The Pitfalls of a Long Sales Cycle for Industrial Automation

How long does it typically take your industrial automation company to convert sales leads into buyers? Known as the sales cycle, it can affect your industrial automation company's sales revenue. Most sales leads won't buy a product or service when you first communicate with them. Rather, they require nurturing to acknowledge the value of a promoted product or service. If your industrial automation company's sales cycle is too long, though, it can lead to several problems that restrict your ability to generate sales.

Consumes Time and Resources

A long sales cycle will consume more of your time and resources. Some industrial automation companies are able to convert leads into buyers in just one or two months, whereas may take over a year. If it takes a year to convert a sales lead into a buyer, you'll exhaust a significant amount of time and resources to generate sales. As a result, your sales activities will be limited. You need to shorten your industrial automation company's sales cycle for an efficient and effective sales process.

Prospective Buyers May Go With a Competitor

If your industrial automation company's sales cycle is too long, prospective buyers may go with a competitor. When a prospective buyer begins searching for a product or service, he or she has identified a problem within their operation that needs improving. With a long sales cycle, the prospective buyer may lose interest in your B2B company. Instead, the prospective buyer may go with a competitor by choosing its product or service.

Difficult to Track Interactions

Another pitfall of a long sales cycle is that it makes tracking interactions between your industrial automation company and prospective buyers more difficult. If it takes six months or longer to convert a sales lead into a buyer, you'll probably end up communicating with the prospective buyer a dozen or more times. In turn, you'll have to record all of these interactions with each person at the prospective customer. Of course, you can use customer relationship management (CRM) software to facilitate the tracking of interactions. It can automatically track customer interactions so that you don't have to manually track them.

Prospective Buyers May Change Their Position

Finally, there's the potential for prospective buyers to change their job position during a long sales cycle. A prospective buyer may hold a C-level position when you initially acquire him or her as a sales lead. Midway through the sales cycle, the prospective buyer may move to a different position where he or she doesn't have purchasing authority.