For many B2B sales organisations, today's most frustrating competition is coming from a previously unrecognised quarter. Rather than losing to an established competitor, the most common reason not to close a sale is now the prospect deciding to "do nothing" after all - at least for the moment.
These prospects are clearly not on the same wavelength (or of the same stature) as US President Frankin Delano Roosevelt, who declared "When it comes to making a decision, the best decision is the right one. The next best decision is the wrong one. The worst decision is to do nothing at all".
The risk of risk avoidance...
So what has "do nothing" become the such a common outcome? Some of it, clearly, is caused by poor prospect qualification in the first place - the sales person has been running a deal that was never destined to close. But many of the "do nothing" decisions are happening to apparently promising and well qualified sales opportunities. What is going on?
We've been observing a growing amount of risk-avoiding behaviour in the prospect decision-making process. The decision team may feel that they are less likely to be criticised (or fired) for making no decision, rather than taking a stand and actually deciding to do something.
The consequences of inaction...
Assuming that there was and is a real business issue involved, the usual explanation for decisions to "do nothing" are that the perceived consequences of inaction - of preserving the status quo - have simply not been made painful enough.
This effect is so pervasive that we've become convinced that vendors not only need to demonstrate a compelling ROI and elimnate the competition, they have to systematically convince the prospective buyer that they represent the lowest risk of all available alternatives - including "do nothing".
"Yes decisions" start at the start of the sales process...
"Yes decisions" need to be built from the start of the sales process. To win, vendors need to start by focusing on problems that the prospect cannot afford not to deal with.
They then need to articulate superior value and competitive differentiation - and devote their energies to facilitating the prospect's buying process and emerging as the lowest risk option.
Our approach to avoiding "do nothing" decisions...
Our systematic, evidence-based approach can help you avoid "do nothing" decisions by enabling you to profile your most promising prospects, accurately qualify potential opportunities, articulate compelling, differentiated value propositions and build trust and empathy by selling through storytelling.
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