Do you have lower sales despite higher lead generation?
If your leads aren’t successfully converting into paying customers, you need to pay attention here. A low close rate makes a significant loss in revenue, causing a missing out on potential customers.
Lead generation or lead nurturing is a complex and expensive process; 53% of marketers spend nearly half their budget on lead generation.
So, if you aren’t turning leads into sales, you’re wasting your resources on gaining those leads. Every business needs a solid customer base and more deals to grow in a competitive environment.
We know the issue is real and pressing. And therefore, we have curated this blog post to guide you to increase close rate (and double it) within 27 days.
Also, we have covered basic concepts such as how to calculate sales close rate, so that you have a solid foundation.
What Is The Close Rate Or Sales Closing Percentage?
Close lead, sales close percentage, or lead close rate, is a sales metric. It refers to the percentage of leads that are converted into paying customers.
Every business employs specific lead-generation tactics. After generating leads, a few of them get converted into sales. Further, a lead close rate helps to analyze the effectiveness of marketing strategies — to see what’s working and what isn’t.
By tracking the analytics of your sales close rate, you can improve performance, make required adjustments and implement new trends to enhance lead conversion.
For instance, let’s assume you sent quotes to 30 companies, and 5 of them turned into your customers. So your closing rate is 16.6%. .
How To Calculate Close Rate Sales?
Company managers or sales officials are responsible for calculating the sales close rate.
The customer conversion figures are divided by the number of leads. Next, it is multiplied by 100, giving you a percentage value.
This closing ratio formula offers an accurate close rate sales. It helps to determine the performance of sales methods and marketing activities.
Closing Rate Or Sales Closing Ratio Calculator
Here is the sales close rate formula:
Close rate = (Conversions / Total Leads) x 100
For example, if a salesperson had ten opportunities in a given period and could close 5, their close rate would be 50% (5 divided by 10, times 100).
The best part of monitoring your leads? It enables you to save your lead conversion budget, which is 5x to 25x more expensive than retaining a customer.
Average Close Rate
The average close rate is a sales metric that represents the percentage of sales opportunities that are successfully closed.
Calculate it by dividing the number of closed deals by the total number of sales opportunities and multiplying the result by 100 to get a percentage.
For example, let’s say one of your sales team had 100 opportunities in a given quarter, and they were able to close 30 of those deals. In the same quarter, another sales team had 150 opportunities and was able to close 60 of them.
To calculate the average sales close rate for the quarter, you would add up the total number of closed deals (30 + 60 = 90) and divide by the total number of opportunities (100 + 150 = 250). Then, multiply by 100 to express the result as a percentage:
Average Close Rate = (Total Number Of Closed Deals / Total Number Of Opportunities) x 100
In this case, the average sales closing rate for the quarter would be:
Average Close Rate = (90 / 250) x 100 = 36%
Increase Close Rate: How To Increase Sales Closing Rate?
Figures suggest that 30% is a good closing rate for high-performing sales organizations, and 20% is ideal for average companies.
If you haven’t reached that mark, here are a few ways to increase your sales closing rate.
Prospect Qualification Criteria Using BANT (Budget Authority, Need, Timeline)
Every business has a set of leads — both qualified and unqualified. From these, the qualified leads are more likely to become your customer.
It makes sense to put your energy and focus on converting the qualified leads.
For that, the BANT criteria by IBM can help you filter your leads. You can assess the readiness and interest in this process. Here’s how:
- Budget: Does your prospect have enough financial resources to purchase your services? Your first step should be to ask different questions to analyze their financial restrictions and budget. It will make you understand whether they can afford your service or not.
- Authority: Does the person have the authority to make decisions about purchases? If not, then there will be no use in converting that lead. You need to identify the decision-makers and decision-making process of an organization. Also, know about the company’s primary stakeholders to identify qualified leads.
- Need: Is your lead in need of your service? You need to evaluate whether your prospective needs your service or is just taking a reference for future use. You can ask them specific questions to analyze their problems, challenges, and targets.
- Timeline: Does the lead need your service now? It is possible that your lead requires your service but not at the moment. In that case, your conversion efforts won’t yield results.
You should only focus on the leads ready to get your services now.
Improve Your Sales Cycle & Sales Techniques (Improving Close Rate)
You need to identify the issues that prevent conversions and implement a solution or change the approach. You must engage with the right prospects and use the correct way to convert them.
The use of a well-defined sales process helps you to engage with leads in a meaningful way.
- Firstly, you can filter qualified leads through a defined process like BANT.
- Next, you can use technology to automate follow-ups and maintain personal contact to increase conversions and revenue.
An important aspect is identifying your prospects’ problems and challenges before pitching them your service. Also, you should understand their work and communicate regularly to create an affinity and nurture them.
It’s important to tell your leads how your service will solve their problems and fulfill their requirements.
Since every level of a sales cycle has multiple steps, make a fixed plan and test it regularly to implement new adjustments.
Improve the Salesperson Skills To Close A Deal
Do you know that 34% of salespeople consider lead qualification their main challenge?
A prime reason for this difficulty is that you need specialized skills to convert leads and close a deal. A salesperson must have active listening skills, objection handling, and good communication skills to convert potential customers.
At the same time, a sales associate should negotiate by adding value for prospects and creating personalized contact while following up on leads.
You can use the following methods:
- Offer sales training to understand sales funnel
- Organize sales coaching sessions
- Motivate the sales team to practice their skills in real-world situations
- Refine their techniques
- Give feedback and evaluate their performance
- Announce incentives.
Framework To Double The Closing Percentage: “Easy To Book Hard To Offer”
A recent popular framework to increase the closing percentage is using the easy-to-book and hard-to-offer methods. It is about making booking a consultation call or appointment easy.
Next, you can research and understand your audience’s needs or problems to create a suitable offer that would be hard for them to deny.
Use the following sales closing tips:
Simplify Your Marketing Assets
Make your marketing information simple and quick. Rather than tell your customers about your features, you need to tell them about the benefits they will get.
At the same time, use simple and concise language that is easy for anyone to understand.
Add visual elements like explained videos or infographics to simplify your message and end with a simple call-to-action option like signing for a service trial.
Remember these things as your marketing assets:
- Identify what’s working
- Eliminate the unnecessary
- Consolidate where possible
- Focus on quality over quantity
- Standardize your branding.
Using these assets can help you create an impressive impact on your leads.
Add A Curation Process
A curation process ensures that your sales team is focused on the most qualified leads. This increases your close rate and ultimately drives revenue growth for your business.
You may utilize the BANT framework to filter potential prospects based on specific criteria will be helpful.
It makes you focus your resources, time, and efforts on qualified leads who will likely be paying customers.
Moreover, you can achieve a bigger close rate by following below steps:
- Define your ideal customer profile
- Set up a lead qualification process
- Assign leads to the appropriate sales rep
- Implement a lead-scoring system
- Develop a sales process playbook
- Use a CRM system.
Create A One-Pager
Most leads won’t be interested in an extensive catalog of your services, journey, case studies, and offers. So, you need to create an impressive one-pager document to send about everything you want them to know about you and your offer.
It will be a concise single-page document. It should include brief information about your products or services. It should include the following:
- Your services list
- Features of the product or service you offer
- Benefits to customers
- Pricing and other important information.
Please don’t include much information about your brand, its journey, mission, or goals, as it will be time-consuming and useless to prospects. Its purpose should be to offer an easy-to-read overview of your offer so that leads can quickly take action, like making purchases.
FAQs: Increase Close Rate
How do you calculate the closing percentage?
You can calculate the percentage of the closing rate using the formula:
Close rate = (Conversions / Total Leads) x 100
What are the five key drivers for increasing the sales close rate?
The five key drivers for increasing the closing rate like:
- Have a specific niche
- Make an impressive website
- Automate your marketing activities
- Create valuable content
- Invest in a selling system.
What is the average B2B close rate?
The average conversion rate in the B2B industry is somewhere between 2% to 5%. For other sectors, it can be around 10%.
Increase Close Rate: Final Words
There you have it — our guide to doubling your closing percentage in 27 days. Remember, these methods only work when you have “don’t give up” attitude and are ready to experiment and unlearn. So, follow the tips shared here to become a better closer.
In brief, you learned:
- The close rate is the percentage of converted leads into paying customers.
- You can calculate your sales close rate with closing ratio formula: Close rate = (Conversions / Total Leads) x 100
- You can increase close rate by using BANT (to filter qualified leads), improving your sales process and salesperson skills.
- Another new method of easy-to-book and hard-to-order can double your closing rate.
- Also, you can create a one-pager, add a creation process and simplify your marketing assets to improve lead Conversions.
If your business is looking for help finding consistent leads, we can help. At Scaling With Systems, we build time-tested and effective client acquisition frameworks that keep bringing new clients to your business.
We’ve helped hundreds of businesses reach six and seven figures revenue! Book your free call now and our advisors will help you figure out the best path.
