B2B Buyers Say No for Different Reasons

Best-in-class companies close 30% of qualified leads, while average companies close 20% (Spotio). High Performers do at 50% closures a lot better. How are high performers different from the rest? Understanding why B2B customers say no and how they respond to that will help. Matt Dixon claims in his book JOLT Effect that there are three main reasons why opportunities stall:

1. Fear of messing up
2. Lack of crucial information
3. Outcome uncertainty

Dixon is not wrong, but I believe there are more reasons why Buyers say no. It all depends on where they are in their buying process. Once you are more aware of these, I guarantee you will start to sell better. Why? Because you realize you will need to deliver different values.

Why Change?

By definition, buyers who are not looking for a change are the most difficult to convince to consider a change with you. What is their main reason to say no at this stage? What are their thoughts? And how can you help? See the world from their view:

Customer’s Thoughts	What value should you deliver at this point?
“I cannot see why I should spend time with you…”	Share information they may have overlooked in their busy lives. The information contains trends or risks impacting their line of business. You know how to turn that information into a business idea that will help grow their business.
“What information?”	These should be 3rd party research articles from credible sources. 80% of business decision-makers prefer to get information from a series of articles versus an advertisement.
“Why now? Why not explore this in 6 months’ time?”	These are common thoughts of buyers in Why Change. The value you deliver here is awareness of what would happen not to act. (FOMO). Not capitalizing on this idea would put the company at a strategic risk.
“What other companies have tried the suggested business growth approach?”	Say: “I have helped other customers doing this”. Share a story of how you helped another customer with your business idea and what the outcome for them was.
“What do others think of this?”	Enable your stakeholder to share your business idea with others by providing them with hyperlinks to the research articles.
	At this stage, you do not pitch your company or solution.

Change to What?

Customers interested in learning more from you are now trying to understand how to capitalize on the information you have shared. They are also wondering if they currently have the right solution criteria in place to make your business growth idea work. Not helping your stakeholder with the correct information (read: value) at this stage will again turn into a “No, thank you, we are fine” kind of response. See the world from their view:

Customer’s Thoughts	What value should you deliver at this point?
“Do we have the right solution criteria in place to capitalize on this idea?”	Share the specific gaps of their current solutions
“What are the missing solution criteria?”	Share what unique solution criteria are needed to capitalize on your business growth idea.
“Is there a strong business case to explore this further?”	Propose collaborating with the customer to create a simple business case containing numbers, orders, growth percentages, forecast etc., to demonstrate the business outcome. This is what Dixon means by “Outcome Uncertainty.”
“What do others think of this?”	Enable your stakeholder with the hyperlinks to your solution and business case so they can forward this to others. Most of the buying is done when you are not there.
“What does my boss think of this?”	Help your stakeholder with firm value statements to share with their manager. Make your stakeholder feel confident about the business case for change. Enable them with hyperlinks.
	You still do not pitch your company’s capabilities. Instead, keep the discussion on the gaps, the uniqueness of solutions needed and the business case.

Change to Who?

At this stage of the buying process, there are several things going through the stakeholder’s head. They believe you have a strong case, but they also doubt if you are overselling and over-promising here. They also wonder if your business idea can be executed by the incumbent supplier. After all, aren’t you all the same? See the world from their view:

Customer’s Thoughts	What value should you deliver at this point?
“What makes you different from the incumbent supplier?’	Show how your company’s capabilities and solutions fit exactly the criteria discussed earlier in Change to What? This is the time to show your expertise about what your company can do and what makes you strategically different.
“Changing supplier is hard. What if I mess up?’	Use your business acumen to show how your idea and the needed solutions would generate business growth for the company. If needed, add specific details to the business case. This will remove their uncertainty about the outcome.
“What does Procurement recommend?”	Ideally you have involved Procurement in the earlier stages. If not, now is the time because you do not want the opportunity to stall. See Procurement as part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Commit to Change

Why would a Customer still say no after you have given each time specific information aligned to their buying process and each time helped them to move forward? Well, of course, everything comes at a price. And most likely, the fair price you have set for your solution is higher than what they pay now with the incumbent supplier. That makes sense, right? After all, your ideas and solutions will generate positive results on their top and bottom lines. What would hesitate your stakeholder to commit to the change? See the world from their view:

Customer’s Thoughts	What value should you deliver at this point?
“How do we get this started?”	Show your implementation plan: Guide your customer step by step what you and your experienced onboarding team will do to make the change as smooth as possible.
“Is everyone onboard?”	You could anticipate this question. By helping the customer’s operational teams understand how to order, ship, contact, and measure performance, you will be ahead of the curve. Simple answers like: “Yes, Jim from the warehouse and Claire from operations are on board” will help increase the buyer’s confidence.
“What are the pitfalls?”	This is also a typical fear of messing up. Be transparent and explain in detail when needed.
“What if I don’t sign now?”	This doubt will only increase if you do not repeatedly refer back to the business case and what the change means to the company’s top and bottom lines. Not signing means missing out on revenue growth.

Conclusion

Customers say no to salespeople all the time, but they have their reasons. Understanding their thoughts and the value they are looking for in each of their buying processes is crucial to getting them to say yes.

Feel free to forward this blog post to your sales colleagues.