Long sales cycles or longer than expected sales cycles are one of the many causes of companies not hitting their sales quotas, and profit quotas.

It will also determine whether they capture their market share within a specific time period.

Three sure fire ways to shorten your sales cycle close more sales and profits and improve your selling systems.

1-Make sure you are dealing with the decision maker and/or understand the decision making process for that prospect. These selling skill concepts will help you avoid dealing with someone that is just gathering information for someone else. Dealing with the information gatherer and not from the decision maker will make your sales cycle longer than it needs to be.

2-Find out if the service or product the prospect is inquiring about is something they need and not just something they are thinking about. This will help you eliminate the tire kickers and the researchers that may not really want or need your product or service. You can always keep these prospects in your sales pipeline as a potential sale for the future.

3-Ask the prospect when they actually see themselves needing or using the product or service. This will give you the drop dead date and also help eliminate the tire kickers.