MrBravado

VP of Marketing

“No Decision” - Why is “no decision” the #1 reason most sales situations don't close?

“No Decision”

Why is “no decision” the #1 reason most sales situations don't close?

Here’s why.

1. Buyers lack confidence they can successfully "digest" (integrate, install, adopt...) the changes the new solution requires/causes.

“Change management” is the challenge that the most successful sales reps work through with their prospects.

2. Buyers lack confidence they will successfully extract economic benefits / value after the upheaval of digesting the new solution / workflow.

ROI is key, but how are you building the value / benefit case?

So…

What are you doing to give Buyers confidence they can successfully digest your solution, and will successfully see ROI?

My view is solving this is not a problem for individual reps to address alone. It's a marketing challenge, too.

In more complex tech sales situations Marketing can assist by creating “Operational Content” – buyer-centric, mid-funnel content to help Buyers’ internalize how your solution will be set-up, deployed, and how success will be measured in the Buyer’s environment.

For example, to help the Buyer feel more confident that they can "digest" the technology, Marketing can help provide:

- Diagnostics: identifies what systems/people/processes may be impacted

- Calculators: quantifies the level of impacts

- Benchmarks: compares scale, shows Buyers speeds & feeds

- Installation Guides: foresees pre-requisites

- Adoption Guides: explains roll-out options

The point of this content is to help Buyers (and Sellers) to identify in advance what's needed and to remove surprises, so Buyers can say, "Yeah, we're able to do all that".

Avoid "No Decision" outcomes - by helping Buyers feel confident of their success.

15

21 comment

Sort by:

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

6

Account Executive

I think the umbrella of "no decision" stretches further than this depending on product, industry, company.

Without getting overly broad, I do think there is likely some conflation between "no decision" and losing out to internal resources without adequate follow up to confirm a hard 'no' or 'not yet'.

But I think you're getting a few wires crossed here because what it sounds like you're actually talking about is repping for a product with a value prop that simply isn't that compelling.

Because, yes, marketing definitely does shoulder some responsibility to get the messaging right to help tee you up to have productive conversations. However, the 2 points you highlighted are 100% for sales to solve.

Assuming you don't have a shitty product with a shitty value prop, it's almost entirely on you to communicate and facilitate the process to navigate customer confidence and deliver credible ROI.

Marketing is in no better position to create ROI out of thin air than you are. 🤷🏻‍♂️

MrBravado

WR Officer

1

VP of Marketing

The products may be superlative -- the issue I'm trying to shine a light on is the *BUYERS' confidence* that they a) have what it takes to "digest" the solution, or b) that economic benefit will ensue.

Certainly, there can be many reasons Opportunities don't close. But time and again, when you're speaking to the right ICP, the right persons and they have revealed they have the use-case and budget, "no decision" is the barrier most often caused by lack of confidence (or will) needed to handle the change.

Where I believe marketing can help is in providing prospects and Sales the materials that help address buyer confidence on both of these specific issues.

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

1

Account Executive

Yeah but who’s lack of confidence? The target account as a whole or your main contact at the company?

If you’ve connected with a company where your solution is a great fit, the ROI is there, your champion has confirmed that not only does it make sense and resonate with him as an individual employee, the whole company stands to benefit... What more do you want from Marketing? For them to close the sale for you?

There’s no such thing as ‘no decision’. The lack of a decision is a decision and it’s basically a no.

If the customer doesnt have the confidence to implement a solution where the value is THAT apparent, then the value isn’t actually THAT apparent or you simply haven’t done a good job of conveying said value.

If its a lack of confidence with your main contact / champion, then the problem here is that you’ve put too much of the burden onto them to get buy-in for your solution internally and you haven’t offered enough support on how to take that on yourself.

If the the value is truly THAT apparent, then its your job to communicate that to all relevant stakeholders. Thats why your champion likely doesn’t work in sales and you do.

Am I missing something?

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

1

Account Executive

The only thing i can suggest if i’m understanding you correctly is:

use your sales deck as the starting point to create a business case summary for your client. Add slides that summarize the current situation and challenges and how your product solves for that and delivers ROI.

But, thats a function of sales. You can go to marketing and ask them to pretty-up the slides you’ve created but thats pretty much it.

Good luck!

MrBravado

WR Officer

1

VP of Marketing

I think we're on the same page. Though, in more complex tech sales situations Marketing can assist by creating “Operational Content” – buyer-centric, mid-funnel content to help Buyers’ internalize how your solution will be set-up, deployed, and how success will be measured in the Buyer’s environment.

For example, to help the Buyer feel more confident that they can "digest" the technology, Marketing can help provide:

- Diagnostics: identifies what systems/people/processes may be impacted
- Calculators: quantifies the level of impacts
- Benchmarks: compares scale, shows Buyers speeds & feeds
- Installation Guides: foresees pre-requisites
- Adoption Guides: explains roll-out options

The point of this content is to help Buyers (and Sellers) to identify in advance what's needed and to remove surprises, so Buyers can say, "Yeah, we're able to do all that".

MrBravado

WR Officer

1

VP of Marketing

What I mean by losing to "No Decision" is when a Buyer - who has good tech and use-case fit, and has the budget, doesn't buy anything. Not from you, or your competitors. happens all the time. For example, when deals get stuck in mid-funnel or Close date keeps moving out.

Sometimes a Seller has to wait for a change in management in the Buyer org., for the Buyer to be ready to move forward.

The Seller can show value - but the Buyer needs to trust in themselves and their ability to successfully digest the solution.

Experienced Sellers will know where Buyers often get stuck, or
particular challenges they will face.

Using the "Operational Content" that I suggested Marketing can help create (see my reply to your other comment), a Seller can go step-by-step, uncover where Buyer's have doubts/concerns, and address them one by one.

See it from the Buyer's point of view. Many Buyers will have previously purchased software, only to have it get stuck in deployment, or fail in implementation / adoption. That's a failure for the Buyer, and something they want to avoid. From their perspective, they are waiting until they are ready / confident. They didn't say "No". They didn't buy an alternative. The deal seems "frozen".

I hope I'm explaining what I'm trying to shine a little light on more clearly now.

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

2

Account Executive

Fair point. Thanks for clarifying.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

Fear from the buyer can be solved by the rep as long as you lay out the step by step process, and guide them through it. Be there. Be present. Through every step. The fear will subside and they will see the value you've been presenting from day one. You may even gain a referral or two.

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

1

Account Executive

Agreed

MrBravado

WR Officer

1

VP of Marketing

100% agreed!

What you are describing is a way to help the Buyer gain confidence - being there, being present, through every step. In the end though, you don't buy the solution, they do.

As an experienced Seller, you will be familiar with the typical spots where Buyers' get stuck, or when implementations can get tricky.

SalesPharaoh

Big Shot

2

Senior Account Executive

From my experience I come from a culture and market (Arab/Middle Eastern)that has a hard time dealing rejections and closing doors. They will try as much as possible to keep you hanging. It's frustrating because it conusmes time and effort.

I believe no decision comes from in real time cases the actual prospect has no idea what/how/when they can integrate your new solution. Which gets me to the most important one is budget and product owner.

So bearing the above in mind there is another layer we must address. I'm mostly an outbound sales guy only because my marketing sucks and we as a company and sales leadership embraced it after 3 years of shitty to no leads.

For example we have a new solution which is selling our WhatsApp Business API. That needs customer education which sales reps cannot do alone in just 30 mins (default meeting slot). There needs to be a streamlined flow of information coming from Marketing teams. How? They should do what they do best, create webinars, produce content with use cases (real preferably or if your company didn't close one, then hypothetical use cases can do). we did for example a hypothetical scenario that we eventually sold to the National Bank of Egypt. It helps.

I hate to say but there must be constant sales team involvement in working with what content marketing should put out there...that will be based on what the sales get as a feedback from their prospects.

But what about the prospects I spoke about in the 2nd paragraph? Whom you are sure will benefit from what you have to offer, but have tabled this for other priorities. Or can simply be trying to create it in-house (maybe).

Well, one thing I did is to reach out to their competitors (direct or indirect) I tried to make the hypothetical scenarios (unless I have real ones) a reality. Try to get someone in your development on the call with someone from their part and have them discuss things together. This has proven great for me because it just gave the future project managers insights on how and who they will be working with and usually can shit the decision from no decision to onboarding.

I hope this helps.

MrBravado

WR Officer

2

VP of Marketing

Gartner's Hank Barnes writes about the biggest drivers of "No Decision" in a research note today

https://blogs.gartner.com/hank-barnes/2021/03/02/no-decisions-should-rarely-be-a-surprise/

Extracting some data from a chart...

45% - Business / Technical Risks Deemed Too High
42% - Lack of Satisfaction with Potential Vendors or Solutions
38% - Lack of Skills or Confidence in Ability To Achieve Value
38% - Insufficient of ROI

He writes:

"The chart above shows that you can’t focus on one thing – but many of them are linked. When your prospects struggle to understand the potential value – and lack confidence in their ability to achieve it –your opportunity is at risk. And make no mistake – the competition is not just competitors for the opportunity. It is the other things that your prospects could be doing."

"Create confidence building materials that don’t just address potential value, but layout the changes needed to capture that value."

avocadobegood

Valued Contributor

2

MM Account Executive

sales is the transfer of enthusiasm. it's hard to get people excited, it's hard to get people to move, now multiply that by 4 as the data says you'll need engagement with at least that many people to get a deal done (on average, size of org here matters but you know what i mean) and there you have it.

there are other factors at play but i think this is really the root of it for me after 6 years in the trenches - it's hard to someone to care, harder to get them to do anything about it, and that's all before their team, boss and MF finance team get involved.

MrBravado

WR Officer

0

VP of Marketing

Every situation is different, our contexts vary - so it's always hard to have any definitive answer to any Sales question.

For my B2B IT tech sales contexts - which is only a sliver of the overall world of Sales - sales is really not the transfer of enthusiasm. That is, the Buyer is not buying the Sales Rep, who may have great energy and enthusiasm.

To be sure, for Buyers, great energy and enthusiasm is *highly desirable* in a Seller. That enthusiasm and energy can help power though some difficult situations. And who wants to work with an energy vampire, right? But, all the enthusiasm and energy in the world can't convince a prospect about ROI or solution fit.

avocadobegood

Valued Contributor

0

MM Account Executive

yeah you're right that there isn't a definitive answer but i'm gonna respectfully yet forcefully disagree with your take on what i wrote. the buyer isn't buying the sales rep, but that's not what i said - the buyer does however buy FROM the sales rep who, if they are able to transfer enthusiasm about whatever project is on hand, is far more likely to get a signed contract.

you're right that you need something on the back of enthusiasm because smart orgs don't buy vaporware, but perfect ROI and solution fit doesn't mean jack shit if the prospect isn't excited about what they're going to buy or more likely trying to convince their boss to buy, ie. "buy for business reasons, justify for personal reasons"

MrBravado

WR Officer

1

VP of Marketing

Agree that people make rational decisions based on emotional feelings.

Good reps will help Buyers see how to achieve their "promised land." They will try to harness energy toward change and getting past obstacles. That positive sales rep energy can potentially help the Champion have the fortitude to do the tedious work needed to build a business case. If this is what you mean, then we agree. Sorry for the confusion.

But the larger the sales ticket (in B2B sales at least), the more the buying process becomes structured to be dispassionate.

Indeed, the more passionate a Champion seems to be for a particular solution, the more that Champion owns any potential failure. So, seeing how this has happened to others, experienced Buyers will need more than their own enthusiasm or vision.

exec

Acclaimed Answer

1

Account Executive

Agreed with @CadenceCombat - no decision is too broad a reason when every single buyer’s responsibilities are well beyond one single evaluation. Their world does not revolve around the product they’re selling.

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

0

Account Executive

@exec knows

goose

Politicker

1

Sales Executive

Buyers decide to buy for emotional reasons and justify it rationally. The main driver is to avoid pain. That won’t stop them from shopping but that’s also where no-decision lives. If you can’t get someone to explain the problem and how your product or service helps you aren’t going anywhere.

MrBravado

WR Officer

0

VP of Marketing

"Buyers decide to buy for emotional reasons and justify it rationally." I remember someone saying this exact sentence to me back in 1992, or thereabouts. Good times. :)

Adslanger1

Opinionated

0

Senior Account Executive

No need to stretch this out. You didn’t make em see value in the product . They don’t feel any FOMO. You dropped the ball.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

© 2024 Bravado Inc. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy Legal and Privacy Center Sales Jobs

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.