Two reasons why half your sales pipeline vanishes

Over 50% of your sales pipeline is lost to ‘no decision.’ It’s time to tackle the two key reasons behind these losses and take action now.

• Most marketers and sales leaders know these losses happen because they can’t make a strong enough case to show customers the downsides of sticking with their current (incumbent) approach. By sticking to these incumbent approaches, such as spreadsheets or legacy solutions, they’re losing money, increasing risks, and missing out on revenue opportunities while falling behind the competition. Tools like case studies, ROI models, thought leadership white papers, and customer webinars can help. However, even if the customer is convinced (and has the budget), they still might not choose you. Why? That brings us to the second reason below.
• The second reason customers hesitate is fear—if your product’s deployment fails, it could cost them their job or reputation. This means you haven’t entirely removed their risk or created a shared risk scenario. For example, if you’re not listed as a safe choice in analyst reports or are recommending a partner the customer doesn’t know or trust, it feels risky to them. Show them that you’ve got skin in the game and connect them with similar customers who’ve successfully implemented your solution (i.e., similar size, risk profile, industry, use cases, etc.) to ease their concerns.

Most sales teams focus on addressing the first issue but fail to listen to customers for clues about the second issue. So, when the customer has crossed the finish line on the first issue but is still hesitant to make the decision, instead of making them comfortable with the decision (i.e., reducing their risk), they throw discounts, limited-time offers, and FUD about the competition to close the deal, which only makes them more scared about making any decision.