How to run a sales cycle

We’re all told we need to go and do sales.

But WTF does that even mean? What is a sales cycle? How do you put one together for your startup?

We’ll go deep into a few things that you need to do to successfully run a sales cycle, starting today.

Table of Contents

• Sales Cycles 101

• Meeting Structure

• Sales Discovery

• Follow-ups

• Stringing it Together

Sales Cycles 101

In the simplest terms, a sales cycle is the culmination of successful sales meetings and follow ups.

Sounds too simple to be true. But it is.

Consistent execution over time is really the difficult part of sales.

Your sales cycle is designed to help prospects make a purchase decision. Remember that, you are not there to show off your stuff. You are there to help them dig deeper into their problems to see if you can help solve it. And if they believe you can solve the problem, you guide them through how to buy your product.

What this looks like on paper is something like this:

Meeting Structure

Every meeting needs structure. Again, you are there to help them make a purchase decision. That means you need to understand their problems, and they need to understand the application of your solution to their problems.

This doesn’t happen by chance. It’s not a chat with a friend where topics run rampant.

They have an outcome for the call, you have an outcome for the call.

With this in mind, it allows you to blueprint different kinds of calls, like an intro demo, or a demo call.

It also gives you a clear way to follow-up.

Every meeting has 5 parts - no matter what the objective of the meeting is.

1. Start - this is bonding and rapport, pleasantries, etc. Try to find something business relevant to talk about, usually from their LI profile or company news. Ask them questions about it - folks like to talk about themselves.

2. Kickoff - this is where you set the structure of the meeting. Time check. People check. Purpose of the call. Their ideal objectives. And permission to discuss next steps.

3. Information gathering - this is where you do discovery. On every call, not just the first call. You ask probing questions to better understand their world. This happens multiple times in a call, not just at the start.

4. Information sharing - this is where you share relevant information that helps the prospect with their purchase decision. Could be a pitch, a deck, a story, a demo, a proposal, pricing, onboarding plan, etc. This happens multiple times throughout each call as well. You bounce from gathering to sharing.

5. Next Steps - this is where you discuss what needs to happen next in their purchase process, and you align your next meeting to that.

Sales Discovery

Throughout the entire sales cycle, you’ll be doing discovery.

Remember - discovery is a process, not an event. You are not done asking probing questions after the first 10 minutes of the first call.

Discovery never stops. You will constantly uncover more facts about the deal up until signature. Then you’ll continue to uncover more facts as they onboard to your software.

So implement a system to do discovery well.

I created the FOUNDER framework to help with this.

• Facts - basic information about people, tech, processes. Example what tools do they use.

• Objectives & Pain - what problems do they have in their workflows/processes, and where do they want to get to. This creates a gap in their business. This gap is what you can solve.

• Uncovering Impact - what’s the quantifiable impact this gap is having on the business. Are they losing revenue? Are costs high? Are they at risk of falling out of compliance? What’s the business impact.

• Negative Consequence - this is the cost of inaction. What happens if they don’t solve the problem? What toll will the business impact have? Will the need to do layoffs? Will they miss an important product launch? Will they lose customers? Will they get fined?

• Driving Events - this is a compelling or critical event that’s leading them to a change now. Example “if we don’t solve this in the next 6 months I’ll need to layoff 10% of my staff.” The negative consequence is now tied to a timeframe. This combination creates urgency in a deal.

• Reaching a Decision - how will they make this purchase? Who’s involved? What steps will they take? Where’s the budget? This is everything related to getting from “you can solve my problem” to “signed contract.”

This framework is applied throughout your sales cycles. It’s like choosing a programming language. It helps collect and classify information that help you guide them better. The more info you have for all of this, the better your sales cycles will run.

Follow-ups

We covered how to follow-up effectively in a previous post.

To re-iterate, the follow-up should be a detailed summary of the FOUNDER information you gathered from the meeting, with a quick note about your solution + agreed upon next steps.

Here’s the template for quick reference:

Stringing it Together

So a combination of a discovery framework (I use FOUNDER) + call structures + effective follow-ups is really the meat of running an effective sales cycle.

The more you think about how to execute your calls, the more success you’ll get.

The formula to a closed won deal is really simple:

When you have successful calls, then the only last piece of the equation is to increase the volume of leads going through your calls.

Let me know what you think of the newsletter! Always want to cover topics that you care about.

For more practical early-stage sales tips, connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you’re looking for more hands-on help implementing your first sales process, reach out for coaching packages.

P.S. I have a few spots left for May and June group coaching. Reply if you’re interested.

P.P.S. Coming soon - the only upskilling community for founder-led sales. Ask me about details :)