#9 Linear Sales Process: How to drive Consistent Sales

Do you experience a sales pattern where deals pile up and stall until the end of the quarter, and then suddenly all close at once? If yes, then it's an indication that your sales team struggles to establish a linear sales process. A linear sales process is when deals close in a predictable manner on a week-to-week and month-to-month basis throughout the quarter. It is about setting up and nurturing opportunities in a balanced way to close business regularly.

“A linear sales process is essential for improving sales predictability, giving companies better control over their fiscal health.”

It enables businesses to forecast when onboarding resources are required to support new customers, helps build better cash flow, improves margins, and creates a predictable revenue stream that fuels growth and other investment decisions.

Here are five tips to improve your sales linearity:

1. Implement a "30-day close" plan: This approach finalizes deals committed in the previous quarter, preventing deals from stalling and creating incentives for sales reps to prioritize wrapping up deals under way before earlier stage opportunities.
   

2. Extend previous quarter promotions: Offer a 30-day extension on any promotions from the previous quarter, indicating that prices will go up after the extension period. This approach sends a message to prospects that promotions will not be extended beyond the specified timeframe.
   

3. Incentivize early deals: Offer premium packages for customers who close deals earlier in the quarter, providing them with additional goodies such as access to more product capabilities or services. Structuring special packages can ensure that late-stage pipeline opportunities do not lag.
   

4. Compensate reps accordingly: Commission multipliers based on how quickly deals can be closed encourage the sales team to push deals to a close. Offering an accelerator for deals that close within a set block of time and decreases over time will motivate reps to close earlier.
   

5. Focus on three close dates, not one: Instead of driving end-of-quarter closes on all pipeline deals, incentivize reps to close commits by the end of each month. This focus on monthly rather than quarterly close rates improves the sales team's forecasting ability and generates a more predictable revenue stream.

When everyone in the revenue operations team, including sales, marketing, customer success, and ops, can see a deal's sales activity, they can drive sales linearity in their way. For example, when marketing sees an opportunity stalling, they can run targeted campaigns to re-engage the prospect and help accelerate the deal.

Remember, time kills all deals.