In part 1 of this blog, I explained the research that have made by Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna's new book "the jolt effect".
There is a series of blogs around the book, which looks at research around deals where "nothing" happens.
You put in a load of sales time and resource and the client ends up ghosting you and or doing nothing.
Part 1 of my blog can be found here
How do we win deals where the client "does nothing"?
Part 2 of my blog can be found here
How can you qualify out deals where prospects end up making a "do nothing" decision?
In this blog I talk about how to qualify deals for the tell tell signs that your deal will end up as "do nothing". Things clients will say, things prospects will do or ask for.
What they found that clients that end up "doing nothing" so staying with the existing supplier, or just not buying can be separated into two different types:-
44% stay with the current status quo, this could be staying with the existing in-house system, or the current supplier or just doing nothing.
The greater percentage, 56% decide to do nothing as they are actually too scared to do anything.
We are our own worst enemy
In this series of blogs, I point out the research that shows that when people make a "no decision" most buyers will do this because they are too scared. Then in sales we turn to our default playbook.
The research shows that reps do this in 73% of cases.
- Reps dial up the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in an attempt to scare the customer into making a decision.
- Sell the customer on the "future state".
- Maybe re-prove the ROI.
- Maybe a discount window.
- Maybe a stock availability window.
We see this as re-proving to the customer that they will be a success on this project.
Our belief as sales people is that we have not been able to break the gravitational pull of the customer's status quo. This, after all, has been handed down as the playbook for decades.
The research shows that when salespeople action this playbook,where there is customer indecision, that is they are too scared to make a decision, it fails 84% of the time.
BUT and it's a big but, the research shows that "customers are less concerned about loss that stems from their inaction, than the loss that stems from the action".
You may be able to save the business $10 million a month, but they are scared that the project will fail no savings will be realised and they could be out of a job. Or they will have burned through their internal political capital and missed out on that promotion. Sometimes inaction is rewarded.
"They are not worried about a discount, they are worried about making a big mistake by purchasing your system. You don't get fired for losing out on a discount. But you do get fired for spending money on a system that does not work."
This does not mean that the customer likes the current status quo, it's just that the future state with your product could be worse.
The current playbook may just emphasis how bad that future state will be
As you dial up the FUD and push all those buttons in terms of painting a picture of the future state, in fact that makes the customer more scared.
"Trying to scare the customer into a buying action is a terrible strategy."
Want to know more about social selling, check out my new book
"social selling techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition".
In this brand new edition, I have updated all the text, I have also got 15 practitioners, so people who are doing this already to explain how they are get (practical) business benefit. From the CEO that has been running a digital business for over 18 months to sales leaders who use social selling every day.
Articles on how these business have and are implementing digital, from Mercer, Telstra Purple, Ring Central, Cyberhawk, Namos, Ericsson, Crux Consulting, DLA Ignite and more.
What does Mark Schaefer, Marketing guru think of the book "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition"? watch the video here
It's available on Amazon worldwide. Link to Amazon.com here and Amazon.co.uk here.
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