How to Shorten Your Sales Cycle

By Jerson James on January 30, 2013 12 Comments / 1383 views

Hi,

To be voted ‘Hot on LinkedIn’ globally (as of 1048 a.m. on Jan 31, with 2450+ hits & 135 ‘shares’ in under 30 hours) & be featured on slideshare.com’s homepage was not the reason that I created this presentation… (I know, I know this is shameful self-promotion, but please be nice and allow me to…)

This presentation was a response to a common malaise that I observed in most of my consulting/ training assignments. It’s called ‘following up’; as in, post the presentation of the value proposal, salespeople resort to endlessly (though diligently) calling up the customer to check if they liked the proposal and when they would be ready to buy… like their proposal was enough to induce the customer to buy!

It leaves salespeople and businesses stuck in what I call ‘follow-up hell’. It leads to stretched sales cycles and missed sales targets. Not good for any business (and especially for start-ups)

How to Shorten Your Sales Cycle from Jerson James

Comments

Jerson James

12 Comments

Khizar January 31, 2013, 9:52 am

Thanks James… You have rightly pointed out the mistakes which generally occur during sales process…

I hope after going through this, sales will not only be limited to ‘numbers’ for organizations.
Anamika Joshi January 31, 2013, 11:26 am

Hi James

Thanks for the neat in fact very neat presentation with some great points…
Sudarsan Ravi January 31, 2013, 1:08 pm

Jerson – What a well thought out ppt! Easy read, logical in flow and great with graphics were icings on a fantastic content. Keep posting more!
Jerson James January 31, 2013, 1:46 pm

Hey Jaisal, thanks for the compliment. Glad you found it interesting 🙂
Jerson James January 31, 2013, 1:49 pm

Hi Khizar, thanks for agreeing with me.

Though, in all honesty, I feel sales should be number driven. After all it is revenues (“net, net” I know Alok Kejriwal would say) is what allows the organisation to be a going entity. And if increasing salaries and rent have to be paid, then it is necessary that higher revenues target be met… that would make sales a very numbers driven game

I’m willing to be corrected though, should you have a different point of view
Jerson James January 31, 2013, 1:50 pm

Hi Anamika, I like that you called the presentation ‘neat’ 🙂 It’s a nice word… Like, like…
Jerson James January 31, 2013, 1:51 pm

Hi Sudarsan, thanks for the appreciation… Glad you found it well-thought out… I’ll do my best to keep posting… Got a social media plan…. gotta keep up to it… I’ll try… your encouragement will help
Khizar January 31, 2013, 2:01 pm

Yea I can understand the no game but I was just not limiting it to ‘numbers’.

It should be numbers with ‘value’ coz sometimes people are so numbers driven that they seldom understand the value of it.
Jerson James January 31, 2013, 4:52 pm

That I completely agree with Khizar…

When sales becomes about numbers at the cost of adding value, the organisation has lost the plot. That explains why so many consumers don’t trust sellers; why customers do not make repeat purchases with the same seller (which kills the prospect of the profitable sale since the first sale is rarely very profitable); why salespeople struggle to make their numbers.

You hit the nail on the head, there…
Khizar January 31, 2013, 4:58 pm

Thanks James for appreciating it.
Praveen Prabhu February 2, 2013, 6:01 am

Thx for this, indeed an eye-opener, got stuck with a couple of leads, and got a novel idea to go around them! Thx again.
Jerson James February 2, 2013, 6:46 am

That’s nice to hear Praveen. What would be a real encouragement for me is if you could specify as to which of the lessons from the presentation you could implement and what challenge it helped you overcome and the outcome of using the lesson… If you would oblige, I’d be grateful… and could you post that to the slideshare comments page, as well?