As marketers, we spend a lot of time ideating on customer journey management, or in our case, the Dayta Loop. Knowing how people choose your business—and acting strategically to make that choice as easy as possible—is critical to your success.

Like any journey, a customer decision journey has two main elements: location and timing. As we map the customer journeys, we tend to focus much of our attention on location, i.e. the customer journey stages and what happens for the customer as they reach them. But timing is equally as important—and in comparison to location, often harder to define in terms of best practices.

Long sales processes are often a necessity of in-depth discovery and requirements documentation, but just as often, they’re the result of a lack of urgency on the prospect’s end. We’ve all seen it happen: A prospect de-prioritizes the deal, and momentum grinds to a halt. You find yourself waiting on Schrödinger’s deal—is it dead or alive?—until the prospect re-emerges. You circle back to the plan, revamp things, and by the time the client signs on the dotted line, they’re wondering what took you so long to get around to fulfillment! 

Now your ROI is delayed. The laggy, will-they-won’t-they pace of these kinds of deals makes it hard for operations to predict when deals will land—not to mention the toll this pace takes on your rate of new deal generation. For everyone involved, a more expedient time to close means a better experience and better financials.

Buyer Journey Stages: How Do We Speed Things Along?

Remember: If you’re selling something to someone, you’re asking them to change something in their life or their organization.

By nature, most humans would prefer not to change—we’re comfortable with what we know, and the introduction of something new disrupts our routine and requires effort. You need to understand the customer’s why, i.e. their motivation, to understand how you can increase its urgency and drive a deal forward.

Are they making a preventative choice to avoid a potential future issue?

Are they hoping their investment results in outsized ROI, or opting for a long-term sure bet?

Are they rewarding their employees with a splurge purchase as a thank-you for past performance?

Are they avoiding pain or chasing joy?

Marketers and salespeople shy away from the latter approach, but in the right situation, the threat of the stick is more motivating than the promise of the carrot.

The other half of the customer journey equation, location, can also help you determine the best tactic for moving a deal along. Which stage of the customer journey is your prospect currently in, and how might that affect the strength of their motivation to close? A prospect who is early in their journey may have a much different relationship to the problem you’re trying to solve than a prospect who has made their buying decision but not yet acted on it. 

Once you’ve identified the motivational needs at each stage of the buyer journey map, you can start to build those tools into your sales and marketing. Your awareness of these needs will drive your ad messaging, how you build your presentation decks, and how you go for the close. Customers will feel heard, close faster and with greater confidence, and you’ll enjoy increased efficiency across your resources.

Getting Deals Across the Finish Line Faster

Brian Myres and Seth Johnson of Dayta run through five big ideas on how sales and marketing can work together to help you close more deals and close them faster.