Strategies to Shorten Your Sales Cycle

The pressure is real. Your pipeline is full, but deals are taking longer to close than ever before. You’re not alone.

Studies show that B2B deals now typically involve 6–10 stakeholders and take 25% longer to close than five years ago. The average B2B sales cycle now stretches to 102 days, with some complex deals extending beyond 120 days. Meanwhile, HubSpot says the average sales close rate in 2024 was just 29%, meaning 71% of all our opportunities are slipping away.

The hard truth is: the problem isn’t the length of the sales cycle. It’s what you’re doing—or not doing—during that cycle.

In this guide, we’ll explore why deals are taking longer, what the world’s leading sales experts say about accelerating deal velocity, and proven frameworks you can implement immediately to close deals faster without cutting corners.

Why Deals Are Taking Longer to Close

The B2B buying landscape has fundamentally changed. Understanding these shifts is the first step to adapting your approach.

The Buying Committee Has Exploded

Gone are the days of selling to one decision-maker. The average B2B purchase now involves 7 decision-makers, with some sources citing 6–15 stakeholders depending on deal size and complexity.

Each stakeholder brings their own priorities, concerns, and veto power. Landbase, the Go-To-Market Data Provider, says that multi-stakeholder consensus significantly extends B2B sales cycles, with each additional person adding time to the decision-making process.

The implication: You can’t just convince one person. You need to orchestrate consensus across an entire buying committee—and most salespeople aren’t equipped to do this.

Buyers Are Doing More Research Independently

Amplyfi, the machine-driven analyst company, has shown B2B buyers conduct extensive independent research before engaging with vendors. They’re reading reviews, comparing alternatives, consuming content, and forming opinions long before they speak to you.

By the time they reach out, they’re often 60–70% through their buying journey. So here is the catch: they may have formed incorrect assumptions or missed critical insights that only you can provide.

Economic Uncertainty Creates Decision Paralysis

In uncertain times, buyers delay decisions. They want more proof, more validation, more time to “think about it.” This extends cycles and creates stalled deals that sit in your pipeline for months.

The bottom line: Deals aren’t just longer—they’re more complex, involve more people, and require more strategic orchestration. If you’re still selling the way you did five years ago, you’re losing.

The Cost of Slow Deal Velocity

Before we dive into solutions, let’s quantify what slow deal velocity is costing you:

• Opportunity cost: While you’re waiting for one deal to close, competitors could be closing three.
• Pipeline bloat: Your CRM is full of “maybes” that may never close, obscuring real opportunities.
• Team burnout: Salespeople chasing deals for months without closure become demotivated and less effective.
• Revenue unpredictability: Long cycles make forecasting nearly impossible, creating cash flow challenges.
• Increased competition: The longer a deal drags, the more time they have to explore other competitors and complicate things

Research by Superagi shows that sales teams using AI and advanced analytics have achieved 78% shorter deal cycles and 76% higher win rates. The gap between high-performers and laggards is widening fast.

Proven Strategies to Close Deals Faster

Here are seven research-backed strategies from the world’s leading sales experts to accelerate your deal velocity.

1. Master the art of objection handling (Don’t avoid it)

Objections aren’t roadblocks—they are buying signals. When a prospect raises an objection, they’re telling you what’s standing between them and a decision.

Use this 3-Step Objection Handling Framework (from The Profit Secret):

• Listen: This starts to rebuild the rapport broken by the Prospect when they made the objection. You can also reassure them; their concern is valid without agreeing with it.
• Clarify: Ask if they have other concerns, and then invite them to explain more about the most important issue. Often, what they say first is not the real issue, so probe.
• Answer: Shift perspective using data, stories, or analogies. “Here’s what other clients in a similar position discovered…” And confirm they are happy to proceed.

Research from recorded sales calls shows that top performers handle objections far more effectively by using structured frameworks rather than winging it. Planning and preparation beat inspiration almost every time.

Key insight: Don’t wait for objections to surface at the end. Surface them early and often. Ask: “It is important you are 100% comfortable moving forward, so what questions do you have about this approach?” Addressing objections proactively shortens cycles dramatically.

2. Help them work out the cost of doing nothing

Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson’s research in The Challenger Sale found that the most successful salespeople don’t just respond to customer needs—they teach, tailor, and take control of the conversation.

The Challenger methodology has been proven to shorten sales cycles by more than a month on average and improve win rates by 27%

How to apply Challenger principles to close faster:

• Teach with insight: Don’t just pitch your solution. Help prospects learn something new about their business that reframes how they think about the problem. Help them work out the cost of delays or the cost of doing nothing. This creates urgency when there may be no obvious impending event.
• Tailor to each stakeholder: Customize your message for each member of the buying committee. The CFO cares about ROI; the Operations Lead cares about implementation. Your Win Strategy must contain a winning theme for each person or group that influences the decision.
• Take control: Don’t let deals drift. Help the Prospect set clear next steps, timelines, and decision criteria at every stage. Always focus on their next action. Add so much value to that next step that it becomes so obviously the right thing to do.

3. Map and engage the entire buying committee

You can’t close a deal if you’re only talking to one person. Website developer, Equinet, reports that the average B2B buying committee includes 6–15 people, and you need to understand and influence each one.

Key roles in the buying committee:

• Economic Buyer: Controls the budget and final approval
• Champion: Your internal advocate who sells on your behalf when you are not there
• End Users: Will use your solution day-to-day
• The Problem Owner: The person responsible for the area effected by the problem.
• Technical Buyer: Evaluates technical fit and integration
• Veto Power Holder: Can kill the deal (often legal, compliance, or security)
• Power Holder: The person who can overrule most of the others, most of the time

These are like the “Legs of a Chair” – A chair with only one leg would not be much of a chair. Two legs and the chair is unstable, three legs and you have a stool. You need at least four legs on a chair for it to be reasonably stable

How to accelerate deals through committee engagement:

• Map the committee early: In your first discovery call, ask: “Who else, apart from you typically has a voice in this type of discussion/decision?”
• Follow the Pain Chain: Win internal referrals to consult with those affected by the problem. Find evidence on the costs of the domino effect of the problem and agitate those costs.
• Develop a champion: Convince someone to advocate for you when you’re not in the room. Equip them with the business case, ROI data, and talking points.
• Address each stakeholder’s concerns: Don’t assume one pitch fits all. Tailor your messaging to each role.
• Knobble the committee: Don’t rely on one contact. Build relationships across the committee to reduce single-point-of-failure risk. Ensure you have more votes in your favour than 50% of the decision-making unit.

New Breed, one of HubSpot’s top implementors, states that their research has found that when multiple stakeholders from the same organisation engage with your content, collective activity becomes a meaningful buying signal. Use this to your advantage by creating content that speaks to each role.

4. Apply Chris Voss’s negotiation tactics to remove friction

Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference, revolutionized negotiation by focusing on tactical empathy and psychological techniques.

Three Voss techniques to close deals faster:

a) Get to “No” faster

Counterintuitively, getting someone to say “no” puts them at ease. It gives them a sense of control and safety. Instead of asking, “Is now a good time to talk?” ask, “Is now a bad time to talk?”

b) Use calibrated questions

Calibrated questions (starting with “How” or “What”) give the prospect ownership of the solution: - “How would you like to move forward?” - “What would need to happen for this to work?” - “How might this fit with your priorities?”

These questions engage the prospect’s problem-solving brain and create commitment.

c) Label emotions and concerns

When you sense hesitation, label it: “It seems like you’re concerned about implementation timelines.” This defuses tension and invites honest conversation, preventing deals from stalling due to unspoken objections.

d) Reduce or eliminate the risk for the buyer

The biggest barrier to agreement isn’t lack of value—it’s fear of loss.

Research from Gong.io’s analysis of 25,537 sales conversations proves this: when salespeople proactively discuss risk-reversal language—guarantees, trial periods, cancellation policies, performance commitments—win rates increase by 32%.

Why it works:

Buyers experience intense pre-purchase anxiety when signing contracts. They fear:

• Making a bad decision that costs them their job
• Being locked into a long-term commitment that doesn’t deliver
• Wasting company money on a solution that fails

Risk-reversal language banishes this anxiety head-on.

Instead of adding more features or benefits or reducing the price, remove the risk:

• “If for any reason you’re not seeing results within 90 days, you can cancel—no questions asked.”
• “We’ll pilot the programme with one team first. If it doesn’t deliver, we won’t roll it out company-wide.”
• “Our success is tied to yours. If we don’t hit the agreed outcomes, you don’t pay the final instalment.”
•  “You can pause or adjust the engagement at any time. We’re not interested in locking you into something that isn’t working.”

The data is clear: The slight increase in cancellations (typically about 1%) is vastly outweighed by the 32% increase in win rates.

Your buyers aren’t looking for more reasons to say yes—they’re looking for fewer reasons to say no.

Make it safe to move forward and deals close faster.

5. Combine SPINB Selling with Mastering the Complex Sale

When deals involve multiple stakeholders, high stakes, and long decision cycles, you need a consultative approach that uncovers problems, builds consensus, and guides buyers to high-quality decisions.

Two methodologies stand out: Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling and Jeff Thull’s Mastering the Complex Sale. Together, they create a powerful framework for accelerating complex deals.

Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling remains one of the most researched and validated sales methodologies for complex B2B deals. SPIN stands for:

• Situation: Understand the prospect’s current state
• Problem: Identify pain points and challenges
• Implication: Explore the consequences of not solving the problem
• Need-Payoff: Help the prospect articulate the value of solving the problem and co-design the solution
• Buying: Be More Effective’s addition to the approach is to identify and discuss three things. The Decision-Making Unit. The Decision-Making Process. And the Decision-Making Criteria. The more you know about all three of these and the earlier in the customer journey you find these things out, the better.

Why SPIN accelerates deals:

• Buyers convince themselves through their own answers
• Problems become problematic when implications are explored
• The cost of doing nothing or the cost of delay can be highlighted
• Need-payoff and co-design questions create ownership of the solution

Remember: “You gain more credibility through the questions you ask than the stories you tell.”

While SPINB focuses on questioning, Jeff Thull’s methodology addresses the unique challenges of complex, high-stakes sales where:

• Multiple stakeholders have conflicting priorities
• Buyers lack expertise to fully understand their problems
• Too many options and conflicting information
• Decision paralysis, fear of making the wrong decision and buyer regret are common
• Solutions are expensive and difficult to implement

In complex sales, buyers don’t just need a solution—they need guidance in making a high-quality decision. Your role is to be a trusted advisor who clarifies the problem and the solution while simplifying the decision

Jeff Thull’s approach also tackles the biggest mistake salespeople make in complex sales = Presenting solutions too early.

As Jeff says. You have to be a Doctor, a Detective, and a Best Friend.

As a Doctor, you must diagnose before you prescribe. So resist the urge to present solutions prematurely. Conduct thorough discovery to uncover the full extent of problems and risks

Remember: “No evidence = No problem = No cost = No Priority = No sale”

As a Detective, you must investigate and gather evidence. Remember, “Pain is the vehicle that drives the sale, and the cost of the pain is the accelerator!”

As a Best Friend, you must build trust and act in the buyer’s best interest

6. Shorten cycles with mutual action plans

One of the biggest reasons deals stall is ambiguity. Prospects don’t have a clear decision-making process, and salespeople don’t push for one.

How to create clarity:

• Establish decision criteria upfront: In your discovery call, ask: “What criteria will you use to evaluate solutions?” and “What does success look like?”
• Set mutual action plans: Don’t end calls with vague “I’ll follow up next week.” Instead, create a mutual action plan with specific next steps, owners, and dates. Remember that unless the prospect has to commit to some actions in almost every meeting and phone call, you have sold nothing. Conversations have to happen in their organisation when you are not there, or the conditions required to make the decisions will never be created. Gain commitment to actions on their side and gain agreement on another meeting or phone call before you close the current conversation.
• Identify compelling events: Ask: “What specific date or event is driving this decision?” (e.g., end of fiscal year, product launch, contract renewal). Anchor your timeline to their compelling event.

Research from Optifai shows that deals with clear timelines and mutual action plans close 30–40% faster than those without.

7. Leverage Automation, AI, and Conversation Intelligence

Some high-impact tools currently are:

• Email Automation: HubSpot Sequences, Salesloft, Outreach (ensure consistent follow-up)
• Contract Management: PandaDoc, DocuSign CLM, Ironclad (cut contract time by 2-8 weeks)
• CRM Automation: Gong, Chorus, Optifai (eliminate manual data entry)
•  Video Messaging: Loom, Vidyard (3-5× higher response rates)

Start with your CRM's native automation (most have lead scoring and sequences built in) before buying additional tools.

Modern sales teams are using AI-powered tools like Gong and Chorus.ai to analyze sales calls, identify patterns, and coach reps in real-time.

What AI can do to accelerate deals:

•  AI Lead Scoring: 6sense, Madkudu, HubSpot Predictive Scoring (reduce unqualified lead time by 30%)
• Identify buying signals: AI analyzes calls to detect when prospects are ready to move forward (e.g., asking about implementation, pricing, or timelines).
• Surface objections early: AI flags concerns mentioned in passing that reps might miss.
• Prioritize high-velocity deals: AI scores deals based on engagement, sentiment, and historical patterns, helping reps focus on opportunities most likely to close soon.
• Improve objection handling: AI provides real-time coaching and suggests responses based on what’s worked in past deals.

Teams using AI conversation intelligence report 78% shorter deal cycles and 76% higher win rates.

The Be More Effective Approach to Closing Deals Faster

At Be More Effective, we’ve worked with hundreds of UK businesses to transform their sales performance. Here’s what we’ve learned about accelerating deal velocity:

1. Qualification is everything

Use a framework like PICKED (Pain, Ideal Customer Profile, Cast of Characters, Knock-on Consequences, Economic Impact, Decision-Making Criteria) to rigorously qualify deals upfront. 68% of lost deals are due to poor qualification, not poor selling. Walk away from deals that won’t close.

2. Coach your team on objection handling

Objection handling is a skill, not a talent. Role-play common objections weekly. Record calls and review them. Build a library of proven responses.

3. Build consensus across the decision-making unit

In complex B2B sales, you need to orchestrate consensus across the buying committee. Map stakeholders, understand their concerns, and equip your champion to sell internally.

4. Agitate the pain through insight and networking

Don’t wait for prospects to feel urgency. Use Challenger-style teaching and SPINB questioning to help them see the cost of inaction. Quantify the problem. Help them find the evidence. Help them realise how much they’re losing every day they delay.

As Bob Hayward, Managing Director of Be More Effective, puts it:

“Deals don’t close faster because you push harder. They close faster because you’ve built a compelling business case, addressed every stakeholder’s concern, and made it easy for the prospect to say yes. Speed comes from clarity, not pressure.”

Some Key Takeaways

• B2B deals now involve 6–10 stakeholders and take 25% longer to close than five years ago
• The average B2B sales cycle is 102 days, with close rates at just 29%
• Use the Profit Secret’s 3-step objection-handling framework to address concerns proactively
• Apply Challenger Selling principles to teach, tailor, and take control of the conversation
• Map and engage the entire buying committee—don’t rely on one contact
• Use Chris Voss’s negotiation tactics (get to “no,” calibrated questions, labelling) to remove friction
• Implement SPINB Selling blended with being the Doctor, Detective and Best Friend
• Set clear decision criteria, mutual action plans, and timelines to prevent deals from stalling
• Leverage Automation, AI, and Conversation Intelligence to identify buying signals, prioritise high-velocity deals, and deliver a more tailored, quicker, and consistent approach

Ready to Close Deals Faster?

If your sales team is struggling with long cycles, stalled deals, or low close rates, you’re not alone. But you don’t have to figure it out alone.

At Be More Effective, we work with UK businesses to build high-performing sales teams, implement proven methodologies, and accelerate deal velocity. Whether you need sales training, coaching, or a complete sales transformation, we’re here to help.

Let’s talk about your sales challenges.

Get in touch:

• Phone: +44 (0)1793 686512
• Website: https://www.bemoreeffective.com/
• Email: Contact us through the website

Let’s build a sales process that closes deals faster—without cutting corners.

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