Knowing the sales cycle perfectly is essential to be able to define a good sales strategy and convert potential customers (or “leads”) into real customers, especially in a context as competitive as the current one.

So how can you get the most out of your company's sales cycle?

Closing a B2B sale is not just the moment the transaction is made, it is a long journey. The different stages of this process form the so-called “sales cycle”. This includes all the steps necessary to fulfil the final objective of selling the product or service.

What should you control at each moment of the sales cycle?

Let's go step by step; first, we explain what your priorities should be at each moment of the sales cycle: before the sale, during and after.

1. Before

Regarding the moment prior to the sale, a good preparation of the sales action is required before it takes place.

For example, it could be very helpful to invest in systems to monitor the formation of the offering (product offer), consult the purchase history and review the selection of products to show the customer.
Furthermore, this stage includes a whole part of lead generation, in which it is important to have a good online presence and to know how to properly use digital channels to reach them.

In general, controlling this stage of the sales cycle is important in order to stay one step ahead before the meeting with the customer and thus offer a personal and effective service.

2. During

It is important that at the specific moment of the sales action you are able to offer a personalised service to the customer.

It is in your interest to invest in visual and multimedia presentations for the session. Furthermore, the monitoring of the entire session, the control of what is shown to the customer and the subsequent preparation of reports and forms, can be very helpful to improve in future sales actions.

Good interactive digital catalogue software fosters the ability to carry out online sales actions, such as placing orders on the spot and sharing sales capsules that are of interest to the customer.

3. After

At this stage it is in your interest to maintain interaction with the customer beyond the commercial transaction.

For the company, good management of the “after” of the sale or the visit is essential to work on customer loyalty or customer fidelity. This includes, for example, the use of platforms that allow the customer to consult commercial information from any device, place new orders easily, request support or schedule a new session with a sales advisor.

At a general level, good control of this stage of the sales cycle, which is often forgotten, allows good monitoring of the success of the sale and ensures that a stronger and more lasting relationship is created with the customer.

Problem: most companies only have partial control of the sales cycle

Despite having an elaborate sales cycle with all the necessary steps to sell, many B2B businesses face a problem with the control of their sales cycle: the lack of continuity.

To carry out a good sales strategy a company must know how to manage the cycle in its entirety and in an integrated way. However, the most common thing is for businesses to use platforms that allow a specific department to have good control of only one of the parts of the whole process, or for each part of the cycle to be controlled from different non-integrated software.

Solution: use an Augmented Sales Cycle platform

So, how can we take control of all the parts of the sales or commercial process?

The solution lies in choosing a Sales Enablement platform that allows an Augmented Sales Cycle. This is the case with CatalogPlayer's Sales Enablement platform.

What sets it apart from other platforms?

Unlike other software or CRMs that control one part of the process, CatalogPlayer's covers the entire sales cycle, thus having an impact not only on the before or after of the sale, but on the before, the after and the during of each sale.

In addition, the platform covers the different stages of the sales cycle in a single channel in an integrated way. In this way the company can have greater control over the entire sales cycle and take care of every point of contact with the customer.

This is why a sales system with an Augmented Sales Cycle like CatalogPlayer's is more effective than other traditional sales systems.

What are its main advantages?

In an integrated process there is greater feedback on customer activity, which means having more customer information, and in this way the different sales opportunities can be better identified and, at the same time, a better customer experience can be offered.

The result is a business with a greater capacity to convert potential customers into actual customers.