Don’t Go Hungry: Avoid “No Decision” Sales Outcomes

My family and I usually spend Thanksgiving at the New Jersey shore with extended family and friends. This time of the year is always a nice break, but it can also be stressful. Why is that? There are undoubtedly multiple reasons why people find family holiday breaks a little trying, but I believe one overlooked reason is decision paralysis. Don’t go hungry! Let’s talk about how to avoid No Decision Sales Outcomes in IT and Telecom.

Rather than spending our time off just as we’d like, we’re required to negotiate with others around what activities will fill our days, what time we eat our meals, whether it’s worth watching the game or not, and so on. The result is decision by committee which can result in some people spending time doing things they’d rather not be doing and maybe some touchy folks.

What happened to Grandma?

As we enter the last quarter of 2022 and the holiday season, this dynamic has got me thinking about how decision paralysis has crept into the sales cycle for IT services, and the disastrous impacts No Decision outcome will have on 2023 programs. Historically, salespeople have been trained to find the buck-stops-here decision-maker for a good reason—it works. (If Grandma says dinner’s at 4:30, dinner will be at 4:30).

For better and for worse, the sole decision-maker with the power to unilaterally approve a deal has become rare in companies. The requirement to get buy-in from a diverse set of stakeholders does help ensure that resources get spent in ways that will best benefit the company overall, but it also creates the kind of complexity that makes a No Decision outcome when buying IT services much more likely. Unfortunately, No Decision outcomes are quite routine. Estimates range from 40-60% of all deals end with the customer making no decision at all.

To end up at the end of the process staring the pain and stress of not changing squarely in the face with nothing to show for all the effort is truly a waste of resources. It’s like not being able to agree on a dinner time, so no one eats at all.

Naturally, this is also a bad outcome for vendors. Not only do they fail to make the sale but also failed their customer by not proving the value of the purchase and implementation.

The mandate for advice

Bluewave exists to provide tools to help customers avoid the No Decision trap. We understand that there’s no longer a single buck-stops-here decision-maker and instead, we are here to help stakeholders see their collective shared interest and find common ground. Bluewave works with our clients to take a step back and collectively see how the solution will impact the company as a whole. We take our clients from a risk-negative perspective to a reward-positive perspective by showing the ROI of IT transformation projects.

We can help

At Bluewave we have an in-depth understanding of the entire IT and telecom services market, enabling us to design a solution to fulfill the business need to inform the buying process. This helps reduce the risk of a No Decision outcome from the start, but it also reduces friction, frustration, and time.

I’m confident I’ll be eating my turkey in Q4—are you at risk of going hungry? Bluewave will help you avoid no decision sales outcomes.

Let’s Get Started