Sales Cycle & Sales Stages Definition (2023)

Sales teams that fail to manage their sales stages with a clearly outlined sales cycle tend to bring in less revenue.

A study conducted by Vantage Point Performance and the Sales Management Association found effective pipelines are directly linked to business growth. Companies that mastered an efficient sales cycle have 28% higher revenue growth than those who don’t.

The pattern is clear: High-performing sales teams use pipeline management and sales stage definition to supercharge their sales processes.

In this guide, we’re going to walk you through how to effectively manage your own pipeline over nine sales stages:

1. Sales prospecting to generate new leads
2. Qualifying new leads
3. Reaching out to new leads
4. Initial appointment/meeting
5. Defining needs
6. Solution presentation
8. Winning the deal
9. Generating referrals

Let’s dive into each sales stage and see how you can start managing your pipeline more effectively with a clearly outlined sales cycle.

1. Sales Prospecting to generate new leads

There are several prospecting and lead generation tactics you can use to build up a database of prospects. Whether you’re networking or cold calling, landing high-quality leads is the aim.

In-person networking at events, while time-consuming, is a great way to find new leads. In one survey, marketers said that events were the most effective marketing channel. It’s easier for reps to find out if a prospect is a good fit by talking to them in person. It’s also a valuable opportunity to form in-person connections in what has become a digital world. Outreach activities like cold calling or cold emailing should also be top of the list, as these are tried and true tactics for any sales cycle.

Sales teams can utilize lead generation tools to make prospecting easier. Leadfeeder, for example, generates leads from website traffic. The tool provides reps with a list of companies whose employees have visited their website. The data is broken down into:

• Company size by number of employees
• City and country
• Industry
• Website

2. Qualifying new leads

Once you’ve generated leads, the next stage in the sales pipeline is qualifying them.

Qualified leads should fit your target market criteria, have a need for your product and be able and motivated to buy.

Let’s break down why qualifying every lead is synonymous with an effective cycle:

• It saves time: Understanding how interested a lead is saves valuable time. If you can tag leads as “hot” and “cold,” you’ll know better where to focus your energy. A cold lead will need more nurturing and thus take longer to close, while hot leads are generally more easily converted into deals.
• It stops your sales team from getting overwhelmed: Qualifying new leads makes it easier to follow up efficiently.
• It arms you with useful data: It gives you more information on how to approach a lead in a way that makes it more likely they’ll convert. Rather than spending valuable time on poorly qualified leads, focus on profitable ones that are more serious and able to buy your product.

Leads turn into prospects as they go through the qualification process. The main difference between a lead and a sales prospect is the level of interest they show in your product or service. If leads demonstrate that they’re genuinely keen on buying your product, and/or are engaging consistently with your sales reps to learn more about your offerings, they move lower down the funnel and become prospects.

3. Reaching out to new leads

Reaching out to leads for the first time is tough. One study found that it takes an average of 18 attempted calls for a sales rep to connect with a prospect. And email follow-ups are just as unsuccessful, but that doesn't mean cold emails should be removed from your sales cycle. Yesware conducted an in-house study of 500,000 of their own sales emails and found a 30% response rate to the first email and 14% to the fourth.

Yet here's where the study gets interesting. After a constant, downward trend, the tenth email in their sales sequence saw a slight increase in the response rate on the ninth.

4. Setting your initial appointment/meeting

The secret to saving a ton of time on this step is by automating your appointment scheduling process, as this will:

• Minimize the admin time involved in setting appointments
• Help you make sure you don’t double-book your calendar
• Cut the friction involved in finding a time that suits you and your prospect
• Improve the lead’s experience of booking a meeting with you

You’ll need a meeting scheduling tool to automate this part of the process. The best apps are easy to use and seamlessly integrate with your existing tech stack.

For example Scheduler, Pipedrive’s scheduling tool, enables sales reps to book a time on their calendar with a prospect by just sending them a link. The prospect can then see when the sales rep is available and pick a slot that suits them.

5. Defining a prospect’s needs

The key to creating a persuasive sales pitch is by defining the prospect’s needs.

You can do this by focusing on the value of your offering instead of the price. By defining needs ahead of time, you’re positioning yourself ahead of the competition.

Value-based selling shows prospects how your product will solve their problem. Speak to your prospects on a human level, understand their pain points and effectively explain how your product is a resolution. Show them how your product will work in their real-world scenario and paint a picture they can’t turn away from.

The first step in the sales cycle is to research your prospect to get a deep understanding of their needs, as this will help you engage in more meaningful conversations that lead to strong relationships. The method, called consultative selling, focuses on showing your prospect that you care about connecting with them on a person-to-person level, which in turn builds trust.

It differs from product-based selling as the salesperson’s role is more important than the product itself, and therefore it places an emphasis on value and relationship building over features and price.

6. Presenting a solution

At this critical phase, you need to present your offering as a solution to your prospect’s needs.

Using the power of “why,” sales reps can present their product as a solution by explaining why it will work instead of how.

To do this:

• Start with a problem: At the beginning of your sales cycle pique the prospect’s interest by sharing a problem they have that your product can solve. Answer their “why” first.
• Introduce some value: Summarize the value of your product. This shouldn’t be spotlighting a feature. Focus on painting a picture of an outcome instead.
• Introduce the product: Highlight why it’s the solution to the problem.
• Show proof: Showcase stories of your happy customers. Pinpoint facts and figures to prove your other customers have had success, and portray the emotional side of how using your product has helped them solve their problem.
• End with a question: Ask your prospect, in an open-ended way, about their business and their current situation.

By presenting your product like this, you give your prospect the opportunity to imagine what their life would look like with your product in it. After you’ve finished speaking, listen to your prospect’s concerns and be ready to answer any questions they have.

You can even go one step further and draw direct comparisons with your competitors. Yesware gives their reps battle cards to help during their pitches. The battle cards are filled with stats about how their product is better than their competitors’ alternatives.

7. Negotiating & overcoming objections

In sales, there will always be objections from your prospects, sometimes at multiple stages of your sales cycle.

However, negotiating and overcoming sales objections is possible if you’re prepared for them. The most common objections from prospects revolve around budgets and timing, but there are other commonalities like:

• Competition: If the lead is using a competitor, it’s your job to prove your product is a better option.
• Trust: Is your company new? Have some testimonials ready to showcase your success.
• Change: Change is hard. You need to convince them that your product is worth it by highlighting what the change could mean for their business.
• Authority: Are you dealing with somebody who can make a purchasing decision? Ensure from the start that you’re dealing with a decision-maker.
• Need: If the prospect thinks they don’t need your product, it’s up to you to change their perspective and add value.

If you plan for these objections before they’re served up to you, they’re easier to overcome. Chances are, your entire sales team is dealing with similar pushback from each of their prospects. You can use this to your advantage by discussing frequent objections in a sales meeting to stay prepared.

Work together as a team to:

• Write a list of the most common sales objections heard each day
• Come up with a plan on how to overcome them
• Look through past lost opportunities by analyzing call transcripts and emails
• Prepare a shortlist of the most common objections
• Figure out why the objection couldn’t be overcome, and how your reps can tackle it differently moving forward
• Write scripts your sales reps can use to overcome specific objections in the future with consistent tactics

Amerisleep’s Joey Holt says his sales team overcomes objections by preparing for every kind of conversation.

“We view customer objections as a huge opportunity when we engage those buyers in the right manner,” he told Forbes.

“We’ve trained our sleep specialists in DiSC assessment to identify and communicate better with our customers’ personality styles.

Our staff can easily adapt to every kind of customer, including ones with strong assumptions and objections about how our brand and products compare to our competitors.”

Stick to the roadmap your sales team has built and attempt to overcome objections one step at a time. Not every lead can be won and you may need to let some go if they aren’t the right fit.

8. Winning the deal

The most exciting stage of the sales cycle: closing. It's time to win the deal with your prospect and get them to sign a contract.

However, getting that contract signed is easier said than done. So, how do you win the deal?

Closing a deal takes time. Your prospect will probably need to bring your solution to their team for input and advice. If they aren’t the only decision-maker, they'll need to seek approval to make sure your solution is in line with their business strategy.

This all takes time and rushing a prospect can dismantle your relationship. However, you do need to make sure the prospect knows you haven't forgotten about them and that you're serious about doing business with them. Maintain contact with them by sending valuable information that may pique their interest and edge them towards a close.

These can be in the form of interesting blog posts and case studies, or new product features that may solve one of their problems that you’ve identified in your qualifying research or on a call.

If you’re hitting a brick wall and not hearing back, try sending a conversation starter email by asking questions like:

• “What is your timeline for buying?”
• “Do you need anything else before you make a decision?”
• “Are other decision-makers involved?”
• “Can you jump on a quick call?”

Once the prospect is on board, get that deal signed swiftly. If you’re using a CRM like Pipedrive, you can generate a proposal that has eSigning functionality with Smart Docs Pro.

Using Smart Docs, sales teams can track how a prospect is interacting with a proposal via inbuilt document analytics. If they’ve opened the proposal and not signed it, you’ll be able to follow-up to ask if there’s a problem.

The key to effectively managing your pipeline is keeping track of what stage each deal is at. Sales Management Group’s David Wallace says sales pipeline visibility is vital for managers, primarily because the pipeline is what drives most business organization-wide decisions—and not just in sales.

“It has ramifications for production, marketing, HR,” he says.

“If you don’t have the right visibility, you don’t know how many resources to have onboard or how much cash you’re going to have.

Without pipeline visibility it’s difficult to manage a business.”

Pipeline visibility is easy to achieve using a tool like Pipedrive. Sales reps can move deals through the workflow in a visible and collaborative manner.

9. Generating referrals

After you close out your deal, there's still another stage left in the sales cycle. The last, crucial step of pipeline management is generating referrals from your new customers.

Yet a surprisingly low number of sales reps ask their customers for a referral. A study by Marc Wayshak found that 47% of top performers ask for referrals consistently while only 26% of lower level performers inquire.