If you don't follow Kerry Cunningham I highly recommend that you do

While others talk opinion on LinkedIn, Kerry talks research and data

I'm talking about this post here

Kerry says that "In a presentation by Firat Gecit of Outreach a month or so ago in Antwerp, he showed a chart that said the average sales cycle across their customers had reached 117 days

(Outreach data here)

That's about 3.5 months

Buyers talk to Kerry they tell him their average buyer cycle is just under 12 months.

Buyers tell Kerry they chose a preferred vendor about 8 months into that buying journey

And they tell Kerry the first contact with sellers it is about 8 months into that buying process

In other words, the bottom-up data from Outreach's customers on how long sales cycles are matches Kerry's buyers' reports very, very closely

Kerry goes onto say that the sales cycle is consistently the final one-third of a B2B buying cycle, and his data show that this is true whether that buying journey is 6 months or two years long

And (this is where one gasps), the 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐫

They don't always buy from that favorite vendor, but they do 80% of the time

Also, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐨 𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 9 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞

If you aren't marketing to the accounts that aren't in market yet, you're probably going to miss a lot of potential deals

𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐬

Deep dive into Kerry's research here: https://lnkd.in/gvwjpGXP

Blog on Outreach's research here: https://lnkd.in/gS9RRV-y"

Thanks to Kerry for the post and the data

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