How to Sell When Buyers Must Act - and How to Sell When They Don't Have To

In my previous article, I outlined the critical distinction between inevitable purchases (where external forces compel the customer to act) and discretionary purchases (where no external forcing function exists). The implications for sales organisations are profound - and they go far beyond simply recognising which type of opportunity you're facing.

Most sales teams apply the same methodology to every complex deal. They discover, qualify, demo, propose, negotiate, and close - regardless of whether the customer must act or could happily do nothing. This one-size-fits-all approach explains why so many apparently well-qualified opportunities end in "no decision" whilst others that seem certain suddenly evaporate to competitors.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: many of the things that work brilliantly in inevitable purchases actively backfire in discretionary ones, and vice versa. In this article, I’d like to explore how your sales approach must differ.

Qualification: The Foundation That Changes Everything

Before we can adapt our approach, we must accurately diagnose which type of purchase we're facing. This isn't always obvious or easy - buyers rarely announce "We have no choice but to act" or "This would be nice to have, but we can postpone it indefinitely."

And even if we or the customer believes that there is a genuine critical event driving the buying journey, sometimes the event isn’t as critical as we imagine, and often - even if it is - it can get overtaken by events.

The diagnostic questions:

Here are some diagnostic questions that can help to establish the type of buying decision journey by asking, for example:

• "What's driving this initiative now?" Listen carefully to their answer. External triggers (regulatory changes, contract expirations, technology end-of-life, supply chain disruption) signal inevitable purchases. Internal motivations (improvement goals, efficiency targets, competitive advantage) often suggest discretionary ones.
• "What happens if you don't address this by [timeframe]?" Real, unavoidable consequences indicate inevitable purchases. Vague answers about "missed opportunities" or "staying competitive" suggest discretionary purchases.
• "Who outside your organisation cares whether you solve this?" If regulators, customers, partners, or auditors have a stake, you're likely facing an inevitable purchase. If only internal stakeholders care, it's might well be discretionary.
• "If this gets postponed to next year, what are the implications?" For inevitable purchases, postponement creates genuine crisis. For discretionary purchases, buyers will find ways to rationalise delay.

The classification test:

• An inevitable purchase tends to have a compelling forcing function, a fixed timeline and unavoidable consequences
• A discretionary purchase tends to have internal motivation, a flexible timeline and avoidable consequences

Getting this diagnosis right fundamentally shapes everything that follows. Misinterpret it, and you run the risk of applying exactly the wrong approach.

The Inevitable Purchase Playbook

When facing an inevitable purchase, the decision to buy has already been partially made for you. External circumstances have answered "Why change?" The battle is vendor selection. Your methodology must focus on building confidence and eliminating risk.

What to prioritise:

Start by validating the forcing event is real. Not every claimed deadline proves immovable. Executives sometimes create artificial urgency to secure budget or attention. You need to confirm that the timeline and consequences are genuinely external and unavoidable.

Position yourself as the lowest risk option. The research behind “The JOLT Effect” revealed that once purchase intent has been established, buyers care far more about not failing than succeeding. Your entire approach must dial down their fear of purchasing - the opposite of traditional FOMO-based selling.

Apply the JOLT framework from first contact:

• Judge their indecision level. With an average of 11 stakeholders in the typical buying group - and with three-quarters of these groups experiencing unhealthy conflict, some level of decision paralysis is hard to avoid. You need to try and diagnose whether the stakeholders are suffering from choice overload, outcome uncertainty, or valuation problems.
• Offer simple, firm recommendations. Avoid presenting confusing options that are likely to fuel paralysis. Cut through complexity with expert guidance: "If it were me, I'd start here" or "In situations like yours, this approach consistently works."
• Limit the amount of exploration needed. Reduce their cognitive load by simplifying the decision path. Create clear frameworks for evaluation. Guide them towards specific starting points.
• Take risk off the table. This can be a key point of differentiation. Provide relevant case studies showing similar organisations succeeding. Detail your implementation methodology. Demonstrate specific risk mitigation strategies. Create reference-ability at scale - former customers become trusted advisors in buyers' eyes.

Focus relentlessly on purchase experience quality. Challenger Group research confirms that this remains "by considerable distance" the most important factor in winning inevitable purchases. How you make the buyers feel becomes more important than what you're selling.

What doesn't work:

Creating urgency isn’t necessary - because they already have it. Emphasising their Fear of Missing Out [FOMO] can backfire spectacularly, particularly towards the end of the buying journey. The JOLT research found that when sellers doubled down on fear-based tactics with indecisive buyers, 84% of the time it increased the likelihood of "no decision."

You don't need to waste time building their case for change (but you must make sure that it is credible). They have already accepted they must change. Don't challenge this thinking - they don't need disruption, they need confidence.

Success metrics for inevitable purchases:

These include:

• Win rate versus known competitors (not overall win rate - these deals rarely end in "no decision")
• Speed to decision relative to deadline
• Purchase experience scores
• Post-implementation satisfaction
• Renewal rates.

The Discretionary Purchase Playbook

Discretionary purchases demand an entirely different approach. The is no trigger event that will compel action. The customer could maintain the status quo indefinitely (or at least for the foreseeable future). Here, your job is twofold: first create the compelling case for change, then win vendor selection.

This is why 40-60% (or more) of discretionary deals end in "no decision." If the foundation is weak, the project is unlikely to proceed.

What to prioritise:

Qualification comes first - before product fit, before solution positioning. The most critical question is: does a compelling reason to act exist, or can one be created? If the answer is no, salespeople should qualify the opportunity out or move it into a nurturing queue. Nothing wastes resources like pursuing discretionary purchases where no urgency exists or can be developed.

Prioritise problem awareness over solution awareness. Many buyers don't recognise a significant problem exists, or they dramatically underestimate its impact. Research from Emblaze suggests that the average buying group changes their problem statement more than 3 times during complex purchases, and sellers misalign with buyers on the core problem more than half of the time.

The salesperson’s role must be to help their prospect to see costs, risks and consequences that they are currently blind to. Start by focusing on the impact of the prospect’s current situation - get them to acknowledge what doing nothing is already costing them.

Build sustained urgency through escalating consequences. Urgency in discretionary purchases comes from two sources: truly compelling events (relatively rare) or the recognition that delay equals escalating cost and risk (the salesperson’s job to create or amplify).

Salespeople need to help their buyers calculate the growing cost of maintaining the status quo. Buying psychology tells us that the fear of pain is more than twice as powerful than the hope of gain.

For maximum impact, at least some of these consequences need to be personal to the key decisionmakers, not just general to the organisation. SBI research reveals that significant stakeholders often fail to act because there's "no personal motivation" - the risk-reward gap means they believe that any failure will be attributed to them whilst any success will be shared across the organisation.

Salespeople need to shape their prospect’s buying vision before positioning their solution. Forrester and CEB research consistently shows that salespeople who shape how prospects think about solving their problem are far more likely to win than those who simply respond to predefined requirements.

This is why getting in early matters so much in discretionary purchases. If you've already shaped their thinking about the problem, you're almost certain to be on their initial shortlist and in a good position.

Then - and only then - apply “JOLT” principles to overcome the inevitable indecision that emerges once they commit to change. Even buyers who think that they must act can freeze when approaching the point of commitment.

What doesn't work:

• Jumping straight to solution differentiation - because the buyer doesn't yet believe they need anyone's solution
• Assuming urgency exists - because it doesn't until you create it
• Accepting surface-level engagement as commitment - discretionary buyers often stay engaged whilst perpetually postponing decisions
• Traditional manipulative closing techniques - no amount of technique closes a discretionary deal without genuine urgency

Success metrics for discretionary purchases:

Useful success metrics include:

• Conversion rate from engaged prospects to committed buyers (most important)
• "No decision" rate (should fall below 20% with proper qualification)
• Time to create purchase intent
• Urgency sustainability through the decision process
• Win rate once commitment exists (should be very high if you shaped the vision)

The Qualification Checkpoint

Here's where the rubber really meets the road. For discretionary purchases specifically, your first and most important gate is this: does a compelling reason to act exist or can be created?

• If yes: proceed with building problem awareness and creating urgency
• If no: qualify out or nurture. Don't waste six months chasing an opportunity that will inevitably stall

This is perhaps the hardest discipline for sales organisations to adopt. They are often conditioned to pursue any opportunity that looks substantial. But pursuing discretionary purchases without compelling urgency is like pushing rope or herding cats - it often involves exhausting and unnecessary effort without much hope of progress.

As I noted in my previous article on compelling business reasons to change: "Weak salespeople are often unable to resist the itch to pitch at this stage, but top performing salespeople recognise that they need to ensure that the prospect has bought-in to the need to act before they turn their energies to selling their solution."

The Organisational Implications

Adopting this approach requires more than training salespeople on two methodologies and on how to choose between them. It demands systemic change across the sales organisation.

• CRM and pipeline management must distinguish between purchase types. Your stages, qualifying questions, and forecasting criteria should differ. An inevitable purchase at "proposal submitted" means something entirely different from a discretionary purchase at the same nominal stage.
• Coaching and pipeline reviews must shift focus. For inevitable purchases: "Where are they in their vendor evaluation? What's driving indecision?" For discretionary purchases: "Has a compelling reason to act been established? Is urgency genuine and sustained?"
• Resource allocation should reflect purchase type economics. Inevitable purchases have higher competitive intensity -you need stronger differentiation, better proof points, more robust references. Discretionary purchases have longer nurture cycles - you need thought leadership, problem awareness content, and urgency development frameworks.
• Forecasting accuracy improves dramatically when you segment by purchase type. Inevitable purchases with validated forcing events and immovable timelines become predictable. Discretionary purchases without sustained urgency should be coded as "unlikely regardless of engagement level."
• Compensation and quota design might even need adjustment. Pursuing discretionary purchases requires more patience and longer selling cycles. Reps need incentive structures that reward proper qualification, not just deal registration.

The Dual Capability Requirement

Here's perhaps the most important implication: your sales organisation needs to master both capability sets. This isn't an either/or choice.

You need Challenger-style skills for building problem awareness and creating urgency in discretionary purchases. You need JOLT-style skills for overcoming indecision and building confidence in inevitable purchases. Often, you'll need both in sequence - Challenger first to create commitment to change and elevate FOMO, then JOLT to overcome the indecision that emerges when change becomes real and eliminate or mitigate FOMU.

Recent research from Richardson has concluded that: "Winning in 2025 (and beyond) requires both the skills to deliver a fundamentally different sales experience and a playbook for overcoming indecision."

I am convinced that the sellers who master this dual capability - diagnosing purchase type accurately, then applying the appropriate methodology - will dominate complex B2B sales in the years ahead.

The Bottom Line

Not all complex B2B purchases are the same. The presence or absence of vendor-independent compelling forcing functions creates fundamentally different buyer psychology, journey dynamics, and required seller capabilities.

Salespeople who apply inevitable purchase methodologies to discretionary opportunities will watch apparent engagement evaporate into "no decision." Salespeople who apply discretionary purchase methodologies to inevitable purchases will lose to competitors who provided confidence instead of challenges.

The solution isn't choosing one approach over another. It's developing the diagnostic capability to recognise which buying journey your customer is on, and the dual skill sets to excel in both contexts.

Because in today's complex B2B environment, the organisations that win aren't those with the best generic "complex sales" methodology. They're the ones who understand that how buyers decide varies fundamentally based on why they're deciding - and who adapt their entire approach accordingly.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.