Your buying cycle number is already wrong

AI is moving fast and most people are falling behind. 

The Rundown AI keeps you ahead of the curve. 

It's a free AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest AI news, and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses — tailored to your needs.

Sign up to start learning.

Good Morning {{first_name}}!

It’s Tuesday - which means that it’s time for The Lifecycle Brief! This week, we’re talking about a shrinking buying cycle. Yup, you read that right.

While most people think the buying cycle is getting longer and decisions are being pushed off, we’re actually seeing the opposite. And the research supports it.

Ready to learn why? Let’s dive in.

I’ve been in a handful of CRMs lately, and none of them track the buying cycle. And if they do, the data is often off because sales reps are adding deals when they know they will close, putting their close rates at 100%.

But new research suggests the buying cycle is changing. The average B2B buying cycle has dropped from 11.3 months to 10.1 months over the past year, according to the research. 49% of buyers say it’s the economic pressure that shortened their cycle, and 62% reveal that this economic pressure pushed them to engage sellers earlier.

So, why is this happening? Internal sales pressure and perhaps more education thanks to AI searches.

We’re seeing a shift in buyer behaviour. Buyers are picking their vendors early, even before sales know there is an opportunity coming, as per Businesswire. This falls in line with more and more people leveraging AI for research, top-of-funnel searches, and learning about options.

And while more research is happening, companies are slower at reaching out to leads. In fact, the median response time is now 1 hour and 42 minutes. So, if you reach out to leads faster than this, you are already winning.

If the buyer’s window is shrinking and the team’s response time is growing, you’re facing potential prospect loss.

There are some property fields in HubSpot worth looking at to understand your buying cycle numbers.

🩷 B2B buyers are picking winners sooner — 6sense's 2025 study, the source of the 11-to-10-month compression stat and the 70/30 to 60/40 research-versus-seller shift.

🧡 Average sales cycle length by industry: 2026 benchmarks — the counter-narrative. Median cycle up to 84 days, 22% longer than 2022. Good tension-builder against the story above.

💛 Lead response time statistics 2026: a 28,400-lead analysis — the first-party study behind the response-time-is-getting-slower stat. Strong original-source credibility, worth linking directly.

💚 B2B buying behavior in 2026: five hard truths sales can't ignore — rounds up the 49%/62% stat plus the broader shift toward buyers arriving with AI-assisted research and pre-formed shortlists.

💙 Full sales cycle: how to shorten your path to revenue — buying committees now average 6.8 stakeholders, up from 5.4 in 2022, which is one honest explanation for why some benchmarks show cycles lengthening even as buyer urgency increases.

Find, reach, and close your perfect deals — without juggling five tools or hiring more reps.

Apollo gives you everything you need to build real pipeline, fast. From inbound to outbound, first touch to close.

All in Apollo.

Sign up for free

We’re growing again. So if you have experience working in Marketing Hub Pro/Enterprise and Sales Hub Pro/Enterprise, then I want to meet you! Reply to this email and let’s set up a coffee chat! If not, you can apply here: https://44fjord.com/careers

The research shared in this email is just an example. But you should always check your own unique buying cycle to make sure you are faster in response time, and you know that leads are doing lots of research before even engaging sales.