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Written by Peter Ostrow
Customer Management Tuesday, 02 March 2010 19:02

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As sales organizations endeavor to escape the constricted economy of the 2009 recession, one of their most
significant barriers is stagnant progress regarding bringing their sales cycle under control. Recent Aberdeen
research published for Inside Sales Enablement: “Let Them Drink Coffee!” (December, 2009) reveals that
not only did under-performing companies see a year-over-year increase in their sales cycle of 12%, but even
the Best-in-Class, or top 20% of performers among over 500 companies surveyed, experienced a slight (1%)
lengthening of their own lead-to-win timeframe.
As top-performing selling teams continue searching for ways to reduce this window, as well as to increase
their win/loss “batting average,” the use of selected business processes and enabling technologies such as
Configure/Price/Quote (CPQ), contract management, sales playbooks and electronic signature capture tools
hold significant promise for better sales team performance in 2010. An Aberdeen benchmark report,
scheduled for publication in May 2010, will explore how Best-in-Class companies focus their closers on
sealing more deals while shrinking the length of their sales cycle.
Aberdeen research conducted for the B2B TeleServices: The 2009 Buyer’s Guide report (November, 2009)
has shown the value to end-users of deploying external, customer-facing teams to source, nurture and convert
the most highly qualified leads on behalf of an internal, B2B-focused field sales organization. Additional
findings in the Inside Sales Enablement: “Let Them Drink Coffee!” report provide insight into internal teams
that can also create effective, top-of-the-funnel filtering methodologies. Yet how adept are the “closers” at
taking the baton-pass to the finish line? Only 46% of Best-in-Class companies in the latter report deploy
proposal and quote configuration tools in support of the latter stages of sales deal-making. Given the negative
trend of sales cycle metrics exhibited by even these top performers, the opportunity to better leverage tools
focused on the “lead-to-win” component of the sales funnel bear more in-depth examination.

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Popular Blog Postings Regardless of the original source of a sales lead – external telemarketing, inside sales, marketing automation
– the typical field or channel sales representative or “closer” has every motivation to move the opportunity
• Meeting the Promise of through the sales cycle as quickly as possible. The rewards of incentive compensation, quota achievement,
Topic-based Authoring professional pride and even promotional opportunities are closely associated with repeated success by any
• WAN Optimization as a sales professional that consistently meets or beats their number. Yet the potential barriers to a quick, decisive
Managed Service: It's “win” are many: complex pricing negotiations, detailed product configurations, gaps in communications,
Not About the Cost insufficient access to internal resources, competitive bids, and even “trigger-shy” buyers. While sales
• Online Job Boards & professionals can take advantage of externally provided intelligence (Sales Intelligence: The Secret to
the Recruiting Process Sales Nirvana, January, 2009) to help them better understand their target audience, the opportunity to shrink
• Spare parts planning the sales cycle, and perhaps increase their win/loss ratio, may also lie with better internal tools focused on the
• The Greening of lead-to-win portion of the sales process. From the end user’s perspective, the key benefits of deploying lead-
Business Culture: to-win enablers include the opportunity to better control the flow and pace of content, intelligence and data
Comparing the Best-in- between the buyer and seller, accomplishing improvements in:
Class
• Reduction of the sales cycle
• Win/loss ratios
• The percentage of sales representatives achieving quota
Blog Archives • Top-line revenue growth

Aberdeen’s hypothesis is that to achieve maximum sales effectiveness, companies must blend a combination
• 19 October 2010 of strategic actions and new technologies to:
14:33 Where is the
Mobile Retail ROI? • Compress sales cycle elements (quote, proposal, contract, sign) into fewer customer interactions
• 19 October 2010 • Drive repeatable behavior among sales reps
14:11 Improving Plant • Deploy guided selling methodologies to help sales reps identify the optimal message and timing at
Safety and each stage of the sales cycle
Productivity through
a Risk Management Aberdeen's pending research in May 2010, Automating Lead-To-Win: Shrinking the Sales Cycle and Focusing
Strategy (Part 1) Closers on Sealing More Deals, will examine, in more depth, how top-performing organizations achieve
• 19 October 2010 success by shortening the lengthening sales cycles and improving win/loss ratios.
13:56 Sales Mobility:
Quotas Untethered Hits: 1675 Email This Bookmark
• 13 October 2010
19:24 Epicor’s
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