The classic challenges of long sales cycles and swelling buying committees mean B2B sales can be a long, drawn-out process. But if you can gain clarity, alignment, and control of the process, you can pull levers that will help speed things up.
This framework to close B2B deals faster comes from our Head of US Sales, Toby Fellows, who first shared these tactics in one of our webinars.
Know Who’s Really Making the Decision
One of the main reasons deals stall is because sales reps don’t know who’s actually making the final call. As a result, they get stuck engaging with a single point of contact, only to realize late in the game that a partner, board, or senior executive still needs to weigh in.
Toby’s advice is to get ahead of this early.
“You need to understand who is in that decision-making process as early as possible so you can start bringing them in,” he said. “Ask the question: what exactly is the decision-making process in your business for buying something like this?”
Use this insight to clarify what needs to happen to close that deal and draw a roadmap to conversion. Leverage tools like LinkedIn or CRM contact mapping to spot multi-thread opportunities where you can build relationships beyond your direct contact.
Remove Bottlenecks with Better Qualification
Too often, reps can label deals as late stage before they’ve even gone through the sales process properly.
“Salespeople will sell you everything,” Toby explained. “They’ll say ‘Oh yeah, it’s closing,’ but they haven’t even started the approach to the airport.”
To close deals faster, teams need to be honest about where each deal actually sits in the pipeline, and whether the buyer is truly ready. And to get there, they need to qualify sales leads more rigorously, do their discovery upfront, and identify blockers before they surface.
Reps should be asking pointed questions like:
- Who else needs to approve this purchase?
- What happens next if you decide to move forward?
- What timelines or internal events might delay a decision?
Being clear about these details not only prevents surprises, but it also gives sales teams the chance to guide the process more effectively.
Align Short-Term Goals with Long-Term Strategy
One of the biggest barriers to efficient deal progression is misalignment between what the business wants and what the rep is chasing. After all, salespeople naturally prioritize what makes them money fastest.
Unless company goals are embedded into compensation plans and incentives, teams can drift toward the wrong opportunities.
“There should be no disconnect between leadership strategy and individuals on the ground,” Toby explained. “You want to incentivize the right behavior, and de-incentivize what’s not aligned.”
That could mean offering higher commission on strategic products or reducing incentives for lower-value short-term wins that don’t align with your ideal customer profile. Because when your salespeople are financially rewarded for closing the right types of deals, velocity improves without undermining long-term goals.
Use Forecasting Tools Properly
Good sales forecasting isn’t just about predicting revenue, it’s about identifying which deals need attention to move faster. But you need to make sure everyone’s using the same tools to update statuses, and that they’re consistently updating it.
“Everybody has to be bought in,” Toby shared. “If you’ve got 80% using it, and 20% not, it doesn’t work.”
Maintaining these records must be a part of a sales rep’s everyday tasks. You have to make sure they update their pipeline regularly and use the same definitions and status stages for consistency.
These details can plug in to forecasting tools to help sales leaders identify risk early by flagging things like stalled deals, silent accounts, or low-engagement stakeholders.
When you identify these issues, you can quickly address them and give your reps the insight, and pressure, to act quickly and decisively.
Break Big Goals into Smaller Wins
It’s important to motivate your sales team and keep them engaged and pushing deals along. But simply reminding them the quarter is ending won’t get them there.
Instead, Toby uses the SMUG framework to help his team tackle large objectives by looking at the Small, Manageable, and Unseen Goals.
“When you’ve got a big goal, it can seem impossible,” Toby explained. “But when you break it down, celebrate the small wins, and track progress, that builds motivation.
Reps should always know how their actions contribute to team and company performance. That means public dashboards, regular check-ins, and celebrating progress, not just closed revenue.
“You’re only as strong as weak links, so everybody has to contribute together,” Toby added.
Keep Communicating with Your Team
In the run-up to month- or quarter-end, you might be tempted to cancel team meetings to focus on deals. Toby warns against this.
“When things get busier, you need to meet more, not less,” he said.
One of the best ways to close deals faster is to ensure your team is aligned and working towards the same goal. Even taking just 10 minutes to check in and recalibrate the team could prevent hours of wasted effort chasing dead leads or misaligned opportunities. It ensures every rep is focused on the right tasks, the right messaging, and the right decision-makers.
Embrace AI
With all the hype around AI in sales, there’s no doubt it’s a helpful tool – but it’s not a silver bullet.
There’s so much you can get AI tools to help with, from speeding up research to personalizing scripts, generating copy for emails, building lists, drawing up personas, and more.
But no matter how you use AI, just make sure you don’t lose the human touch.
“AI can help, but it won’t replace human interaction,” Toby advised. “People listen to who they like and buy from who they trust.”
Prioritize the Hottest Leads
The recurring theme in Toby’s advice is that you can close deals faster by making sure you, and your team, are as sharp as possible.
During the sales process, that means qualifying opportunities rigorously, aligning your team’s incentives with company goals, and focusing every conversation on solving a known business problem.
But tools like website visitor identification can also help. By identifying your anonymous website visitors, you can discover which businesses are browsing your website and use behavioral insight to spot early signs of buying intent.
Not already using Lead Forensics? Book now to see how it can help speed up deals.
