The sales cycle is the journey of a potential customer from awareness of your product or service to becoming a paying customer. It’s a sales ops professional’s job to analyze and optimize the sales cycle to help close deals more efficiently.
The typical steps in the sales cycle include:
- Lead generation – this is the start of the cycle, where you identify and qualify new potential customers. Sales ops may focus on improving lead quality through better targeting, content, and nurturing.
- First contact – Outbound campaigns or inbound leads turn into that critical first sales conversation.
- Discovery – The sales rep uncovers the prospect’s needs, challenges, and buying process through questions and active listening.
- Presentation – The sales rep tailors their pitch and shares proposals based on what they learned in discovery. Sales ops enables customization by providing recommended products/services and pricing models.
- Negotiation – Discussion around pricing, terms, concessions, and closing the deal. Sales ops can set guidelines for deal approval and discounting.
- Customer onboarding – Getting the customer rolled onto the product/service and set up for success.
By shortening and optimizing each step of this cycle, sales ops helps sales teams convert more prospects into delighted customers. The sales cycle serves as a roadmap for the customer journey and an opportunity for continuous improvement of the sales process.
