Most sales teams aggressively adopt any tool, methodology, or tactic that promises to shorten the sales cycle. The reason is obvious: the shorter your sales cycles, the more deals you can close and the more time you open up for prospecting.
Believe it or not, however, there are a few situations where lengthening the sales cycle can work in your favor. Here are at least two scenarios in which it might be advantageous for you.
When to Lengthen the Sales Cycle
1. If you think you have a chance of winning the deal and strongly want to win business with this particular prospect, but another company is currently the frontrunner.
2. You respond to an RFP with an offer to help the prospect assess his/her situation (using an assessment tool) and/or build a business case (using an ROI calculator), and the prospect agrees. (Bear in mind, however, that this likelihood still might be lower than other potential sales opportunities. If that’s the case, you should pursue those deals first.)
A consultative assessment is likely to lengthen the sales process—it will also increase your chance of winning the business. A collaborative dialogue around the customer’s business challenges gives you insight into that company’s financials, goals, and current state.
As part of the process, you’ll probably talk with multiple people within the company to evaluate the business from different angles and perspectives. You’ll find out:
- The prospect’s business problems
- Whether or not the prospect is focused on the right problems
- How much it would be worth to solve those problems
With that information, you can see where you can (or cannot, in some cases) provide value. At that point, you can use both an ROI tool to build a business case that illustrates your value and justifies the cost of your solution.
What if the Prospect Isn’t Interested in an Assessment?
There are a few signs that you should walk away from the deal and not attempt to lengthen the buying process.
If the prospect isn’t interested in having a dialogue about his or her company’s business challenges, you’re wasting your time. Either s/he is looking for column fodder for the RFP, or s/he has already engaged in that dialogue with another vendor.
Similarly, if you believe you probably won’t be able to change the buying criteria via a collaborative dialogue, you’re likely wasting your time. If they require or want a very specific set of features that your competitor has but you don’t, that’s a sign that you’re not going to get very far in the deal.
As an example, let’s say you know that one of your competitors has a comprehensive integration with Salesforce.com and you don’t. You also know that the customer is specifically looking for that integration. If that’s the case, the only chance you have to win is if you can convince the customer that there’s some other feature or benefit that can bring them more value than integration with that CRM. Most often, that’s just too hard of a case to make.
The decision to draw out the buying process should be made strategically, with these points in mind. Your default state will probably always be to pursue closing more deals in less time. However, when applied in the correct situations, this approach might produce an unexpected and satisfying win.
