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Achieving sales and marketing goals in the b2b domain is largely dependent upon data and more importantly on ‘quality and relevance of data’. There has been a paradigm shift in recent years in how data is being valued and how b2b marketers are leaving no stone unturned to get the right data. Better understanding of customer can lead to more sales—this is exactly how intent data helps!

Marketers are excited to see how intent data is helping them to increase sales and ROI and enabling them to understand the customer and some important insights about the buying journey. This knowledge has given marketers the confidence to capture the right leads that have high potential to convert into sales.

Let us find out from this blog, how intent data’s insights and the right timing play a valuable role in making lead generation less challenging for b2b marketers.

The power of intent data

Valuable insights:

Knowledge is power and intent data provides relevant knowledge and thus the power to marketers to be able to convert the leads into paying customers.

The main objective behind building a tool like intent data is to give business owners relevant and filtered data that is useful. Data alone may not suffice when it comes to converting leads or capturing leads. Data should be useful and of value to marketers in order for them to optimize it for conversions. Built on this simple logic, intent data helps marketers to filter through the crowded and magnanimous amounts of sources of data available today.

Perfect timing:

Another huge benefit of intent data is the timing! Marketers can leverage this benefit to meet the right prospect when he is most likely to buy from you. Intent data facilitates an opportune time for you to contact the prospect during his active buying stage. It allows business owners to hyper-target the most potential leads because intent data provides the insights and knowledge to marketers about the prospect and his buying journey.

Given the complex nature of b2b businesses and with several decision makers at various stages, it becomes increasingly difficult to filter out the right decision-maker who is most likely to make the final buying decision. In such a scenario, intent data helps you carry out the right marketing activities as per the buyer persona and you can make some quick and effective decisions about contacting the prospect for conversions. You can also be aware and have knowledge about which content asset has been downloaded by your prospects and how frequently they have shown interest in those assets.

Intent data provides marketers with predictive intelligence and also lets them know the technology that is being used by the prospect. It also gives valuable insights to marketers about the purchase history of the prospect.

All these insights offer signals to marketers about the buying intentions and preferences of the prospect so that they can take the right actions at the right time and with successful conversions.

Conclusion:

B2B marketers can experience improved lead quality by data-backed insights to drive effective lead generation, conversion and also demand generation. Intent data insights provide predictive intelligence to marketers to be able to act at the right time. It also provides the marketer with relevant knowledge of the prospect, to create a great customer experience. This can help strengthen business relationships and create more customer loyalty and enhance business longevity.  

Intellitech Solutions can provide you with top-of-the funnel leads by using Bombora intent data!

B2B sales and marketing today is about how effectively you communicate the value of your solution to your customers and deliver results on time. It’s all about building relationships through personalized communication that is effective enough to convert the prospect into a paying customer. This is where email marketing comes into the picture. It is one of the most effective channels in b2b marketing communication and it can help you to generate the highest possible ROI.

Find out all about how to achieve the highest ROI and other benefits of email marketing in this blog.

As per research, almost 89% of marketers say that email marketing is their primary channel for lead generation. Email marketing is effective in terms of increasing brand awareness, engagement and enhanced lead conversions for higher ROI.

Higher Return on investment (ROI):

According to McKinsey, email is 40 times more effective than social at acquiring new customers. Research also suggests that email marketing generates the highest ROI amid other channels of marketing. While many marketers might wonder about how to achieve the right marketing mix; there is a high possibility that email marketing will always be an integral part of the core sales and marketing strategies in order to bring more leads and thus more business.

More conversions:

Emails are supposed to be opened and read so that the prospect knows who you are and how you are willing to help them. Did you know that email conversion rates are almost three times higher than social? Marketers have definitely realized the potential of email marketing and they are now focusing on strategizing their email marketing campaigns for higher open and click rates. Email is also a highly measurable tool, so it’s easier for the teams to keep a track of open and click rates, number of content asset downloads, and metrics that suggest conversions.

Long-term business relationships:

Emails today aren’t just about sales and conversions. The good thing about email marketing is that it also makes relationship-building less challenging. Email marketing can help you to reach out to a wider audience and enhance brand awareness. With email marketing, you can make your brand grow on your audience. It is also one of the most effective channels of communication when it comes to relationship building.

With a series of emails, you can attract, delight, and engage the audience until they convert into paying customers. This will happen when the prospects will see the value in your brand. You can build trust amid your target audience which can also help you in retargeting and building sustainable and long-term business relationships.

Conclusion:

There are plenty of marketing channels available today and marketers can choose the best channel that suits their business needs and goals. Email marketing is definitely one channel that is effective in terms of lead generation and conversions and is very much result-oriented. All one needs to do is to optimize email marketing that is based on solid strategies and incredible data.

Intent data can have a huge impact on your business. Before implementing intent data, marketers need to evaluate the need of intent data for their business and the best possible ways to adopt it.  

Instead of rushing things, marketers can choose to go slow and take a step-by-step approach when integrating intent data into their marketing strategy.

Does your business need intent data?

The results most businesses get from intent data are incredible so every marketer today might want to integrate intent data into their marketing strategy. It’s quite easy to jump into it, however, marketers need to consider certain factors and take an informed decision about intent data.

Download our white paper on intent data here  www.intellitechsoln.com/insights?type=whitepaper

What’s your intent?

First and foremost, before you plunge into intent data initiatives, you need to evaluate all the reasons as to why you would want to integrate intent data into your business.  Without a solid plan, your intent data plans and strategy might most likely backfire, why? Because intent data needs to be a part of your overall marketing strategy! It needs to be an integral part of your sales and marketing initiatives and hence it needs to align with your business goals.

So first thing you need to evaluate is the need for intent data in your sales and marketing processes and whether it fits comfortably into your overall business plan. You also need to evaluate the results that you expect from this initiative and do you have the resources to pull it off. Once you have identified the purpose, the need of intent data and align it with your business goals then you can go ahead and build a smart strategy to implement it.

So how do you build the plan from ground up?

Once you have decided that your business needs intent data, you can start by listing out your sales and marketing processes that need intent data or can benefit from intent data. This will help you to get a clear idea of the need. Then compare the need with the larger business goals and objectives. A smart way of using or integrating intent data into your marketing plan is to start small. Instead of adopting it for the entire funnel, which eventually you will need to do; you can first take small steps while approaching intent data.

Take one step at a time:

Start small with some smaller projects or accounts that have the full support and resources to pull off new intent data initiatives. You will be surprised with how quickly you can get the results. This one-step-at-a-time approach will also give you and your team the confidence to pull off bigger intent stunts.

It will also give you the time to evaluate results and see the real need of intent data. It will also help you to decide which part of the funnel you need to focus on with intent at present. It will eventually help you to strategize intent data with better results each time. 

Educate:

You may have seen the potential in intent data and after evaluating the above factors you have reached the conclusion of integrating it into your strategy but what about other functions across the organization? Do they have the same knowledge about its benefits and how it’s going to affect the overall business of the organization, most likely not!

So the earlier you educate and let the others know that you plan to bring on intent data into the sales and marketing processes its better. Just like data, the importance of intent data needs to be understood well by all functions in the organizations or at least by the ones that work closely with sales and marketing.

Once all the parameters that might get affected by intent data are taken care of start building the actual strategy. Since intent data can have an impact on various things in your funnel it’s important to recalibrate some of your basic strategies.

Conclusion:

Intent data can bring incredible results if you take it one step at a time and then gradually scale it up to align better with other strategies. So, all you need to do is first understand what is intent data, why is it needed and how can it be aligned with your business model. Depending on these factors, you can then start adopting it step by step and implementing it with a solid strategy for best results.

B2B organizations often struggle with the lack of alignment between sales and marketing functions! While each team comes with their unique skill-sets, armed with relevant knowledge and insights, there still exists the infamous struggle between these two critical functions of the organization that ultimately impacts the business in a negative way. If the unique skill-sets and know-how of each team can be unified for the common goals and objectives, it can create higher chances of enhancing business.

Let us discuss why this peculiar b2b challenge exists and also see how the funnel dynamics could possibly have the solution you just needed.

The Challenge

Huge gap between sales and marketing alignment

The traditional funnel comes with some rigid territories that have been defined and followed by sales and marketing teams for ages. This could be one of the major reasons why there are hurdles in the alignment between these two functions.

The top part of the funnel is allocated to marketing and the marketing team works in the direction to get leads that have better chances of getting qualified. However, due to the rigid demarcation within the funnel, the sales teams are often left out of the picture up until this point. When the marketing team finally passes on these qualified leads to the sales teams, they may not agree with the lead quality or they are too engaged qualifying their own leads for faster results.

This demarcation of territories runs deeper in the overall approach and forms a part of the company culture. This can lead to in interaction, communication and collaboration between the teams, ultimately affecting business and ROI.

The Solution

How does one achieve alignment between sales and marketing?

Dismantling predefined territories could be the first step to instil a more collaborative approach for smooth functioning between sales and marketing teams. However, alignment starts at the core of the business when goals and objectives are defined and cemented. Therefore, the sales and marketing alignment should begin and grow as a company culture at the very core of how the business sells and how it intends to drive leads and convert them into business.

If you look closely, the ideal sales and marketing funnel is in reality a revenue funnel with clearly defined roles. Each stage of the funnel reflects the roles, responsibilities and accountability of both the teams.

Funnel stages and its dynamics-

The top of the funnel is where the seeds of collaboration can be ideally sowed.  Here, both the sales and marketing teams can define the ICP (ideal customer profile), the buyer personas etc. jointly. This is the stage where the buyers’ journey can be defined with inputs from both sales and marketing teams. Defining these parameters together can enable the sales and marketing teams to be on the same page with clear understanding of goals and objectives.

At this stage, the buyers’ journey can be the revenue map for marketing and sales alignment. Marketing teams can help build brand awareness with relevant messaging that can help customers relate to the sales outreach. It is like getting the customer acquainted with sales and warming them up to sales outreach.

Mid funnel is the stage when prospects start becoming more aware of their needs. This is the stage where the sales and marketing teams can strategize to nurture the leads and drive them to further engage with the brand.

The bottom of the funnel belongs to sales and it involves creating and providing high value content assets to the customers and to motivate them for taking the buying action.

Conclusion-

It may not be possible to fully align sales and marketing, and the conflict or tussle between sales and marketing may continue to exist. However, by bringing a change in approach and breaking down traditional practices that have conditioned marketers to think a certain way; alignment between sales and marketing can definitely be achieved and with promising results too.

Lead nurturing is an important strategy used in lead generation which can effectively convert leads into paying customers. It can be used to shorten the sales cycle and also build strong relationships with the customers. To make b2b less challenging, you can invest in lead nurturing or partner with an expert to help drive your leads toward the buying decision early on.

Leads that land on your website may or may not be inclined to buy from you. However, certain actions such as downloading of content assets, form-fill or high e-mailer open-rate can indicate that the leads could be potential buyers or customers in the near future. Marketers must soon respond to such leads and have a comprehensive strategy drawn out to nurture these leads.

Lead nurturing is can be an ideal method to build relationships with your prospects. Think of it as an opportunity, that can not only enhance lead conversion, but could also give you a chance to win loyal customers.

Lead nurturing makes it possible for your customers to see that you are interested in truly understanding their needs and challenges and provide valuable solutions that are aligned with their business goals. This is an important development in lead generation, because it can have a direct impact on sales and ROI. 

Let us see some of the techniques to nurture leads so that you can convert more leads into business.

Know the ideal customer

As a b2b marketer, it’s important that you simplify the b2b process by breaking down complex processes. Begin by understanding who your ideal customer is and also your ideal target audience. This will save a lot of your time and effort. Understanding the buyer persona can help you to map the likes and dislikes, preferences and other data of the prospect that can help you to customize your solutions. Also invest in mapping the buyers’ journey to nurture the leads at every stage effectively.           

Knowledge is power and learning the finer nuances about your leads can make personalization effective. The more you invest in personalizing the messages, offers and communication with your prospects, the better will be the results.

Lead nurturing is thinking from the prospect's perspective and preparing to deliver what the customer needs, way ahead of time.  This readiness can develop trust and confidence in the prospect and encourage him to ultimately buy from you.

Knowing the customer profile can also prepare you to create content assets that are in line with their needs. You can create customized content assets and create email marketing campaigns for better outreach.

Convince to convert

Lead nurturing is all about convincing the customer to ultimately buy from you or buy your services or products over your competitors. This is the stage of nurturing wherein you gather data and other valuable contact information from the prospect for further communication and engagement. Be prepared to offer valuable content assets, offers discounts, free demos etc. so that it’s a fair exchange and the customer feels valued.

Remember, lead nurturing is the beginning of a long-term relationship with the customer; in fact, it should help you to start this wonderful customer engagement journey for long-term business benefits.

Conclusion-

Lead nurturing can be one of the best techniques to convert leads into paying customers if you use the right strategy. Focus more on building relationships and keep nurturing leads throughout the customer journey for best results.

In order to achieve B2B marketing objectives, marketers need to be more focused and be able to narrow down the high-potential target audience and prospects that are most likely to convert. Account-based marketing or ABM should therefore be one of the mainstream marketing activities that can generate high revenue and create a more sustainable marketing business model with the best returns.

Let us see how one can optimize ABM initiatives for discovering high potential accounts, relationship building and higher conversions.

Discover potential customers

One of the critical things b2b marketers need to do for successful lead conversion is to identify their target accounts and know where the prospective clients spend their time online. Unless you know where to look, you cannot decide your future strategies like how to approach the prospect, which channels to use etc.

A healthy collaboration between sales and marketing functions will accelerate your efforts in targeting the potential clients. With both teams on the same page, you can collate to find important data through firmographics, demographics, geographical location for creating appropriate buyer persons. Apart from this, you also need to invest in research that will allow you to find out more about the latest trends, the buying preferences, competitor analysis and more.

Focus on key accounts

ABM is all about establishing key accounts so that you can dedicate resources, time and efforts to convert these high potential prospects into customers. The sales and marketing teams need to collaborate at every step for best results. The sales teams need to know the efforts taken by the marketing team and the details of various strategies being deployed by the marketing team On the other hand, the marketing teams need to know the information and details of the prospects that the sales team have with them.

This kind of exchange of information between the teams will allow both the teams to implement focused ABM initiatives for highly potential accounts that are most likely to convert. Also, focus on timing and relevance when it comes to these high value accounts. Things such as when to approach them, what channels you must use to communicate with them and the type of messaging to be used etc. will help you to achieve your objectives.

Adopt personalization

When high target accounts are in focus, generic messages do not work. You need to adopt and implement high level personalization in all your messaging and communication. This will not only help you develop strong rapport and build some solid relationships with the clients, but it will also increase your chances of conversion. Customized email messages and offers always work way better than robotic or generic messages.

Account based marketing will work only if you treat every single account on your list with high importance, focus and exclusivity.

Exclusivity through personalization could be the secret sauce of your ABM success.

Conclusion

ABM can bring great ROI if you focus on identifying the right target accounts, nurture the leads, adopt personalization, and when sales and marketing teams collaborate.

To fully understand ABM for your business, work with experts and save your time, money and efforts for more sales and better ROI. Get in touch with us for more insights and guidance on how to go about planning and implementing ABM.

Demand generation is an important aspect of b2b sales and marketing. It sure requires marketers to consider various aspects of the buyer’s journey, gain valuable insights about the prospect’s buying motive and other variables that contribute to make this strategic activity work. It also requires a combination of strategies to be deployed at different stages of the marketing funnel.  2022 can be another year for marketers to create a more comprehensive demand gen strategy and align it with the new demands of the customer.

Here are some things to consider while creating your next demand gen plan!

Work hard on the strategy

The top of the funnel engagement is an important part of b2b sales. Demand generation is all about addressing the pain-points and challenges of the customer so that he knows that you understand the specific problems that need to be solved. This can develop trust amid the target audience and you can get a better response.  

Use intent data

Getting to know the customer’s challenges and pain points allows b2b marketers to customize the solution. Intent data can help marketers give a birds-eye view of the various aspects of the prospect and his needs.

Intent data can guide marketers about where and how your customers are engaging with content assets. It also provides a proper understanding of the various dynamics that can encourage a buyer to make his buying decision quickly. Intent data can provide authentic and incredible insights about the buyer at various different buying stages to help create an opportunity to generate demand at the right time and at the right juncture.

As such with so many insights, you can be armed with a customized offer or a valuable content asset through email marketing for better response. Intent data thus helps you to create a solid plan for demand gen based on the insights and business intelligence.

Consider ABM

The various different segments of lead generation may lack focus for high target accounts. This void can be filled with a more focused and narrowed down approach that is ABM! Account-based marketing is the need of the time. Leads can convert with more focused approach and with dedicated resources working to create ROI. ABM campaigns can be created to directly address the needs and challenges of the customers and get better conversions and results.

Conclusion

2022 may see a lot of new trends or a continuation of trends from 2021, but demand generation is definitely going to continue with its rising popularity. Marketers, therefore, need to optimize their strategies in order to attract and engage leads. Creating outstanding content assets can also help in building a successful demand generation strategy in 2022.

Demand generation is becoming one of the favorite marketing activities amid b2b marketers. Today, marketers are focusing more and more on new-age lead generation practices and less on the traditional sales and marketing practices. Demand generation is one of the highly popular techniques that can draw potential leads for higher sales and ROI.

Demand generation is defined by Gartner as “a data-driven marketing strategy focused on driving awareness and interest in an organization’s products and services, with the ultimate goal of developing long-term customer engagement. Demand generation includes, lead capturing, lead nurturing and sales pipeline acceleration.”

Demand generation is essentially designed to make customers aware and excited about your products and services. Demand generation programs should be able to help your organization reach new markets engage more customers and re-engage existing customers.

Here are some top demand generation techniques you must adopt for b2b success!

Focus on Personas

Make personas an important part of your sales and marketing strategy. This is an important step if you want to make demand gen result-oriented. In fact, creating the right personas should be an integral part of your demand gen strategy. Creating buyer personas is very crucial for b2b demand gen funnel. In fact, categorizing demand gen initiatives as per personas can lead to better results.

One of the best ways to handle your organization’s content assets is to categorize them as per your personas. You should combine content and demand gen for best results. B2B industry involves several decision makers at different levels, which is why buyer personas are so important. So if you want big results, you must drive demand gen as per your buyer personas.

Make it ROI oriented

While you get busy creating strategies that will bring more sales, don’t forget the all-time favorite and but obvious strategy of focusing on return on investment. Understanding the results or making the results of demand gen measurable is probably more challenging than any other lead gen technique. It’s really difficult to quantify demand gen results the way you can quantify lead gen results.

In order to simplify this, make sure you have verified data, have realistic personas and great content assets that can bring you as close as possible to the desired results. This is the only way to make sure you enhance ROI through demand generation.

Invest in Content assets

The various elements involved in creating a solid demand gen strategy are all interlinked. Content assets are an important part of any demand generation strategy. Content assets that are created keeping in mind the buyer personas can be a great magnet for potential leads. These can be used to generate demand and then pull in the good leads that can convert easily.

Create content assets that are in-line with the challenges of the prospects. It should be able to give them the right insights, guidelines and information that can help them in certain ways. Content assets should be able to position you as the problem solver and a solution provider.

Conclusion-

Demand generation is a great way to simplify the lead generation and it can often make lead gen look less sale-sy. It can create more credibility, brand awareness and trust amid the target audience and give you the best returns in terms of sales and ROI.

Generating more b2b leads is only having half the battle won. What b2b marketers need today is to generate good leads that convert easily. Most lead generation experts will agree that having the right data can help them create lead gen more effectively.

Data-driven marketing and sales can help marketers predict the needs of their customers more effectively. It can help bridge the gap between the need and the solution and allow b2b marketers to understand the real challenges of the customers. It can also help b2b vendors to nurture leads for better business prospects.  

Let us discover the important aspects of data and how it can help b2b marketers in creating a more effective lead generation experience.

Data helps you understand your customer

Today, it’s all about the customer! Modern-day marketing is customer-centric. In order to know what the customer needs, b2b marketers must invest in studying and understanding the customer.

This is not the time to create random marketing strategies that are not in-line with the exact customer requirements. A solid data-backed strategy is the need of the time. Without data, none of the lead generation strategies can yield guaranteed results.

Potential clients appreciate customized pitches, offers or even content assets. They want to work with lead gen experts who know their challenges and interests well. Data helps establish trust and credibility to further engage with the b2b vendors.

Data facilitates a more personalized outreach

Data is most useful in creating personalized communication, messaging, and overall outreach. Data integrity will make sure you reach out to the right customers at the right time. This will impact lead capturing and lead nurturing in a positive way.

The average decision-maker receives tons of emails every day in his inbox. For the customer to be able to differentiate your pitch and communication, you need to customize it and make it unique.

B2B marketers need to set themselves apart and this is possible only if you know the customer. Quality data allows marketers to create personalized communication. You can enhance your outreach with rich content assets that resonate with the needs of the customer. Personalized outreach increases your chances of nurturing the right t leads and converting them into business. Evaluated data means higher chances of converting leads into business.

Data helps in Omni-channel b2b journey

According to McKinsey, an average B2B customer uses six different channels before they arrive at a buyer decision. Data can help b2b marketers analyse customer experience and how to enhance it. It even helps them build communication strategies at every stage of the sales funnel.

Omni-channel approach helps b2b sales. Data is very valuable in creating customer experiences that the customers will be delighted with. Data can help b2b marketers create unified and not disjointed customer experience across multiple channels. This leads to better engagement and customer loyalty in the longer run.

Conclusion-

Data is perfectly positioned to drive b2b sales and marketing in the right direction. It can also help marketers to invest in the right strategies and the right channels of communication without having to waste time, efforts or money over the wrong channels and leads.

A fully integrated lead generation strategy can get you good leads. B2B marketers need to have a comprehensive plan for lead generation. They can use and leverage the techniques that worked best for them in 2021 and also focus and invest in new lead gen methods strategically to help convert leads into customers.

A lead doesn’t always equal a sale. A lead may not convert into business even after going through the initial stages of the sales cycle. Therefore it’s important to think of lead generation as a strategic activity! It’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of an activity as every business is unique.

Let us see top 5 techniques to accelerate lead generation in 2022

Prioritize quality over quantity

Lead generation is not about volume alone, as number of leads won’t get you or sales but quality of leads will certainly enhance your sales and ROI. To increase the conversions, analysing leads and categorizing them into good leads and bad leads is important.

You can use BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) to qualify a lead and convert it into business

Budget: Evaluate if your lead has the budget for your services. This will actually decide whether they would be converted into customers.

Authority: Is the lead you are communicating with the actual decision maker? This is important to know because it will decide the amount of time the conversion might take to happen.

Need: One of the most critical aspects of lead generation is to identify if the service or product is actually going to meet the needs of the lead.

Timing: Timing is everything! When or how soon does the lead need your service or product? Also think of how to capture the timing of their budget availability for faster conversions.

If you want to build a healthy and consistent sales pipeline, you need to focus on qualifying good leads so that they convert quickly into business.

Nurture leads

Lead generation is not a quick-fix solution for by b2b organization. It’s a process that involves various techniques at various different stages. Leads can quickly convert into customers if you nurture them well.

Lead nurturing is a crucial stage in lead generation. Nurturing can be done through email marketing for instance. Create content assets that are aligned with the customers’ needs and create some innovative email campaigns to help build a rapport with the customers, offer customized solutions and to keep nurturing the leads.          

Make social media your lead magnet

Social media platforms such as LinkedIn are great for b2b for many reasons. You will find plenty of b2b customers looking for solutions on LinkedIn. Social media can act as your lead magnet if you use it strategically. Staying in the eye-line of the customers is one of the best ways to capture leads.

Staying active on social media through meaningful content insights can attract leads that already know you or have known your brand on social media. This helps in reducing the sales cycle, as the leads approaching you may have already made up their minds to do business with you or it’s easier to convince them as they are familiar with your brand.

Optimize your website

Website is another lead magnet for b2b organizations to speed up their lead generation process. Focus on call-to-actions, speed and accuracy when it comes to your website. Your website visitors could be your potential customers and hence having a simple and content rich website is a must if you want to attract good leads. Have smart call to action to be able to engage the website visitors further. Hence optimizing your website is a smart technique to attract and convert good leads.

Create relevant content insights

Content is the fuel you need to accelerate lead generation. Content is the brand voice and the best means to reach out to your target audience and nurture leads. Offer great content assets to attract engage and convert leads. Leads that have downloaded your content assets can be good leads who would probably take lesser time to convert.

Conclusion:

Establishing human connection with the audience is one of the most critical aspects of successful lead generation. B2B marketers cannot afford to forget that their leads are human beings. Building buyer personas, staying in the eye-line of the customers and building brand familiarity through email marketing are some more techniques to adopt, while you must also focus on creating great content assets for each stage of the sales cycle.