7 Ways to Slay the “No Decision” Dragon

An increasing number of Sales VPs are complaining about deals lost to “no decision,” as it has become increasingly difficult for buyers to find budget, given more stringent business case requirements. Try the following ideas below to minimize your team’s losses to the “no-decision dragon.”

1. Calculate the annual benefit of the solution you are selling, and send the customer a compelling email and/or pictorial representation citing the monthly or quarterly cost of doing nothing. Remember, people often can remember and recite pictures more effectively than simply text or numbers!
2. If you get no response after doing #1, send the same email to other people in the organization who might care about that cost, such as the CFO, CEO, or other decision-makers or influencers who may have budget. Find these people using LinkedIn, InsideView, etc.  To be bold, you could leave a voicemail describing the monthly or quarterly cost of no decision.
3. Create a side-by-side picture of business-as-usual vs. “new world with your solution,” demonstrating process differences qualitatively, and quantifiable operational and financial benefits. Show a picture!
4. While doing #3, to build credibility, include the actual hours required by your customer to implement your solution.  Help the customer understand the project management requirements may not be as large as they might expect.
5. Suggest a pilot they could attempt, which solves an immediate business problem they are currently facing. This business problem would leverage a subset of your entire suite of functionality, but it would allow your advocate to kill two birds with one stone by installing your solution.
6. Create a “no lose situation” for your customer by offering money back if your solution doesn’t generate the benefits they expect, provided the customer adheres to your implementation guidelines. This requires you to really believe in your solution, as well as to know which metrics your solution should impact!
7. Develop a “visual value statement” for your customer which includes not only the quantified business benefits associated with solving your customer’s immediate pain point (which may likely be cost savings or risk mitigation), but also includes value areas they may not have considered, such as revenue enhancement. Developing these ancillary benefits will require some creativity, but will allow you to leverage other influencers in the organization.