How long does it take to close a B2B sale?

Have you gotten more quotes out than ever this month? Amazing work! But the next question is, when can you expect for those sales to come in?

Issuing a quote is usually only about 60-70% along the sales process, and sales are won or lost after the quote is issued. Being a Sales Manager can be tough, especially when you have to manage a team of sales people where you have to balance the need for sales right now vs building the pipeline for the future.

 

How long is a good timescale to close a B2B sale?

That depends on a lot of factors:

Tips for measuring the length of time to close a B2B Sale

First off, you should be measuring 5 key factors in your sales closing:

  1. How many – % of won sales vs total quotes issued
  2. Where – Where do the best closing sales come from?
  3. How long – Length of time in hours, days, weeks to get a yes/no out of a Prospect
  4. Value – Value of those sales, in total and in gross margin
  5. Payment Terms – When you actually collect the cash

Most CRM systems have measurements for these. If you don’t have a CRM system, get one. Hubspot is free and it has a pretty damn good measurement for this including reports on:

  • Conversion of sales
  • Total and avg value sales
  • Projected future income and when this is expected to come in

 

Involve your salespeople in this

All of the above metrics are super important, so don’t just reward and encourage salespeople on volumes of sales, but rather base their bonuses on gross margin, when cash comes into the business and how fast. It’s this type of reward-based system that aligns salespeople’s interests with the company’s.

Check out this link here on where your highest converting leads come from