From Initial Inquiry to Payment: Ways to Shorten the B2B Sales Cycle

The B2B sales cycle can last several days, weeks, or months, depending on the product’s price and the customer’s procurement process. Between the initial contact and the seller receiving payment, there is a whole chain of approvals: the manager clarifies the need, prepares a proposal, the buyer coordinates the budget with their manager, lawyers review the contract, and the accounting department receives the invoice. The more parties and stages involved in a deal, the higher the risk of delays.

For a company, a long sales cycle means slower cash flow and more difficult sales forecasting. To shorten it, you need to analyze the specific stages of the sales funnel: how long it takes a sales manager to respond to a new inquiry, how many days it takes to approve a commercial proposal, where delays occur in the document workflow, and how long it takes from invoicing to actual payment.

What stages make up the B2B sales cycle?

B2B sales rarely close after the first conversation with a client. This is especially true for equipment, professional-grade technology, enterprise software, large shipments of goods, and other products with a high average transaction value.

A typical customer journey can be broken down into the following stages:

1. The B2B sales cycle begins with the first contact or the receipt of a lead. A potential customer submits a request on the website, calls, emails a sales manager, or sends a request for a quote.
2. Qualifying the prospect. The sales representative assesses the prospect’s needs, purchase timeline, and the feasibility of a future deal.
3. Identifying needs and budget. It’s important to understand what product the company needs and how much it’s willing to spend on the purchase.
4. Selecting a solution. The manager determines the product bundle, quantity, or service configuration.
5. Preparing a commercial proposal. The buyer receives the price, specifications, delivery terms, and other conditions.
6. Negotiations and price agreement. The parties discuss the cost, product specifications, discounts, service, and timelines.
7. Contract approval. The document may be reviewed by the legal and financial departments of both companies.
8. Internal approval of the purchase. The client receives final budget approval from the responsible parties.
9. Selection of payment method. The parties determine the payment terms, including prepayment, deferred payment, or another available option.
10. Payment and Order Fulfillment. The seller receives payment and proceeds with delivery in accordance with the terms of the agreement.

The duration of each stage of a B2B sale depends on the product, the amount involved, and the structure of the buyer’s company. The head of a small business can approve a purchase of 30,000 UAH on their own in a single day. A deal worth 1 million UAH may require the involvement of a procurement specialist, a CFO, a lawyer, a technical specialist, and the owner. Therefore, the total number of days provides only part of the picture. To manage sales effectively, you need to know how much time the client spends at each stage.

Where do delays most often occur in B2B sales?

A B2B sales funnel can contain dozens of active deals that remain at the same stage for months. Formally, the manager continues to work with the client, even though there is no real progress toward payment.

Delays most often occur for the following reasons:

• The manager takes a long time to respond to a new request;
• the client does not receive all the information needed to make a decision;
• the commercial proposal is sent back for revision several times;
• the price exceeds the available budget for the current period;
• the purchase takes a long time to be approved internally;
• the legal department delays reviewing the contract;
• Documents are manually passed between several employees;
• it is difficult for the buyer to make a large one-time payment;
• the manager fails to document the next steps following negotiations.

Let’s consider a hypothetical case. The typical B2B sales cycle lasts 24 days. The first 2 days are spent receiving the inquiry and initial communication; the companies then spend another 5 days preparing and finalizing the commercial proposal. Over the next 10 days, the client gets the purchase approved within their company, after which the seller waits another 7 days for payment.

The phrase “the deal closes in 24 days” isn’t very helpful to a sales manager. Breaking it down by stages reveals two major phases: internal approval by the client and the period from the final decision to the receipt of funds.

After that, you can test specific hypotheses. Can you reduce the time spent on a commercial proposal by 5 days using a template? Why does the client need 10 days to approve it? What information is the CFO missing? Why does the invoice remain unpaid for another week after the purchase is approved? It is precisely by measuring the duration of individual stages that you can identify real bottlenecks.

How do qualification and workflow help move a deal forward faster?

Some delays can be prevented during the first substantive conversation. The manager needs to determine the client’s needs, budget, desired delivery date, decision-making process, and the people involved in the approval process.

A separate issue concerns procurement timelines. The phrase “we are interested in the equipment” could mean an intention to purchase it within the current month or preliminary research for next year’s budget. These types of contacts require different approaches.

It’s also best to discuss the budget early on. If, after three rounds of negotiations, the manager finds out that the client can spend a maximum of 300,000 UAH, while the proposed solution costs 600,000 UAH, a significant amount of time has already been wasted. Identifying financial constraints early on allows for selecting a different configuration or immediately discussing available payment options.

The job description should also outline the approval process. It is helpful for a manager to know who makes the final decision, whether a competitive bidding process is required, who will review the contract, and what documents the accounting department needs. That way, the necessary information can be prepared in advance.

The next stage in the process involves the commercial proposal. If important information is missing from it, the buyer returns with questions, the manager makes changes, and the document goes through the internal approval process again.

A commercial proposal for B2B procurement should include the product specifications and quantity, price, delivery terms, warranty, service, the proposal’s validity period, and available payment options. For complex equipment, it is advisable to include terms regarding installation, staff training, and maintenance.

Standardized contracts, electronic document management, and electronic signatures reduce the number of manual tasks. CRM helps track the assigned manager, the current status, the date of the last contact, and the next scheduled action. If a specific follow-up with a date is recorded after every conversation, a prospective deal is less likely to stall.

How can payment terms shorten the B2B sales cycle?

One of the most telling scenarios occurs at the end of the sales funnel. The customer has already selected a supplier, agreed on the specifications, price, and contract, but the invoice remains unpaid.

The reason may be the current period’s budget. For example, the equipment costs 500,000 UAH, but the company can currently allocate only 200,000 UAH toward the purchase. The remaining funds are expected after the client pays for a large order in a few weeks. The need for the equipment remains, but a one-time payment places a significant strain on working capital.

In this situation, the seller can consider the available options: deferral, installment payments, BNPL, or payment in installments for businesses. The specific option depends on the terms agreed upon by the seller, the buyer, and the financial partner.

One such service on the Ukrainian market is eDilo for buyers. Business purchases are processed online; a TIN or EDRPOU code is used for preliminary calculations, and the product features include payment without collateral and a flexible payment schedule. eDilo’s business model is based on B2B factoring. The seller provides goods or services to the buyer; eDilo, acting as the factor, pays the seller the agreed-upon amount; and the buyer subsequently repays the service in installments by specified deadlines.

In the sales cycle, this option is particularly important during the transition from an agreed-upon purchase to payment. If a delay occurs due to the size of a one-time payment, the financial solution provides the buyer with an additional option for closing the deal. It does not guarantee faster payment for every order: the decision depends on financing approval, service terms, and the specific client’s financial situation.

How Automation Helps Speed Up B2B Sales

Automating B2B sales is most effective for repetitive tasks that regularly take up a manager’s time or create gaps between stages. Simply implementing a CRM system changes little if the team continues to manually transfer information between spreadsheets, email, and the accounting system.

You can automate or streamline the following:

• forwarding a new lead to the assigned manager;
• drafting a standard commercial proposal;
• scheduling a follow-up after a call or meeting;
• creating an invoice;
• submitting documents for approval;
• monitoring payment status;
• updating the deal stage in the CRM.

For example, inquiries from the website can be automatically routed to the CRM and assigned to a manager. Once a lead is received, the system records the time of the first response. The manager sees that the average response time is 4 hours, even though the internal standard is 30 minutes. In this case, there is a specific process for optimization and a metric against which to measure the results.

The same logic applies to commercial proposals. If managers have to compile the document manually each time, the preparation process can take several hours or be postponed until the next day. A template that automatically populates details such as company information, products, prices, and deadlines reduces the number of manual steps.

For contracts, you can measure the number of days from the submission of the first draft to signing. For invoices, a useful metric is the time from final approval of the purchase to the issuance of the invoice. For payments, the number of days from the invoice date to the actual receipt of funds.

Automation should start with the processes that cause measurable delays. If generating an invoice takes five minutes and never holds up a deal, automating that process will have a lower priority than contract approval, which regularly takes customers seven days.

Practical Checklist: How to Shorten the B2B Sales Cycle

Before changing processes, you need to establish baseline metrics. The company must know the current duration of each stage so it can compare the results in a month or a quarter.

Here’s a practical step-by-step guide:

1. Record all the stages of the current sales funnel. They should correspond to the company’s actual process.
2. Measure the average time spent at each stage. Track the initial response, proposal preparation, negotiations, contract signing, and payment separately.
3. Identify the 2–3 biggest bottlenecks. Start optimizing the areas that add the most days to the cycle.
4. Define lead qualification criteria. The manager should obtain information about the need, budget, timeline, and decision-making process at the outset.
5. Standardize sales proposals and contracts. Prepare templates for the main types of customers and products.
6. Set a deadline for the initial response. Track it through the CRM and monitor any deviations.
7. Record the next action after each contact. For active deals, the date and the person responsible must be specified.
8. Automate repetitive tasks—especially those that regularly cause delays.
9. Offer several payment options. It’s best to identify a client’s financial constraints before issuing the final invoice.
10. Monitor the period from proposal approval to receipt of payment. This stage is often overlooked by the sales department.
11. Analyze delayed and lost deals on a monthly basis. Record the reasons in the CRM using a standardized classification system.

Let’s return to the hypothetical case with a 24-day cycle. If we reduce the initial communication phase from two days to one, the proposal preparation and approval phase from five days to three, and the waiting period after final approval from seven days to four, the total duration will be reduced to 18 days, assuming the client’s internal approval process remains at ten days.

This is a hypothetical calculation, but it illustrates how the sales funnel works. A company doesn’t need to overhaul its entire process all at once. Significant results can be achieved by reducing just a few specific bottlenecks that recur in most deals.

What metrics should you track to monitor the sales cycle?

The main metric—average sales cycle duration—should be supplemented with metrics for individual stages. An average of 30 days can encompass a wide range of scenarios: some customers make a purchase within a week, while others remain in the sales funnel for two months.

To monitor progress, you should track:

• average sales cycle duration;
• time to first response;
• the duration of each stage of the sales funnel;
• conversion rates between stages;
• number of follow-ups until the deal is closed;
• time from commercial proposal to decision;
• time to contract approval;
• time from contract approval to payment;
• average order value;
• the percentage of lost deals;
• reasons for customer churn.

It is helpful to segment the data by managers, product categories, customer size, and transaction amount. A sale of equipment worth 1 million UAH may naturally have a longer cycle than an order for consumables worth 50,000 UAH. If these transactions are combined into a single average figure, it will be more difficult to evaluate a manager’s performance.

The transitions between stages need to be analyzed separately. If 80% of qualified leads receive a commercial proposal but only a small portion proceeds to contract approval, the problem may lie in the price, the composition of the proposal, or the quality of the qualification. If customers are dropping off en masse after contract approval, you need to review the financial terms and the payment stage.

The answer to the question of how to shorten the sales cycle becomes clear after breaking it down in this way. The team can identify a specific stage, its duration, and the cause of the delay, after which it can adjust the process and compare the metrics before and after the change.

From Lead to Revenue: Where to Find Time Savings

The speed of B2B sales depends on dozens of steps, but the greatest time savings are often concentrated in just a few key areas. These include the manager’s initial response, lead qualification, preparing a commercial proposal, finalizing the contract, following up on next steps, and moving from the client’s final decision to payment.

For a sales manager, data from the CRM becomes the primary tool. It is necessary to compare the duration of individual stages before and after a process change, analyze conversion rates, and identify the reasons for lost deals. It’s a good idea to incorporate additional financial scenarios when a customer is held back by their budget or the size of a one-time payment.

Resources on financing purchases, handling large transactions, and financial tools for B2B are compiled on the eDilo blog. Subscribe so you don’t miss out on useful information!