Everyone has a different idea of what shortens cycles and increases sales. A shorter, more streamlined sales cycle equates to more sales and happier executives. There is no magic bullet that guarantees shortened cycles but there are four steps that can put you (and your business) in a better position to get leads and close faster.

1. Keep Track of Everything. You can’t fix anything if you can’t see what’s wrong. Using a CRM to track everything – from proposals to quotes to sales – can help you and your team analyze, predict, and improve the sales process.  Like an athlete watching tape of their game to find out what worked and what didn’t work, your team will be able to look at the numbers to help get rid of what works and keep what does.
2. Cut out Extra Steps. A lot of companies stick to the same plan because it worked in the past — but sales is fundamentally different in this online world. Once you’ve analyzed your process, don’t be afraid to eliminate unnecessary steps. For example, have your marketing team create a series of follow-up emails for you sales team. Instead of writing unique emails from scratch, for every contact, the sales rep can simply make slight, individualized tweaks to a slick template.
3. Improve your SEO. SEO, or search engine optimization in layman’s terms, is the method of driving people to your website by ensuring when they search for your product or service on Google (or any search engine), your name is listed first.. Companies can employ consultants, hire a team, or improve their SEO on their own. Good SEO means you’ll get more “organic” leads, leaving your sales reps to spend more time closing deals and less times cold calling.
4. Embrace technology. Using a mobile sales solution can prove to be a huge difference maker to your sales reps. Instead of having to return to the office between meetings to acquire the necessary sales information, use Showcase Sales to keep all of your sales material in one, lightweight and easy-to-use app. Showcase stores all of your sales materials, customer information, and product information in the cloud, allowing you to extract it whenever you need (even when you don’t have internet access). Even better, Showcase can be updated by the marketing team at the headquarters and those updates can be pushed out to reps in the field immediately.