The Real Problem With “No Decision” Losses

For many sales and marketing organizations, a large percentage of prospective sales cycles end in “no decision.” For some groups, no-decision sales cycles outnumber losses to any single competitor by a wide margin. It’s incredibly frustrating and extremely costly.

But what’s it really mean? What are no-decision losses really telling you? Among the sales management punditry, there seems to be two major schools of thought…

Some experts say that a large number of no-decision losses are a symptom of weak targeting and qualification processes. They say that no-decision losses are the result of engaging lower-level contacts with no authority, or wasting time on prospects that aren’t ready to buy.

Many other experts, however, will say that no-decision losses are a symptom of weak value communication and selling capabilities. In this camp, no-decision losses happen because the sales and marketing team made lame value-cases and the prospects didn’t recognize the value of the solution.

But after reviewing a new tutorial for the Playbook, I now have some serious doubts about the conventional wisdom around no-decision losses…

How to Stop Losing Sales to “No Decision” exposes the organizational dynamics behind prospect inaction and no-decision losses. It explains the folly of using tighter qualification criteria to eliminate them, rather than figuring out how to close them. And after revealing the real root-causes to focus on, the tutorial provides a number of strategies and tactics for overcoming them.

The insights in the tutorial help explain some of the head-scratchers we’ve all encountered and experienced…

Remember those sales cycles where your value-case was rock-solid and even acknowledged by the decision-makers as being completely realistic? Remember how you were essentially serving them a big pile of found money on a platter? And yet, they still didn’t move forward? With anyone? What’s up with that?

Well, it might surprise you to learn that there’s a certain organizational dynamic that can render your value-case and ROI projections almost completely irrelevant. In other words, if you don’t address this root-cause directly and effectively, you could offer to give the prospect your solution for free and they still wouldn’t move forward!

The underlying reasons and root-causes outlined in the tutorial may run counter to the conventional wisdom, but the good news is that they aren’t insurmountable. And once you know what’s really going on behind the scenes, you’re in a much better position to turn “no decision” losses into profitable sales.