Time is Money

The old adage that “time is money” has never been more of an issue than it is today. Have you ever noticed how everyone wants things faster? I just heard that Samsung is going to introduce a new phone that is going to have 5G speeds. This is supposed to be 100 times faster than the 4G phones that are out there today. They said that you can download a full length movie in a matter of seconds, not minutes.

So, it isn’t surprising that we live in a world of “want it now”. Communication today has made it possible to be able to get information about what is going on in the world as it is happening. Everyone has phones that are capable of capturing and sending pictures and videos instantly. I can remember when Polaroid introduced the first camera that allowed you to take a picture and it would pop out of your camera, then in a few seconds your picture would develop right before your very eyes. Now look what we have today, instant digital images taken from our phones no less.

There are still some things that we haven’t been able to speed up quite so quickly, in fact some things are actually taking longer. I’m referring to the length of the sales cycle for the average B2B complex sale. IDC reports a hefty 40% increase in the number of stakeholders per sale, which means that many more people who salespeople need to engage with before they can close the sale!

Salespeople need a wealth of knowledge to operate effectively and perform at peak productivity. A recent Selling Power Sales Enablement survey showed that 32% of sales executives said it is moderately difficult for their reps to access the resources they need to be effective at closing business. So, searching for what they need to effectively close business can be a huge time and money waste for salespeople.

The amount of time that salespeople actually spend in front of a prospect keeps getting smaller and smaller each year as salespeople are sidetracked with unproductive things, like surfing the web, that rob them and the companies they work for of revenue.

So, what can we do to help our people be more productive and effective? Well, we can provide them with the information and tools they need so they can get at that information faster. We can also provide them with more “tribal knowledge” and detailed information about the target market they are pursuing. You can identify who those additional stakeholders might be (by role or function) and what issues they have, so the salesperson isn’t blindsided at the last minute which will lengthen the sale. We can also help them understand the environment they are selling into and what questions they should ask, to uncover things that will hold up a decision and waste more time. Because after all “Time is Money”!

That’s the way I see it, what say you?