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If you’re analyzing sales goals week by week or even on a monthly basis, you could be missing opportunities. Certainly activities should be scheduled in small timeframes. However, when we set goals and analyze activities, it is critical to look at our sales cycles.
A sales cycle is simply the average amount of time that it tasks for us to sell a product. This is calculated by tracking the time that we initially contact a new or potential customer to when we finalize the sale. By measuring a representative sample, we will forecast average sales cycles for our products.
So how can we use this?
- Accurately analyze what sales activities are effective. If you want to analyze sales results for March, and the average sales cycle is three months, then we need to look back at activities for December.
- Managing Sales People. As managers, we're often guilty of rewarding behavior that really had little to do with results. In planning for future sales results, we need to be realistic about the time frame.
- To determine closing effectiveness. By looking at our sales cycles, we will be able to determine our closing effectiveness. If we know that we will sixty percent of our sales contacts, we will also be able to determine how many no's we will need to get before we get a yes.
- Fine-tuning skills. By looking at our specific activities, we will be able to determine what sales activities are most effective and what areas we need to concentrate on for personal development.
Impact Sales can help you to determine your sales cycles and development needs of your people. For more information contact Impact Sales at 414-524-1144.
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