12 Sales Tips and Tricks to Shorten Sales Cycles and Win More Revenue

When selling to new prospects, you might feel like you have to spend a lot of time getting to know your buyer’s short-term needs and long-term goals, as well as taking time to build rapport.

But when you’re trying to move deals to the finish line fast, you can’t waste time on activities that produce unnecessary drag.

Prolonged discovery, scripted demos, and multi-step complex sales processes might seem like good ideas for B2B selling, but they often add delays to the sales process that could ultimately stall your buyer’s decision.

The good news is, these common sales practices aren’t always required.

You can apply some simple selling tips and tricks, based on research and psychology, to shorten your sales cycle and win more revenue. Not only will you guide your buyers to a decision faster, but you’ll also increase your win rate and boost your profitability.

Here are 12 science-backed tips to help you sell faster to new prospects:

1. Respond Immediately to Inbound Leads

Your prospects are digitally savvy, well-informed, and often well into their buying journey before they reach out to learn more about your product or services.

When prospects decide to contact you, they’re likely already narrowing their options. They’re not just evaluating your solution—they’re also evaluating your competitors’ product or service. If you don’t respond quickly to their inquiry, you’re far less likely to win the deal.

A recent field trial found that when prospects received a response within 24 hours:

• ​Sellers won twice as many smaller-than-average deals, and 1.7 times as many larger-than-average deals.
• ​Sellers won 21 percent more larger-than-average deals.

Responding to an inbound prospect immediately can not only double your win rates, but the size of those deals will likely increase, too.

How to ensure you’re responding immediately:

• ​Build automation rules to route leads to the right person right away.
• ​Send an automated email to acknowledge your prospect’s interest immediately, and then follow up several times within the next 24 hours.

Prospects don’t respond to only one call or email. Sometimes it can take multiple attempts to get your prospect to respond, even if they filled out a form. Utilize a semi-automated sales cadence that includes several attempts on day one and multiple touches over the next 16 days.

2. Target the Problem, Not a Persona

Many sales and marketing leaders focus on buyer personas, but the most commonly used criteria—role, title, industry vertical, company size, and past purchase history—are the least effective for prospect targeting, according to behavioral research.

Two other criteria are significantly more effective for predicting your buyer’s journey:

1. 1.Problem profiles – the characteristics of the problems that buyers are dealing with.
2. 2.Trigger events – what caused the buyer to realize they have a problem.

When you identify problem profiles and trigger events, you can better predict your buyer’s journey and remove roadblocks during their decision-making process.

Ask prospects:

• ​Does the prospect understand what their problem is?
• ​How confident is the prospect about the cause of the problem?
• ​Do all stakeholders agree they have the same problem?
• ​What motivated them to seek a new vendor?

Focus on their problem profiles and trigger events to speed up the sales process.

3. Guide the Sales Discussion

Buyers will ask many questions, but with limited time, don’t fall into the trap of responding to every single question. If you do, you’re letting them lead the discussion, which can diverge into irrelevant areas.

You are the expert in your solution. Guide the discussion in a productive and organized way. Bring attention to the problems you know your prospect is facing and direct the conversation so it naturally flows to your solution. This saves time and positions you as the expert.

4. Introduce Unconsidered Needs to Your Prospect

Buyer data shows that 35% of the time, buyers see no difference between vendors, and 79% of the time, they only see a minimal difference.

This often happens because sellers rely on the prospect’s stated needs. When you base your messages on these, you deliver commoditized messages that won’t differentiate you.

To avoid this, introduce your prospects to their Unconsidered Needs—problems, deficiencies, or missed opportunities that your prospect doesn’t know about or hasn’t addressed. This provides valuable insight and creates urgency to solve the need, making you the right solution to implement now.

5. Add Context to Your Data

Behavioral and neuroscience research shows that to increase your persuasive impact, present data and insights before asking the prospect questions. Use the Data, Insight, Question (DIQ) sequence:

1. 1.Data – Share relevant data related to an external factor important to your buyer’s business.
2. 2.Insight – Turn that data into an insightful message by placing it within the context of your buyer’s current situation.
3. 3.Question – After presenting an insight, ask a reflective question to provoke dialogue.

This approach encourages self-persuasion and transfers ownership of the challenge to your buyer.

6. Show Clear Contrast

Telling prospects what they can gain is good. Adding quantified results is better. But numbers alone aren’t enough to sway your buyer emotionally. You also need to tell them what’s at risk if they don’t choose your solution.

To overcome inertia and persuade your prospect to change:

1. 1.Frame their current situation as unsafe and unsustainable.
2. 2.Show them how their future will look when your solution resolves the risks.

Help them visualize the gap between “before” and “after” your solution. The greater the gap, the more willing your buyer will be to take action.

7. Control Your 10% Message

Prospects will forget about 90% of the information you share after 48 hours. The small amount they do remember will be random—unless you control your “10% message.”

A 10% message is a crisp and concise statement about the most important takeaway you want your buyers to remember and act on. Effective 10% messages are:

• ​Focused – One main message with three to four supporting points.
• ​Rewarding – Linked to something your prospect finds rewarding.
• ​Differentiated – Unique to you.
• ​Repeatable – Easy for your buyer to share.
• ​Actionable – Phrased as an action you want your buyer to take.

If your 10% message isn’t clear, each person might walk away with a different understanding. Make sure stakeholders remember the right thing.

8. Leverage Your Industry Knowledge

You have a wealth of industry knowledge that’s valuable to your prospects. They want to hear about trends, challenges, and insights you’ve gleaned, and how others in the industry are grappling with similar problems.

Executive buyers, who often need to sign off on deals, want you to tell them what should be keeping them up at night. Use your industry knowledge to provide insights and establish yourself as a valuable advisor.

9. Build Urgency on Their Terms

A quarterly discount or end-of-year sale won’t motivate your prospect to act now. Your timetable isn’t going to convince your buyer to close the deal.

To create urgency:

1. 1.Determine a compelling event for their business—something with a concrete date that makes sense for your solution to be purchased or implemented before.
2. 2.Create a “setback schedule”—a timeline for what needs to happen when, so they don’t miss the deadline.

Making the timeline about their business needs will make buying your solution more urgent to your prospect.

10. Frame the Decision

You usually need to convince a group of people to agree that your solution is the best. Achieving consensus is often the biggest roadblock.

Share your knowledge of how the decision-making process can run best. Walk your primary contact through who is usually involved and what questions stakeholders have. Build a roadmap to involve the right people at the right time and address common questions in advance.

11. Make First Offers

Prospects will anchor on the first number they hear during price conversations. By making the first offer, you set the reference point for your buyers and influence their perception of your solution’s value. This is due to the “Anchoring Effect.”

Whoever provides the first number places the anchor for all future negotiations. If you wait for your buyer to make the first offer, it will likely be low. If you make the first offer, you can set the anchor high and negotiate from there.

12. Use Time Outside of the Sales Call

Prospects don’t have unlimited time. Use your sales presentation time efficiently:

• ​What is your 10% message?
• ​What is the one commitment you expect from the buyer after the call?
• ​What’s the most important information your prospect needs to understand?
• ​What information will help you make progress more quickly?

Use asynchronous time wisely. Share additional information outside of the call that they can review on their own time. Use existing content rather than creating bespoke content unless necessary.

Sales Tips Backed by Science

The traditional approach of being a “trusted advisor” by asking lots of questions and then presenting a solution that fits the criteria is no longer enough. Buyers want you to tell them what they should want and deliver insight into what they’re missing that will improve their performance.

When you understand how your buyers frame value and make decisions, and you apply foundational sales tips and tricks, you can guide your sales conversations more confidently, avoid potential roadblocks, shorten the sales cycle, and win more revenue.