Shortening Sales Cycles with a Deal Guide

What's a really practical way to shorten sales cycles? No, don't put a gun to your sales team's head. Instead, give them a deal guide!

Deal guides spell out a typical sequence of conversations that lead to a deal.

They explain what each conversation is, how it moves the deal forward, AND how it helps the prospect.

That last part is key: The prospect needs to get value out of every conversation AND your sales team needs to sell the value of every conversation.

When you do that, deals keep moving forward and sales cycles get shorter.

Here's an example deal guide:

1. Discovery Call and Initial Pitch: Helps both sides decide whether to take the conversation forward and ensures that the sales rep can speak directly to the customer's business needs in later conversations.

2. Champion Software Demo: Shows the main point of contact the software so they can evaluate if it looks like it will address their business needs.

3. Group/Business Unit Software Demo: Widens the conversation to include more stakeholders so they can evaluate the software and ask questions directly. The demo should be heavily customized based on what the sales rep has learned so far. This call avoids the champion having to be a go between carrying information and questions back and forth. In complex deals, the sales rep should do one of these for each business unit or user group that could be part of the deal.

4. Case Study Presentation: Shares another customer's experience using the product so the prospect has a sense of the value they'll receive.

5. Technical Scoping Call: Meeting with the prospect's IT team to figure out exactly how the implementation would happen, providing assurance that the product will deliver and letting the sales rep provide a customized proposal.

6. Proposal Brainstorming Session: Helps the sales rep craft a proposal that will allow the champion to sell the product internally.

7. Proposal Call: Presents the proposal to the champion and some of the other stakeholders to make the job of getting consensus easier for the champion. The sales rep also shares a draft mutual action plan to complete the evaluation.

8. Deal Planning Call: Touch point to refine the plan for completing the evaluation and the contract. Ensures that the champion has all of the support she needs and that all the key steps are in motion.

9. Implementation Call: After the contract is signed, we can start the process of implementing the software!

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If you liked this article, have a look at our piece on the Affirm - Ask - Benefit Framework to see how to keep the process moving forward after you've done an excellent demo. You can also check out the P.S.I. Selling Content Page for more insights on sales communication, strategy, and leadership.

Want to build a sales process that proves value and a team that can execute? Get in touch.

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