As a sales leader, you know speed is essential to driving revenue. Shorter sales cycles mean your team can close more deals in less time. However, shortening sales cycles is just a single piece of sales acceleration — a buzzword that simply refers to your team’s ability to capture and contact better-fit leads while closing deals with more efficiency. When 50% of deals go to the vendor who contacts the buyer first, helping your team work quicker doesn’t just improve your sales acceleration — it helps you outpace the competition.
Wondering what may be standing between your team and increased sales acceleration? Below, we’re detailing three major roadblocks that are likely in your way. Plus! We’re offering up solutions for overcoming each obstacle so you can head into 2023 strong.
1. More Decision-Makers on the Deal Makes Clear Communication Difficult
These days, B2B deals have anywhere from 6 to 10 decision-makers involved on average. With so many parties involved, it can be difficult to clearly communicate with each and ensure that everyone involved is on the same page. Collateral your reps share can become easily lost among email threads, leaving decision-makers with varying levels of information. So when it comes time to make a purchasing decision, decision-makers take even longer to determine what product they’ll choose to solve their pain points — hindering your sales acceleration.
This issue can be quickly solved by leveraging the right sales tech stack to ensure all decision-makers on the deal are aligned and consistently updated — even if they join the conversation at a later stage than other decision-makers. For instance, your tech stack may enable your reps to upload each piece of collateral to a single source of truth. This could be through a sales enablement platform or digital sales room. Each decision-maker involved in the deal can view shared collateral in one space.
Now, instead of digging through emails looking for the right link, decision makers can simply check one place and find everything they need from helpful guides and eBooks on the product’s ROI to competitor battlecards, pricing information, and more . This helps them align internally, reaching their purchase decision sooner and increasing your sales acceleration.
2. Buyers Don’t Understand the Product Well Enough to Make an Informed Purchase Decision
To enable your buyers to make a purchase decision sooner, they need to feel confident in your product and its ability to solve their pain points. They need to completely understand the product, how it will benefit their daily tasks, and the ROI it will provide. This information should be conveyed simply and easily across a range of collateral and at each step in the buyer’s journey in order to drive home your product’s value. If you aren’t providing buyers with the information they need to reach that purchasing decision, you’re slowing down your sales acceleration. Your buyers are taking longer to decide on a purchase, and your sales cycle length is more drawn out than it needs to be.
By creating a diverse range of resources to share with the buyer, you help them reach a confident purchasing decision sooner. Your team needs to have various pieces of sales collateral to share with buyers at the most opportune moments in their buyer’s journey. This way, buyers can move along to the next stage of their journey quickly and efficiently. For instance, let’s say your business offers a simple solution that speeds up IT maintenance work. So when a new lead comes into your CRM, share a sales deck demonstrating the product’s use cases. Once the buyer is comparing multiple solutions, it’s a good idea to share an eBook detailing the product’s timesaving capabilities. And finally, when a buyer is teetering on making a purchase, share an ROI guide to make their decision an easy one. Each of these pieces of collateral helps inform the buyer, pushing them towards a purchasing decision sooner.
3. The Inability to Upsell and Cross-Sell Slows Sales Acceleration
Upselling and cross-selling are some of the best ways to close bigger deals in less time, instantly improving your sales acceleration. In fact, on average, upselling increases revenue by 10-30%. This is because your team is selling additional or higher priced products to your existing, happy customers. When your team can’t up- or cross-sell, your sales acceleration slows. This inability could stem from a lack of sales collateral, or even just a lack of follow-through from your team when communicating with existing customers. By selling to current customers, your reps can close deals at a quicker rate. This is because these customers already know the benefits of your product and are more likely to understand the value of your upsell.
Consider this: you have a customer who’s been using your SaaS platform happily for a year. Your team knows that the customer has plans to renew their contract, and prepares for the renewal discussion by collecting resources that demonstrate how much more the client would get out of your product with a package upgrade. During the discussion, your team presents their pitch, showcasing all the qualities available in the upgraded package to deliver a stronger ROI. Your buyer upgrades, and your team successfully upsells the client. It’s a win for you and a win for the customer!
Final Thoughts
Sales acceleration results from a combination of selling to best-fit leads and shortening the sales cycle with an efficient and robust tech stack. If your team isn’t communicating properly, demonstrating the product’s value, or up- and cross-selling, you’re missing out on vital opportunities to enhance your sales acceleration.
Begin increasing your sales acceleration with the help of expert sales consultants at SFE Partners. Get in touch with us today.
