Do this when you need money for your startup now
August 15, 2021
In this episode, we talk about sale cycles and sales pipelines.
If you need money for your startup right now, then this episode is going to help you think about how to exactly go about getting that money. So in this episode, we are going to be talking about sales cycles and sales pipelines and the most important thing that you need to know, and this is probably something you already know, but you know what? it's always good to review the fundamentals, so this is what we're gonna do in this episode. But the most important thing you need to know about a sales cycle is different sales cycles, different pipelines have different sales cycles, and different sales cycles have different speeds.
So in our company, just to make this easier, right? Because your sales cycle speed, the timing of your sales cycle is going to be on a spectrum. But in our company, we bucket it into four different buckets. Into a seed sales cycle, this is the slowest of the slowest sale cycles, this could take forever, maybe even never. But we have the seed sales cycle, then we have a slow sales cycle, then we have a medium sale cycle and a fast sale cycle and you're probably already guessing like if you need money, guess what you need money right now, you probably have to go after that fast sale cycle.
Now to kind of illustrate on how these sales cycles and how these speeds work and what you could expect, let's look at it from the perspective of a real estate agent. So I'm using a real estate agent as an example because it's probably the most important, it's probably the most easiest way for someone to be able to digest these ideas and still apply them for whatever business that you're doing. So if you're doing a tech startup or you're building a subscription box or like some kind of physical product or like dog toys or maybe you're doing an event, it doesn't matter what you're doing, you can still use this information, we're just looking at it from the perspective of a real estate agent and then you know it will let you understand what's going on then you just apply for your situation.
So from the perspective of a real estate agent, if we were to start at the bottom, at the seed sales cycle, this is the slowest of the sales cycles. This is probably where the real estate agent is probably creating content for SEO. So they might be developing a blog and this seed sales cycle, this takes a long time. Basically, what this real estate agent is doing is he's setting the way that I like to think about marketing is you're setting up all your different pipelines so it's like real infrastructure that you're setting in your market, right? So if you think about it as plumbing you're pretty much just putting all your plumbing out there.
So your seed sale cycle, this is going to be like some of the plumbing that once you get water slowing. It's just so intricately built out that it's going to be difficult for the flow to come and this is your seed sales cycle. So when you're thinking about doing like SEO strategies, your blog, or your Instagram strategies, well you're not gonna get a sail off that right away. Right?
So if a real estate agent opened up a blog or open up a brand new Instagram account, they're not going to get sales from that directly right away. It's not gonna be any kind of organic traffic. What they're going to end up doing is, you know, instead of focusing on marketing the house, they will be marketing their Instagram which markets the house. So they're just adding a little extra step. But if you're in it for the long haul then yeah, this is something that you can do, but it's not going to make you money right away. Right?
So let's go up to the next level, the next bucket of sale cycles. And again, from the perspective of a real estate agent, this is the slow sale cycle. So for the slow sale cycle, maybe this real estate agent is going around, he's letting himself know that, you know, he's able to help like maybe he's going to like neighborhood organizations, he's not selling, right? He's not doing anything, he's just showing his face and he just wants to remind people that he exists and that. If anyone does need any help with real estate, he or I'm using, he is the example because this is the person that I have in my head, but he or she um is the person that would be the one to sell the real estate, right?
So maybe they're doing, they're just kind of like being around, maybe they're putting out content, they're just putting out memes. So it has nothing to do with buying and selling houses or anything about properties, but they're just kind of putting themselves out there and saying, Hey, I exist and you know, eventually when you do need to buy or sell the house, you can come to see me. So this is a very slow sales cycle. And if you think about how much turnover you have in the housing industry, the average, I think time period that someone moves is about eight years. So if you're doing this slow sales cycle, you're doing like eight years' worth of memes and things like that. Eventually, someone's going to convert because they're gonna be like, oh now it's time for me to move. And this is the guy that's been doing all these memes and I remember that he sells houses. So let me go talk to them, right? So there's a very slow sale cycle.
If we go up to the next bucket for the medium sale cycle, well this can shorten your sales cycle a lot more significantly. So again, from the perspective of the real estate agent, maybe this real estate agent is going out to different corporations and he's talking, he or she is talking to the um the HR department and saying, "Hey, you know, you're hiring people from out of state or out of the city and whenever they come, whenever they relocate into the city, I want to help them find a new home and I want to be able to build a relationship with you and they probably not saying all this stuff, but the thinking this right and that they want to start developing the relationships with these people that can eventually bring them customers."
So for this, the sale cycle, if you think about a company, the average time it hires and things like that, they're probably hiring every quarter whenever they get a new budget. So maybe around every 3-4 months there, you know, this pipeline will bring a customer. So this is a medium sales cycle, you are able to get much faster sales, it's not as slow as the other ones where it might take years or maybe even never. This is the medium sales cycle.
Now, if we go up one more level to the fast sale cycle, that this is where we really need money, right? We need to get money right away. The way you approach the fast sale cycle is you have to get in front of as many people as possible. So this means going out to those pipelines that have a huge amount of water, a huge amount of flows really strong and you want to get as wet as possible, you want to get out in front of people and let's say you're selling like a half a million-dollar home, right? Well, chances are most people that you come across, they're not gonna want to buy the zone because they're like, no, I'm not in the market for a half-million-dollar home, but the more people that you get in front of, there's a probability that you're gonna come across someone that's gonna say, oh my God, I was actually just looking for a half a million-dollar home and what you're selling is like, the timing is so perfect, it's almost like, you know like it was meant to be and you're eventually going to end up selling that home at a much faster sales cycle.
So if you find someone in this like high crowded market activity area, then maybe your sales cycle is now just a couple of days right where this person is doing the due diligence and all the inspections and everything necessary for them to purchase this house. So there are several different levels of sale cycles. If you need money right away for your startup, you know, consider what are you doing your startup for you to be able to get to profitability now, are you spending your effort on some of the slower sales cycles? Like blogs SEO are you spending your effort on some of the faster sales cycles that actually put money into your pocket today? I hope this helps. This is Robin Copernicus, boom bam. I'm out.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
So in our company, just to make this easier, right? Because your sales cycle speed, the timing of your sales cycle is going to be on a spectrum. But in our company, we bucket it into four different buckets. Into a seed sales cycle, this is the slowest of the slowest sale cycles, this could take forever, maybe even never. But we have the seed sales cycle, then we have a slow sales cycle, then we have a medium sale cycle and a fast sale cycle and you're probably already guessing like if you need money, guess what you need money right now, you probably have to go after that fast sale cycle.
Now to kind of illustrate on how these sales cycles and how these speeds work and what you could expect, let's look at it from the perspective of a real estate agent. So I'm using a real estate agent as an example because it's probably the most important, it's probably the most easiest way for someone to be able to digest these ideas and still apply them for whatever business that you're doing. So if you're doing a tech startup or you're building a subscription box or like some kind of physical product or like dog toys or maybe you're doing an event, it doesn't matter what you're doing, you can still use this information, we're just looking at it from the perspective of a real estate agent and then you know it will let you understand what's going on then you just apply for your situation.
So from the perspective of a real estate agent, if we were to start at the bottom, at the seed sales cycle, this is the slowest of the sales cycles. This is probably where the real estate agent is probably creating content for SEO. So they might be developing a blog and this seed sales cycle, this takes a long time. Basically, what this real estate agent is doing is he's setting the way that I like to think about marketing is you're setting up all your different pipelines so it's like real infrastructure that you're setting in your market, right? So if you think about it as plumbing you're pretty much just putting all your plumbing out there.
So your seed sale cycle, this is going to be like some of the plumbing that once you get water slowing. It's just so intricately built out that it's going to be difficult for the flow to come and this is your seed sales cycle. So when you're thinking about doing like SEO strategies, your blog, or your Instagram strategies, well you're not gonna get a sail off that right away. Right?
So if a real estate agent opened up a blog or open up a brand new Instagram account, they're not going to get sales from that directly right away. It's not gonna be any kind of organic traffic. What they're going to end up doing is, you know, instead of focusing on marketing the house, they will be marketing their Instagram which markets the house. So they're just adding a little extra step. But if you're in it for the long haul then yeah, this is something that you can do, but it's not going to make you money right away. Right?
So let's go up to the next level, the next bucket of sale cycles. And again, from the perspective of a real estate agent, this is the slow sale cycle. So for the slow sale cycle, maybe this real estate agent is going around, he's letting himself know that, you know, he's able to help like maybe he's going to like neighborhood organizations, he's not selling, right? He's not doing anything, he's just showing his face and he just wants to remind people that he exists and that. If anyone does need any help with real estate, he or I'm using, he is the example because this is the person that I have in my head, but he or she um is the person that would be the one to sell the real estate, right?
So maybe they're doing, they're just kind of like being around, maybe they're putting out content, they're just putting out memes. So it has nothing to do with buying and selling houses or anything about properties, but they're just kind of putting themselves out there and saying, Hey, I exist and you know, eventually when you do need to buy or sell the house, you can come to see me. So this is a very slow sales cycle. And if you think about how much turnover you have in the housing industry, the average, I think time period that someone moves is about eight years. So if you're doing this slow sales cycle, you're doing like eight years' worth of memes and things like that. Eventually, someone's going to convert because they're gonna be like, oh now it's time for me to move. And this is the guy that's been doing all these memes and I remember that he sells houses. So let me go talk to them, right? So there's a very slow sale cycle.
If we go up to the next bucket for the medium sale cycle, well this can shorten your sales cycle a lot more significantly. So again, from the perspective of the real estate agent, maybe this real estate agent is going out to different corporations and he's talking, he or she is talking to the um the HR department and saying, "Hey, you know, you're hiring people from out of state or out of the city and whenever they come, whenever they relocate into the city, I want to help them find a new home and I want to be able to build a relationship with you and they probably not saying all this stuff, but the thinking this right and that they want to start developing the relationships with these people that can eventually bring them customers."
So for this, the sale cycle, if you think about a company, the average time it hires and things like that, they're probably hiring every quarter whenever they get a new budget. So maybe around every 3-4 months there, you know, this pipeline will bring a customer. So this is a medium sales cycle, you are able to get much faster sales, it's not as slow as the other ones where it might take years or maybe even never. This is the medium sales cycle.
Now, if we go up one more level to the fast sale cycle, that this is where we really need money, right? We need to get money right away. The way you approach the fast sale cycle is you have to get in front of as many people as possible. So this means going out to those pipelines that have a huge amount of water, a huge amount of flows really strong and you want to get as wet as possible, you want to get out in front of people and let's say you're selling like a half a million-dollar home, right? Well, chances are most people that you come across, they're not gonna want to buy the zone because they're like, no, I'm not in the market for a half-million-dollar home, but the more people that you get in front of, there's a probability that you're gonna come across someone that's gonna say, oh my God, I was actually just looking for a half a million-dollar home and what you're selling is like, the timing is so perfect, it's almost like, you know like it was meant to be and you're eventually going to end up selling that home at a much faster sales cycle.
So if you find someone in this like high crowded market activity area, then maybe your sales cycle is now just a couple of days right where this person is doing the due diligence and all the inspections and everything necessary for them to purchase this house. So there are several different levels of sale cycles. If you need money right away for your startup, you know, consider what are you doing your startup for you to be able to get to profitability now, are you spending your effort on some of the slower sales cycles? Like blogs SEO are you spending your effort on some of the faster sales cycles that actually put money into your pocket today? I hope this helps. This is Robin Copernicus, boom bam. I'm out.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
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