As an experienced sales manager, you know that time kills all deals. However, short of hopping into your Delorean to turn back time, there’s not much you can do – as they say in professional sports, Father Time is undefeated. What you can do, however, is improve your sales cycle management strategies and tactics to identify stalled opportunities. You know that a long sales cycle – 2x or more longer than average – will have a lower probability of closing. By finding these stalled deals sooner, you might actually be able to make a difference in saving them.

Let’s take a look at the different tactics that average, smart and the absolute smartest sales managers take in terms of their sales cycle management.

What do average sales managers do?

Typically, average or under-performing sales managers will be informed of stalled deals at their weekly pipeline review meetings with reps. At these sessions, the rep will talk about the deals that they are going to work on and close this week. But reps are notorious for having overly optimistic “happy ears” when it comes to their own opportunity pipelines. They fervently believe they can close every opportunity, even if they have been working on that opp for more than a month. That leads to a lot of conversations like this:

Sales manager: “So, tell me about this Opportunity X.”

Sales rep: “Oh yeah, that’s a great one, i’m definitely going to close it this week.”

Manager: “Didn’t you say they were going to close two weeks ago?”

Rep: “Oh…yeah…umm…the decision-maker was on vacation but she’s back now and they’re definitely going to buy.”

But you’ve been working on this opportunity for two months! Is it really going to close?

– Sales Manager

Rep: (hems and haws while hoping that the ground opens and swallows him up.)

Sales managers at these companies might have a vague idea of what their average sales cycle is, if at all. They certainly don’t track the difference in sales cycles between winning and losing opportunities. They definitely don’t find stalled deals quickly enough to do anything worthwhile about saving them.

What do smart sales managers do?

On the other hand, smart sales managers at above average companies will likely track their overall sales cycle. They can then compare the lifespans of the opportunities they are working on and determine the likelihood of closing these opportunities.

For example, this company has an average sales cycle of 32 days on winning opportunities. If a rep is currently working on several opportunities that all have sales cycles of more than 64 days, those opportunities should be flagged and probably removed from the team’s sales forecast for this reporting period. The fact of the matter is that those old opportunities are not likely to close. They’ve simply been stalled for too long. Knowing this, both the rep and his or her manager can be honest and forecast more accurately.

However, discovering that a deal has stalled this late in the game means that their hands are still ultimately tied in terms of what they can to resuscitate that opportunity.

What do the BEST, data-driven sales managers do?

Find stalled deals much earlier in the sales process and try to do something about saving them, that’s what.

The smartest sales managers are repeatedly looking for sales cycle patterns throughout the sales process. This means diving into individual stage sales cycles to pinpoint stalled deals before they become dormant to the point of non-revival.

Check out this example above. At this company, winning opportunities progress through the sales funnel quickly, spending only 4 days in the opportunity stage, only 3 days in the demo stage and only 7 days in the trial stage.

In contrast, losing opportunities are languishing in each of these stages. They typically spend 25 days in each of the opportunity and demo stages, and 24 days in the trial stage. That is significantly longer than the winning sales cycles. Knowing this information, sales managers and sales reps can be proactive and do something about these opportunities.

If what appeared to be a winning opportunity is inching toward spending upwards of 10 days in the opportunity stage, the rep can focus more attention on engaging with that opportunity early. Knowing the sales cycle by stage isn’t just for saving stalled opportunities; it can also be a tremendous asset in saving the rep ample time and effort.

If Joe knows that this opportunity is spending way too much time in the demo stage to be considered a high probability of winning, he can go to the decision-maker and say, “Look, be honest with me: are you guys going to buy or not?” That way, instead of spending two weeks worth of calories in calling and wooing that opportunity, Joe can simply get a firm “No, sorry, we’re not interested” and move on to working other opportunities.

Proactive sales managers at these top companies can take it one step further by examining how close date changes – aka an indication of a long sales cycle – affects their win rate. According to this company’s sales data, 3 close date changes is the ideal sweet spot. However, when the close date has been pushed back 4 times, the team’s win rate plummets dramatically. This can inform the sales manager of what their optimal sales process and sales cycle looks like.

Average, smart and the absolute best sales managers all handle their sales cycle management in different ways. What the best ones do is act proactively and look for sales cycle patterns frequently so that it’s not too late for them to take action.

So what are you – an average, smart or an absolute top-shelf sales manager? How do you manage your sales cycle?