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Good morning,
Most sellers chase a better pitch. The buyer was never grading the pitch. People do not buy the best option. They buy the safest decision they can defend later.
Almost 30 years in, and I still cringe at the deals I talked myself out of winning. The buyer loved the numbers, nodded at the plan, and I walked out sure I had it.
Then came the silence, the "we decided to hold," and there I was blaming the budget, the timing, anything but the obvious.
The problem was the guy who thought a sharper pitch was the answer. That guy was me! 😊
While I was polishing slides (and I do love my PowerPoint, oh and Excel), the buyer was doing quiet math on what happens to them if I am wrong.
Never once did I address that fear. Gartner found B2B buyers spend only 17 percent of their purchase time with reps. The decision was getting made in a room I was not invited to, and I kept showing up to the wrong one.
So this week's workshop is the lesson I wish someone had smacked into me sooner.
Stop selling the better pitch. Nobody is grading it but you. Let's get to work
FOR SELLERS You will stop selling features and start selling the buyer a decision they can live with. |
FOR MANAGERS You will coach reps to find the fear behind a stalled deal instead of dropping the price. |
FOR OWNERS You will build proof and process that earn trust in the 83 percent of the journey where no rep is in the room. |
Revenue impact. Most buyers prefer to buy without a rep, certainly they have the tools to learn as much about your product online as anyone on your team. And like all of us, buying decisions tend to run on feeling before logic. The seller who understands the buyer’s emotion closes the deal the better pitch loses. This is the cheapest edge in your pipeline and almost nobody works it.
KEY TERMS
Loss aversion | The buyer feels the pain of a bad call about twice as hard as the pleasure of a good one. Risk talks louder than upside. |
Status quo bias | Doing nothing feels safe even when it costs money. Your real competitor is usually the buyer’s decision to wait. |
Social proof | People copy the choices of people like them. A peer’s result moves a buyer more than any claim you make about yourself. |
DO AND DO NOT
DO | DO NOT |
Ask what happens to the buyer personally if this purchase goes wrong. | Assume the loudest objection on the call is the real reason they hesitate. |
Give the buyer a story about a peer who made the same call and won. | Pile on more features when a buyer goes quiet. Silence is fear, not a data gap. |
THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE
Take your most stalled open deal and write the single sentence the buyer would use to defend choosing you to their own boss.
THE WORKSHOP
MODULE 01 · FOR SELLERS
Sell the safe yes
Outcome: a buyer who feels protected, not pitched.
Your buyer has a manager, a budget, and a reputation. Every deal you bring is a risk they have to carry inside their own building. What does saying yes to you cost this person if you are wrong?
EXAMPLE A digital ad seller at a regional publisher keeps losing at the finish line. The marketing director loves the audience data, nods at the CPM, then goes quiet for three weeks and comes back with “we decided to hold budget.” The seller pitched reach. The director was doing private math on what happens to her if the campaign flops in front of her boss. Nobody gave her cover for that math. |
Step 1 Price the risk, not the product.
The buyer is not weighing your offer against a competitor. They are weighing it against doing nothing and staying safe. Name the downside out loud and show how you shrink it. A buyer who trusts that you have thought about their exposure stops looking for reasons to wait.
Step 2 Hand them a defendable story.
The director did not need more numbers. She needed one sentence she could repeat to her boss that made yes look like the careful choice. Build that sentence with her, in her words, before the call ends.
Do This Today. Take your most stalled open deal and write the one sentence the buyer would use to defend it internally. If you cannot write it, you have not earned the yes yet. Share It. Post the question “what does yes cost this person if I am wrong” where you prep every call this week. |
Q. If the buyer keeps stalling after I reduce risk, am I talking to the wrong person?
A. Often, yes. A buyer who cannot defend the decision usually does not own it. Find who carries the risk and start there.
MODULE 02 · FOR MANAGERS
Coach the buyer’s head
Outcome: reps who diagnose fear before they discount.
Your pipeline review is full of deals marked “thinking it over.” Your reps read that as price and reach for a discount. The buyer rarely went quiet about money. When a deal stalls, does your team know the difference between a price problem and a fear problem?
EXAMPLE A sales manager at a media company runs a Monday pipeline review. Five deals sit in “evaluating.” Every rep proposes the same fix: shave the rate. The manager asks one question on each deal, “what is the buyer afraid will happen if they choose us,” and four of the five reps have no answer. The deals were never about rate. They were about a buyer who could not yet defend the choice. |
Step 1 Make fear a required field.
A discount buys a faster no as often as a yes. Train the team to surface the buyer’s perceived risk before any number moves. The question “what are you worried about if this does not work” unlocks more deals than any concession.
Step 2 Replay the deal from the buyer’s chair.
In your next one-on-one, have the rep narrate the deal as the buyer would tell it to their own boss. The gaps in that story are the gaps in the deal.
Do This Today. In your next pipeline review, ban the word “price” as a stall reason until the rep names the buyer’s specific fear. Share It. Share the “what is the buyer afraid of” prompt with your team and ask them to bring an answer for every open deal. |
Q. What if the rep genuinely cannot find a fear behind the stall?
A. Then the buyer is not engaged enough to be in your forecast. A real evaluation always carries a real worry. No worry usually means no urgency.
MODULE 03 · FOR OWNERS
Build a trusted path
Outcome: a buying experience that sells without you.
Buyers now make most of the decision before anyone on your team speaks to them. Your website, your case studies, and your proof are doing the selling in that gap. If a buyer never spoke to a rep, would your company still earn their trust?
EXAMPLE A media company owner notices win rates climb when reps are in the room and fall when they are not. The site lists services. The case studies read like brag sheets. None of it answers the quiet question a buyer asks at midnight: will this person make me look smart or get me burned. The selling system assumed a human would always be there to explain. Two-thirds of buyers now prefer there is not. |
Step 1 Treat trust as infrastructure.
Belief that lives only in your best rep’s head does not scale and walks out the door when they do. Put the proof, the peer results, and the honest tradeoffs into assets a buyer can find alone. Trust you can hand off is an asset on the books.
Step 2 Audit the rep-free journey.
Walk your own buying path as a stranger would. Every place you need a rep to explain or reassure is a place you are losing the buyers who will never call.
Do This Today. Pick one live deal and list every question the buyer answered without your team. If the answer was not on your site, that is this week’s build. Share It. Ask your team where buyers get stuck before the first call, then fix the loudest gap. |
Q. Is this not just a marketing problem rather than a revenue one?
A. It is a revenue problem wearing a marketing coat. The trust assets decide whether you make the shortlist. Reps only get to compete for deals the system already qualified.
RECOMMENDED READING
BOOK 01 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (New and Expanded) by Robert B. Cialdini The foundational map of why people say yes, from reciprocity to social proof to scarcity. |
BOOK 02 To Sell Is Human by Daniel H. Pink Reframes selling as moving people, with the research on attunement and buoyancy behind it. |
BOOK 03 Revenue vs. Sales by Mort Greenberg The operator’s case for building revenue systems instead of chasing one-off sales. |
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The Revenue Workshop isn’t theory. It’s a field-tested system used by real leaders, in real markets, under real pressure.
Each newsletter is based on one of over 300 workshops and worksheets found in the eight books of the RevenueVsSales.com and TheFocusedSeller.com book series.
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