you couldn't be more wrong.
That's because after-sales is a critical stage for the success of your strategy, because when done well, it can help you retain a customer and convince them to do business with you again.
Therefore, it is important that you conduct satisfaction surveys to measure consumer satisfaction with your product and your experience during the stages of the sales cycle.
Thus, it is possible to use this information to optimize the process and increase its chances of success.
Discover how to shorten the sales cycle process
First, it is important to clarify that shortening the process does not mean skipping some steps in the sales cycle.
What you can do is optimize the stages so that they happen faster and also that, when we reach the last stage, it is not necessary to go back to the first one and make this customer continue to buy with your company.
Therefore, there are two key points that your company needs to pay attention to: the qualification of leads and the loyalty of consumers.
Produce relevant content to educate your leads
When we talk about better qualifying your leads, it means educating them properly about your area of expertise, so that they understand the value of your product.
This becomes even more relevant when we remember that we are in the information age, where most people conduct research before buying a product or service.
Therefore, methodologies such as Inbound Marketing have been gaining more and more space, as it respects new consumer habits and sees the production of relevant content as an opportunity to educate its market and gain its trust.
Therefore, in addition to knowing your persona well, also study the consumer's journey to produce materials that clarify the doubts that may arise in each of the stages: learning and discovery, problem recognition, consideration of the solution and purchase decision).
That way, your leads will reach your sales team better prepared, shortening the steps in the next sales cycle.
Build customer loyalty to gain fans of your brand
As we have already mentioned throughout the text, carrying out after-sales actions is essential for the future of your business' sales.
That's because providing a good customer experience during the stages of the sales cycle is essential for them to feel comfortable returning to make purchases at your company.
Therefore, it is important that you periodically survey them. Thus, it is possible to get a good idea of the general opinion and what improvements or additions need to be made in the stages of the sales cycle.
With this, you still gain an ally in prospecting for customers, as satisfied customers tend to recommend the product or service they liked to their acquaintances.
In other words, this way you will be retaining your customer base and still saving when it comes to winning new ones!
Do you already know the steps in the sales funnel? So get to work!
In this content, you saw that the sales cycle is the time your company spends to gain new customers and knew all the steps that comprise this process.
In addition, we show you all the necessary tricks to make your leads move from one stage to another in a way that improves your company's results.
Finally, you've discovered some secrets to optimizing the stages of the sales cycle to better qualify your prospects and generate more business leads.
So, now it's time to take our tips and get your hands dirty! And if you want to maximize your results, check out the content on cost reduction!
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