Digital Healthcare Sales: 6 Ways to Reduce Long Sales Cycles

One of the main challenges many Healthcare Technology salespeople face is shortening long digital healthcare sales cycles. As you know, unlike B2C, the B2B sales process involves engaging with a number of decision makers and educating them about the value of your solution. It typically takes a long time convincing each of them that your digital healthcare sales solution is tailored to meet their needs. However, since everyone might have a different perspective towards your solution, and the number of people involved in a decision, the sales cycle may end up being agonizingly long. In addition, according to a recent Demand Gen report, the Buyer’s Journey for many B2B buyers is getting longer and more complicated, which doesn’t help with the already tedious sales process.

There is good news! There are several strategies that can help shorten your digital healthcare sales cycle:

1. Understand your Buyer Personas

Don’t make the mistake of trying to engage who are unqualified. You might just find yourself in a frustratingly long cycle which will not yield any sales in the end. Before embarking on the sales process, take time to clarify exactly who it is that you are targeting. Your Buyer Personas (aka your ideal buyers) could be ‘Physician Philip‘, ‘Hospital Administrator Alice‘ or ‘Medical Director Daniel‘. Ideally, your Buyer Personas should be the main decision makers of the organizations you are targeting, and sometimes important influencers. After identifying your Personas, you can outline their qualities by answering the following questions:

• What are their responsibilities?
• What are their goals?
• What problems are they dealing with?
• What trigger drives them to buy?
• What inhibits a purchase?
• How do they like to research?

The answers to these questions will give you an idea of how best to approach them.

2. Send an introductory video

Traditionally, prospects get to know how the salesperson looks like only during an in person meeting. To create familiarity before the initial meeting, consider sending the potential customer an introduction video explaining why you are interested in them (flattery), something valuable to them (research you conducted, etc.), and a call-to-action (“let’s schedule a time to continue the discussion”). This way, when you engage them by phone, they are already familiar with you. However, this does not mean that you have to spend a lot of money on the video production. A good mobile phone camera with good lighting might just be enough. Our favorite app to create these videos is called Soapbox by Wistia.

3. Provide pre-sales appointment content

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to have a sales appointment with a potential customer who does not have any information to engage with. This means that you might need several appointments before convincing the prospect, but that can be pretty difficult with the amount of time you have in your hands. Instead, you can send Lead Nurturing Emails containing informative content that they can peruse before your meeting. For example, if you want to sell an X-Ray machine to ‘Hospital Administrator Alice‘, send her a link to a blog post that reveals statistics on how administrators save time with modern equipment. You could also send a comparison chart that shows the advantages your product holds versus that of your competitor. Keep strategically informing your prospects throughout your process to position yourself as a helpful resource.

4. Provide post-sales appointment content

After the first sales appointment, the prospect is likely to bring up some objections or concerns. Your responsibility as the salesperson of your healthcare tech company is to address all of those issues and eliminate any obstacles. You could send follow up emails with reports, case studies or videos which address all their major concerns. Such content can then be used for guiding your other prospects as well. Overcoming obstacles using content will help shorten the digital healthcare sales cycle significantly.

5. Come clean with pricing

One of the main concerns of your prospects is the pricing of your products or services. However, many salespeople skirt around the topic of pricing until late in the sales process. All this does is add more time to your sales process, and you really don’t want that. In addition, failing to disclose the price from the beginning could cause you to lose trust with potential customers. Being transparent with pricing early in the sales process will save you from such problems down the road. So how do you cleverly present this information without scaring your prospects away? First be sure to calculate the value your solution offers, so the price is perceived in context. You can also use terms like “starting at $…” or “from $…”.

6. Leverage social proof

Social proof can help win your prospect’s trust faster and close the deal sooner. You could send them case studies showcasing the ROI or impact of your product or service. Make sure the companies featured in the case study are similar to your prospect’s firm. Alternatively, you can find a mutual connection on LinkedIn who could introduce you to the prospect directly. This strategy is far more effective than just sending a random email. According to the B2B news network, 84% of B2B decision makers begin the buying process with a referral. You could also invite the prospect to a live event which your current customers will be attending. While mingling with your customers, your prospect is likely to make a buying decision faster.

The Bottom Line

As difficult as it may be to focus on anything other than closing digital healthcare sales and meeting your quota, it’s crucial for you to take your time and understand your prospects inside and out. Your sales cycle should be intertwined with the lead nurturing process where you can act as an advisor for your prospects all the while building trust with them and increasing their chances of buying your product or service. It can be very challenging to do all of this alone. We here at Responsify partner with health technology sales and business development pros to offer strategy, support, and help implementing these activities. By collaborating we help marketing and salespeople strategically attract new website visitors, convert them to qualified leads and happy customers. We’ve helped many sales pros like you incorporate Inbound into their sales processes. If you’d like, you can reserve a free strategy session now to get help evaluating your assets and gain valuable insights and suggestions to help you reduce long sales cycles!