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Shorten The Online Sales Cycle
By Igor Mordkovich
Expert Author
Article Date: 2007-08-23
To shorten the online sales cycle, we must bring clarity to our customers.
Customers don't create long sales cycles - salespeople do. The biggest contributor to dragging out the selling cycle is salespeople / websites prematurely presenting solutions to customers who may not believe they have a problem, or even if they had a problem, didn't understand its impact on their business and what it's costing them to stay the same.
When you boil it all down, there are really only two reasons why people don't buy: 1) They do not believe their problem is significant enough to take action, if they recognize any problem at all, or 2) they do not believe the solution will work. Guess which one occurs most frequently? You're right - reason #1. Presenting a solution to someone who doesn't believe they have a problem is sales suicide.
Uncertain customers will delay or defeat the selling process, but clarity will defeat that uncertainty. To shorten the e-commerce website sales cycle, we must bring clarity to our customers. If they have a problem, let's make sure they understand it, and if they don't, let's move on to someone who does.
There are challenges to address if we want to shorten the sales cycle time, and the first is the "decision" challenge. Depending on the complexity of the problem to be solved and the technology required to solve it, a customer frequently does not have a high-quality decision process with which to make this type of decision. Therefore, during a premature presentation we put good information into a bad process, and the result is a random and unpredictable outcome.
A decision to buy leads to change and change is painful. Customers frequently do not buy because they are concerned about the change process they will need to go through if they buy. We must be very open and straightforward with our customers and explain any changes in lifestyle or their business that will be required if they purchase our solution. Some of those changes will be positive and support the reasons they will buy, but some will be negative and be the reason they will hesitate. Bringing clarity to the changes required will help both you and your customer sort through it quickly.
The final challenge to be met involves "value." We must make sure our customer can measure the impact of our solution, and until they do they will not recognize value when it is delivered. Many times your customer does not have enough knowledge or a method to measure the value your solution will provide pre-sale, and worse, left on their own, may not be able to measure the value they have received from your solution post-sale.
The best news of all is that the length of the sales cycle time is more in your control than you may have thought. Enjoy your success!
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About the Author:
Igor Mordkovich is an in-house marketing director for a NYC based online company. He also writes a personal blog on search marketing and advertising.
Igor's Blog: http://www.bizmord.com/Blog
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