Ask any salesperson and they’ll tell you that they’re far more likely to lose a deal to “no decision” than to the competition. In a large-scale study of more than 2.5 million recorded sales conversations — spanning both transactional and complex sales — we found that anywhere between 40% and 60% of deals today end up lost to customers who express their intent to purchase, but ultimately fail to act. These customers will often go through the entire sales process — consuming valuable seller time and organizational resources, perhaps even engaging in extended pilots or proof-of-concept trials — only to end up not crossing the finish line.
Stop Losing Sales to Customer Indecision
A playbook to help sales reps nudge customers off the fence.
June 24, 2022
Pete Starman/Getty Images
Summary.
For decades, salespeople have been taught that there is only one possible reason for lost sales: that salespeople have failed to defeat the customer’s status quo. Perhaps the customer doesn’t fully appreciate the problem that their solution is designed to solve. Or maybe they don’t yet see enough daylight between their company’s solution and that of the competition. So, salespeople break out their arsenal of tools to prove to the customer the many ways their solutions will help them win. And, when all else fails, they dial up the “FUD” — or, fear, uncertainty, and doubt — to tap into the customer’s fear of missing out. But, as time-honored as the techniques are, research shows that they don’t work as well as they once did. In fact, they aren’t just unproductive; they can actually be counterproductive to the goal of getting the customer off the fence. Instead, salespeople should focus on customer indecision — and, specifically, apply a new framework to situations where indecision is the biggest blocker.