The Top Five Ways Companies Sabotage their Sales Cycles

Whether your company is a Fortune 500 corporation or your own small business, sales and marketing are vital to sustaining and growing your company. Without meaning to, some companies sabotage their efforts to accelerate the sales cycle.  The top 5 ways that companies sabotage their sales cycles explains the most common mistakes companies make when they are trying to encourage their customers to buy their products and services. Rick Simoni, USD instructor, Sales Acceleration and the Buyer’s Journey, describes the 5 most common mistakes companies make.

1. They don’t operate from their prospects’ or customers’ perspective
   It’s easy to sit at a desk and guess or listen to an advertising agency…it takes a lot more work to interview potential customers and research how they think. Without identifying and mapping the thoughts of your prospect’s “Buying Mind,” you’re really just guessing.
2. They have no shared model for integrating and aligning their sales and marketing efforts
   Lots of talk through the years about effectively integrating sales and marketing efforts, without any process for how to achieve the goal. Without a shared model of your potential customer’s Adoption and Buying Process, there really is no reliable method for bringing the two “Silos” together.
3. They don’t strategically focus their marketing activities to accelerate their sales processes
   Lots of “Smoke”, without a lot of “Fire”. You can burn through a whole lot of marketing dollars without selling much of anything, so what’s the point of “Marketing”? Without (1) a shared blueprint of what adoption and sales behaviors you’re trying to trigger in the mind of your potential customers and (2) a mutually agreed on roadmap for how to get there, you’re in the gambling business.
4. They often don’t “Sell” what their prospects want to “Buy”
   “Build it and they will come,” except sometimes they don’t. Billions of dollars are wasted on product development only to learn later that what seemed like a good idea…was not what your potential customers really wanted or cared about. Without a clear understanding of your prospect’s “Behavioral Drivers” and an integrated sales and marketing plan that addresses them, you’re rolling the dice.
5. They sometimes create their own “Sales Prevention” activities
   Changing prospect beliefs and behaviors is tough enough…why make it even tougher? It’s amazing how many companies make it difficult to do business with them. Oftentimes, creating their own obstacles, “Pinch Points” and “Sales Prevention” Departments that decelerate an efficient Buying Journey. Without a clear, shared plan to create an accelerated Adoption and Buying Path…you’re unknowingly inviting “Deceleration” activities to quietly sneak in and slow your sales cycles.

So what’s the cure? A shared Buying Journey Blueprint and shared Sales and Marketing strategies that facilitate and accelerate buying and adoption.

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