A sales cycle of a thousand months . . .

Chuck Dulde (pictured) talks about the sales evolution.

If you’ve ever cracked open a fortune cookie, you’ve probably seen a variation of this Lao Tzu quote:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Modern marketers and sales reps should take this piece of wisdom to heart. With highly educated buyers and a selling landscape that is more competitive than ever, sales teams can no longer rely on what’s worked in the past – selling from their comfort-zones or based purely on building a relationship with their prospect. Sales teams must evolve to sell the way their buyers buy.

As the vice-president of Sales Enablement for SAVO, I spend a lot of time considering sales motion (the sales activities that constitute successful deals) – both ours and those of our clients. In order to make it a thousand miles – or, in our world, close the deal – you must learn how to move with the great shifts and changes in buyer behaviour, and take that first step.

Buyers are moving targets

To realise more closed deals and ultimately higher revenue, you should start by considering your buyers as moving targets. A typical sales motion is no longer about the distance between Point A (your buyer) and Point B (the sale). As buyers continue to self-educate prior to contacting a rep, Point A has become a live, moving target and sales and marketing teams must learn to meet buyers wherever they are in relation to purchasing a product or service.

Unfortunately, the outlook is not good. A recent survey that we conducted with BrightTALK found that sales and marketing leaders are adapting poorly to this changing buyer’s journey. Sales pros are facing numerous problems, from nurtured leads being poorly handed off from marketing to a general lack of support during the early stages of a deal – and they’re suffering.

Specifically, the survey revealed that 49 per cent of executives aren’t very well aligned to the modern buyer’s journey – they have the right tools, but hardly anyone uses them – and that, while compromise is key, 64 per cent of respondents admit to not adapting very well to changes within the sales cycle. This stiffness and inability to change directions deftly to accommodate the interests and needs of the prospect or customer can kill a sale in its tracks.

Executives see the source of the problem as a lack of adoption: they are providing the right solutions, but hardly anyone is using them. If only adoption of CRM or Marketing Automation (MA) solutions was higher, all their problems would be solved… right? Not necessarily, as adopting CRM and MA solutions does not automatically equal alignment between marketing and sales, which is the surest way to map to a buyer’s journey and win more business.

Although the survey respondents are not realising where the issue lies, the sales teams, marketing departments and buyers are all recognising and feeling the same business pain, which is the inability to adapt to changes within the sales cycle. Unless they are able to quickly adjust and respond, they will not be able to deliver what their buyers want and will lose the deal.

Taking the first step

Sales pros need more than just resources. They need the entire company to align behind them. The best interests of our prospects, customers and sales teams rest in our ability to meet buyers at the point in the purchasing cycle where they need to be transitioned from self-education to nurturing. Buyers know what problem they need to solve, but they aren’t necessarily aware of the solutions available to them. That’s where the value of our sales and marketing teams, and their ability to align to the buyer’s wants, instigate the sales motion.

Ensuring this alignment between marketing and sales happens cleanly is a crucial responsibility of the teams involved in the early stages of the sales motion. If every member of an organisation understands his or her value proposition to the sales team, the buyer’s transition into the sales motion will be smooth and the chances of a won deal occurring will increase exponentially. If the buyer feels like he or she is being pulled into a sales motion − even if your product is the one needed − the chance of a long, inconsistent sales process increases. So you can understand why this transition demands the focus of sales and marketing leadership.

Align, communicate and make clear the value propositions you hold to your sales organisation and you can turn thousand mile journeys – or sales cycles – into quick wins for your company.

Chuck Dulde is the vice-president of sales enablement for SAVO. Follow him on Twitter at @chuckdulde