Is it possible to take an 18 month sales cycle and shorten it to just two months? Join me on this episode of The Dave LorenzoDaily and find out. (upbeat electronic music) Hey it’s Dave Lorenzo, and today’s episode is all about shortening the sales cycle, especially in a business to business environment. And to demonstrate how easy it is, or easy it can be, to shorten the sales cycle,

I’m going to use a story from my own history, from my own background. I was working for a big ticket consulting firm. This is a consulting firm where, our minimum engagement was $250,000 and that was frowned upon. They wanted us to develop engagements that were at least$1,000,000 or more on an annual revenue basis. And I was brand new to the role, I had been in myjob maybe 45 days. And the CEO of our company walked into my office, and he said to me, “Dave, I want to tell you a story and see “if

you can help me out.” He sat down in the chair and he looked me in the eye and he said, “my brother-in-law works for another consulting firm, “but he used to work here. “And one of our marquis accounts was Ann Taylor stores. “This is a women’s clothing store retail chain, “and we used to do interviews for them.

“We used to develop selection interviews for them.” He said to me, “Dave,my brother-in-law, “after he divorced my sister, “took that account and opened a brand new company. “He started his own company, “using that account ashis marquis client.” He looked at me and he said, “I want to get that account back.” And he’s like,

“I want to get that account back so badly, “I’m willing to offer you an incentive to do it.” And I looked at him and I said, okay, that’s my job,I’ll be happy to do it. And I said, let me go after the account and I’ll see what I can do. He said, “Here’s how badly I want the account.” He said to me, “If you can get their business, in the next 60 days, “I will pay you bonus of $50,000.” And I looked at him,

and I said, You got it, boss. I’m on it. Now I had a couple of things going for me during this time. I didn’t know that there was an 18 month sales cycle. I found out later on. So what I did, I drilled down deep into our research database and discovered who the decision makers could potentially be. I started with the CEO,I worked my way down. Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President Of Human Resources, and I compiled a list of about 30 people within

the organization who I thought could be decision makers for working on a project with me. And then I went out and went to work. I sent out invitations to an event that I created to each of them. I also invited all my other prospects. So I invited about 150,maybe 200 prospects, to an event that Hosted in my office.

We got 45 people to say yes, and I put on a one day seminar, and three people from Ann Taylor came to that one day seminar. I spent time talking with them, developing relationships with them. One of these folks it turns out, was ambitious and wanted to grow with the company, and really understood the concepts that we taught at the seminar. In fact,

I found out that she was due, in the next couple of weeks, to give a presentation to the board of directors on exactly what we were focused on. Learning, growth, development,and selection tools as a way to hire the best and jump start sales.

I offered to help her develop that presentation. And I spent a huge amount of time behind the scenes, helping her with that presentation, until she got to the point where she was like a professional speaker. She delivered the presentation, knocked it out of the park. Her boss went to her and said, “I’ve decided to give you this project.

“I want you to decide which selection tools “we’re going to use as a company moving forward. “I think we can make some modifications “to our current process.” She immediately called me.

I put together an entire selection system for her. She got approval within two weeks, and I closed a$1.4 million deal. In less than 60 days. My point to this whole story, and what you should take away from this is, the long sales cycle, whatever business you’rein, can be shortened, if you focus on, specifically,developing relationships.