15 Proven Strategies That Move Stalled Deals Forward in 2025

Let me ask you a serious question what's really killing your deals this year now if you said competitors you're dead wrong according to research from CB a gardner company 40 to 60% of B2B deals aren't lost to competitors at all they're lost to no decision that's right your prospect just decides to do nothing and here's why this happens it's something called Omission bias you're buyers feel safer doing nothing than Making a decision they might regret think about it if they choose to do nothing nobody blames them but if they choose a solution that fails they

get all the blame this is why your prospects not along in your meetings they seem excited about your solution and then they ghost you today I'm pulling back the Cent on 15 specific strategies that help you overcome the no decision problem forever now if you don't know who I am I'm Marcus Shan former number One sales director at cintos where I led 110 person sales or to properly deliver 190 million tcv each year now prior to this I was promoted 12 different times starting from a very entry level sales Ro all run a large sales

org and on the way hit number one in every single role now I'm a sales trainer and Coach the fastest growing companies and Reps in the world and in these strategies I'm going to cover today I talk to over 700 clients who collectively had documented Over 1,000 wins using our systems you'll learn how to systematically eliminate risk for your buyers while increasing their upside ultimately lean to them taking action and signing your docu signs with overwhelming urgency let's dive in so strategy number one drisk the deal here's the reality for every decision that you make

or your processs make there's always going to be a risk in every decision that you actually make so for instance if you're trying out a New restaurant personally you know that potential risk that it may not be good you may not like the food and when you apply to a B2B sales process it is no different there's risk in every single decision so you want to make sure you're showing your prospect your buyer and all the stakeholder how you can drisk the deal I'm going to show you five really simple steps you can apply to

help drisk your deal make your solution the obvious choice the first piece is setting clear Expectations and it seems overly simple but here's the reality most salespeople will talk about big game about how incredible their solution is the promise of a crazy Roi in reality is most of the time even if you use their numbers they're not going to believe those big claims that's just reality because in everyone's own personal lives they've been over promised something and didn't actually deliver so what can you do instead is you just simply set clear Expectations and I learned

this strategy from a guy Nate nazarella a couple years back as part of his business case but what he would do is not to say the best case scenario he would offer a base case so that's okay if at the very minimum you do this you'll probably see this level of benefit right so it's much lower then there was a decent case that's was better than that then a best case and when you frame this instead of say hey this is the incredible return You're going to get you say Hey listen if you implement XYZ

solution let's just say worst case scenario you get an 2% increase that 2% increase will lead to this or on a decent case we get a 10% increase and on a best case we get a 25% increase but let's manage expectations and we see at the minimum you'll see this right here when you do that from the GetGo that's really powerful because this helps the buyer realize you're not trying to oversell them and you're Trying to set right expectations and when you think about this way even a longevity perspective once this deals actually goes in

this is s the right expectation for the future as well because if you exceed that they are far happier with you and they more likely to stay longer and also on top of that it's way easier for upsell the first step is setting clear expectations from the very get-go the second part of this strategy is offering some sort of downside Protection so everybody's worried about potentially investing into something changing vendors and whatever and then suddenly they're completely stuck think about what you potentially could offer to reduce their risks this could be a guarantee this can

be a cancellation policy there's many ways to do this so for instance even on my own personal BC offer will resell to individuals who want to get coaching for themselves most of have never invested large amounts of Money to increase their sales skills so part of it we offer them a risk-free guarantee in which if they do not double their investment at the very minimum we'll keep working with them until they do because they know it's a one-year coaching program they know if they don't double their investment that's like their lowest downside they can save

for as long as they want that is incredible for a lot of them because this way they could fully maximize it right and it Just helps them reduce their actual risk now the third step you can also incorporate to this overall strategy drisking the deal is showing a really clear implementation timeline with a really clear Milestones once they sign on the dotted line we all know once you sign something that doesn't mean the buyers remorse is completely gone at that point they might be like ooh they might still have a little bit of concern and

worry so even after they sign so What you can do to help D risk it for them is really show them a clear path so literally after they sign what going to happen the first one week two weeks the first 30 60 90 days a really clear implementation path with kpis with clear owner so they know ah this is a journey for success and when they see you have a blueprint that's repeatable that's really powerful so think about this if you're offering a major software transformation do you have a clear Step-by-step blueprint you're showing as

part of your process so they know okay this is not their first rodeo they know exactly how to make this work for us this is really key especially if let's just say if you're a smaller company or startup who's trying to sell into an Enterprise space it is very risky for many of them to make a switch to a smaller company potentially may not have the Enterprise function completely vetted out or the deliverable to Fulfillment so having that clear implementation plan shows them you thought this true you're planning ahead you have contingencies in place which

again reduces their risk of it going sideways now on top of that what you could do as well this can actually lead to a p an upsell or increasing actual LTV is you can also bolt on Professional Services to make sure AA is done right and this is absolutely critical because then this way you know for sure that You're not going to be left alone and many companies are willing to pay extra for that piece of mind for instance if you take a look at Wayfair they sell a lot of furniture this could be like

patio furniture for hel they sell desk they sell all types of stuff you could just go and you can just buy whatever Furniture you can get they're going sip it to your house but then you yourself are responsible for putting in all Al together and that can be overwhelming For some people now what they do as well is they also offer a professional service component where you can pay extra and someone will come to your house and'll put it together for you so for those who don't want to put together they're worry about having to

deal with that or trying to find someone to help them with it that could be that peace of mind for they pay a couple extra hundred bucks and boom not only are they going to have a very high likel of getting Exactly what they want but also it'll be completely done for them so they don't have to worry there's no risk for them and that's again really powerful the fourth step you can also incorporate as part of drisking the deal is getting really creative with the contract now I wouldn't necessarily go to this every single

time but let's just say for example if normally your organization really wants you to sell two to three year agreements you could also sell a Little bit shorter term increase the pricing as part of it this way to help them see it as a d risis opportunity so for instance I used to sell fiveyear contracts that was quite normal and actually I would work really hard to actually sell seven years and 10 years because it was far more lucrative for me personally as a sales professional but also is really better for them the prospect as

well cuz now they have a guaranteed level of service and it's Also better for our business as well so there's like a triple win across the board however there were times that literally prospects would see that longer term as risky right because I knew that I would always go high for the term and then I'll negotiate with them and let's just say for example in some situations we got down to a 36-month term I wouldn't just willing to give it to them I would just increase the price point and really for them they would Happily

pay that because yes I'll pay more but now they feel better because they have what they perceive to be lesser risk in a 36-month term so you get really creative with these type of things right or anotherone thing you potentially do as well is if you don't already have the guarantees bit written to your agreements building that in or working your legal team again these type of things potentially can help you reduce their perceived risk and actually Move forward with you and then the fifth step which is also very powerful as well is starting small

and then actually expanding now what I'm not saying is you go and sell the smallest possible amount and then you hope that you can expand it right which means really strategic in your overall sales process meaning when you go through Discovery phase in the process you do a full Deep dive you meet multiple stakeholders mean maybe multiple departments depending what you Sell and you understand the full scope and magnitude of this huge problem that they're having and you have discussed overall Solutions how it can be this incredible it's called a seven figure opportunity for you

and for them right that potentially can be perceived as very risky I'm not saying you don't go for that but if they perceive the risk be too much it's also very powerful to say Hey listen this is what I recommend let's start off with a smaller Engagement at say 50k prove ourselves out and then we can expand out to the rest of theing seven figured opportunity and this is really powerful even for my own business we'll do something very similar depending on the business that we're working with for instance sometime instead of going into a

full 50 to 250k engagement they may start off with maybe like a five figure audit first which is very low risk for them we go in we do full diagnosis of of every part of their Business for the sales process perspective and then we uncover all the core gaps then we can make a recommendation how we want to implement a training plan to solve those gaps right and for some company that's lower risk for them or potentially we'll start out with perhaps let's say a smaller team expect a larger team so for instance organization right

now they 50 AES however works for starting with a smaller subset of 15 reps and we're Going to work a 90-day program with them first and of course assuming goes really well and they're happy everything then we'll expand to everything else but again I'm not just leading just trying to sell the small component I'm making sure we can cover the full scope of the magnitude of the problem showcasing the overall key solution and then say Hey listen to make sure we help remove your RIS to feel really good is we start small and then we

expand from there and This again is really powerful because we're reducing their risk for them they get the opportunity to show up and obviously since we're going to deliver on our side we know we're going to be able to expand the opportunity if you feel good about your company as well being able to do the same thing that's a great Strate start small and expand from there okay those are five key steps that you can leverage within drisking the deal next strategy number two reframing The cost of inaction now most people focus on the benefits

of solution how incredible it is which yes you want to do that but it's a big mistake to only focus on that before you go into your solution you need to help them quantify the cost of an action what does it cost them the problem continues to exist and what I'm going to do is I'm actually pull some questions right from my book section six which is how to make your Discovery calls powerful which is an Eight-part framework so we'll pull exact questions right from the section right here because this is stuff you want to

be uncovering in your Discovery and it's asking questions hey because of problem X how does that impact you directly how about your team how about your VP how about cxo what are the Ripple effects problem X is having on the business what happen if a year goes by and you're still running into problem X what's driving you to solve this now versus Later ultimately you want your stles get really clear on what I call the big three for COI that's the direct costs the indirect costs and the opportunity costs and these costs are all all

a result of not taking action for instance while we sell sales training coaching if reps are missing their number the direct cost is literally them missing their number and that's really easy to quantify let's just say for example they have a $15 million Target and the team Hits 10 million it's costing $5 million to miss their target but not only that there's other indirect costs and opportunity cost as a result because the direct cost are yes is $5 million but there's also the indirect cost of hey with that $5 million of extra Revenue let's just

say for instance if margins are 10% that's like an extra like million dollars of bottom line what could they have done with that income could they invest into more staff into The product hireing more Engineers those are indirect costs as part of it now on top of that if I really want to dive even deeper we can go deeper into what are the indirect cost of having an inefficient team when you're paying an underperforming team your sales efficiency ratio is going to be completely jacked up so reality is for every dollar SP on your team

you want to generate at least $1 if not more of new business revenue and then of course the Third piece is the opportunity cost for in in in in my situation what could the team really achieve let's say for example the targets is 15 million but reality is that they're actually truly optimized with high RN rates increased ACV get you get them to say 20 million and Beyond now suddenly that opportunity cost is far greater I'll give you a really simple example we were working with a sales or and they realized they had a 25%

win rate when the deal was About 10K or below so they were really good in more of the transactional kind of SV opportunities but when they took a look at the big opportunity these are deals that were at least 100K 150 200k plus they had maybe a 5% win rate meaning they were literally five times worse than minimum with these Enterprise opportunities and the sales BP realized this and he reached out to me so we start having conversation we realized there was a pretty big deficit that a Huge deficit which had a huge direct cost

L cost of millions of dollars huge opportunity cost as a result as well so we started working with their team to help eliminate and solve this problem but not only do we get that Enterprise win rate up to 25% we also increased the ACV the deal size from what they had before which about 100K for Enterprise if they even won them to over a quar million doll so their upside opportunity end up being way more so now they're Absolutely freaking crushing right what they realize once we follow opportunity cost before literally millions of dollarss every

single quarter to generate few extra millions of dollars now because we actually increase the win rates the overall deal side so able to help solve and eliminate their direct indirect and also their opportunity cost in fact right now they're looking to raise an extra $10 million so it's pretty cool to see their success if they Had not gotten to this point they would not be looking to raise money at all because they would not be able to show that they are the business they want to actually be this is a key strategy so make sure

as part of your process you are uncovering this with them and they're verbalizing to you those actual costs because this helps Drive urgency in action strategy number three create a team of Champions I've made the mistake before where I have one person which I'm Really close with and they are the ultimate Champion they have power if influence that credibility pic as they call it right but then something happens that guy or gal suddenly retires or goes to a different company and what happens Boom the deal basically dies overnight and now have to restart over with

the new stakeholder and other people within the organization that's really painful so what you can do as part of just helping make sure you get deals to Forward is you want to map out identify who all the key stakeholders are to be very specific you want to cover who the economic buyer is this is the only person that can say yes even everyone else says no and they can say no when everyone else says yes they have the ultimate influence in the deal there not always going to be the CFO but it's a person that

can make the deal happen or not happen with highest level influence you have the technical buyer they can't Say yes to you but they can say no now this is a tricky one for a lot of technical buyers might even sign the agreement but but some they have to roll by someone else maybe they have to talk to a board of directors maybe they talk to cxo usually the end user people using your pro servic software on a consistent daily basis and amongst them there's almost always going to be locker room leaders people who have

a lot of influence within them that people kind Trust and we get buy and from and then we have potentially a coach or advisor which is someone who might be outside the process but they sell pic as part of it they can really influence it and reality is you want to identify map out these people and by it's not just four people initially five six seven or more depending on what you sell the deal has complexity the opportunity but what's interesting is if you actually map them all out and then you focus on helping Uncover

what's the win for every single stakeholder if they were to partner with you what would be the win what would be the problem you be solving for them and when you can do that you build Champions throughout the whole process this helps set you up to win because this way helps you guide the process forward and you have multiple people going in bat for you with different personal which can really really help too and this really starts at the very beginning of the Sales process once you have that very first meeting your goal is should

be to try to wrap your hands around and meet all the stakeholders to help gain Collective buying which is going to help you move the deal forward because reality is when you have multiple people who were collectively bought into you this then increases the life of action move forward because they all feel good which helps decrease their risk as well you think about this if you've been in An interview process it's quite common you'll meet with two three four maybe five or maybe six people potentially in an interview process and the reason they're having multiple

people talk to you is this helps them drisk the decision of hiring the right person that's all it really is in a buying situation it's no different so more people you can get involved the more bought in each of them are the more they identify their WIS to work with you this Decreases their perceived risk actually move forward on top of that it reduces your risk in the deal too because if someone retires or something goes away you have other players in the game that can help you move the game forward strategy number four radical

cander one of the biggest mistakes I made early on was I only want to talk about the best things about my company about myself about everything and reality is people are smart and people know nobody and no Company and no product is perfect that's just reality everybody knows that when you only talk about the best things people will perceive it to be risky they're like that's weird why are you saying all these great things don't give me a really simple example my wife and I we have friends who are single they're dating and they're dating

someone new and all they can talk about is all the amazing things about this person they dating right that sounds amazing but the Reality is my question is always hey what are the pink flags and they can't identify any pink flags to me that's a big red flag because nobody is perfect and it's a silly example but this applies also in a sales situation too when you only tell the best things about what you do what you have to offer they trust you less and you're perceiving to be risky versus if you are radically transparent

with them and you are openly sharing things that are they're probably On their mind mind that's going to help them reduce that risk in their mind they'll trust you more in my sales training business when I talk to companies I like to be very transparent hey there is no magic pill it's not like you why are my team and I the money and suddenly overnight your team are actually rock star here's what going need from you I need your team to show up they have to try to do these things and on top of that

we want to make sure Even outside of the training sessions you're coaching guide them as well and making sure they're sticking to and building those right habits and only when we all work together you me the sales VP and your enablement team and your reps will consistently work together we're going to see incredible results it's not going to happen after day one it's going to be a progression over time because we're changing behaviors and that's what we're focusing Want focus on long-term change not just immediate change right now and it's amazing when I tell them

that they're like I really appreciate that transparency I'm like yeah 100% because for them to come in have the wrong expectation doesn't help anybody first off but also it's not real that's just not real so you want to be radically transparent with them and that really helps build that transparency you can apply this same principle to really Every part of the process it's not just in talking about yourself as well it's also in how you communicate and how you guide the prospect because the reality is a lot of prospects don't know how to buy I'm

sure it's happened to you it's happened to me which is a have great discovery a great demo and then before you know it six months goes by and in that 6 months you're still interacting with them but they're asking for different different demos more Information you have like non-stop me show the same stuff over and over they ask for different things send me this use case send me more references send me this send me that they're what I call seamores they want to see more of this see more of that and the deal is actually

not moving forward I used to fall for this early on I'm like okay sure let's just do it right let's do a trial hey send me more information sure here's all this information hey can you Send me more references here's more references and I keep sending stuff but what I found that was the more information I was giving them they actually were less likely to make a decision right and they're just chiro kickers if you will versus when I realized this going to be the case I started becom very transparent for instance a couple months

back I was engaging with Potential Prospect and I was sitting down with a couple of Co-founders and I could tell they felt a little bit of risk in the deal and they had asked for many meetings multiple things and said listen like we want to work with you but we want to try you out can you come to like a coaching session with our team for one session we don't want to pay for it and there want make sure the team engages with you and then maybe we can potentially move forward and choose a plan

from there and said let's pump the brakes first like what's The real root issue and the real root issue as I dug into it really was that because this team was actually in a different country they're a little B worried if their team would be able to adapt to lock my ter an American style that's that's a very fair point and what they wanted was basically do a free coaching session with their team and The Challenge on top of that was we hadn't even decided on a clear training plan they want to go with and

they hadn't Even GRE to dollar amount and what I didn't want to do was go and do this thing even it's unpaid do for an hour the children got the skills and then after that we go over a plan and pricing is too high or something something like that and they don't make a decision which is be a waste of really their time my time everyone else which which sucks no one wants to do that what I did instead was I dug deeper to uncover really the core root issue and then I Said Hey listen

this is what I recommend first off before we do any of that you two Founders and myself we have to get 100% on which training plan are we going to go with and what's going to be the price point feel really comfortable investing right because what we don't want to do is do this trans s again you're just not good with the overall package right so instead of just me agreeing to it you know the next step was we set call up and we just had a Plan hey let's decide we're going to pick a

plan make sure we're hold for 100% good then we're going to do a training with the team and only they're 100% certain that they the team feels really good then we'll move forward with said plan and what was interesting was this came a clear plan of what to do next versus let's do a little bit of this let's do a little bit of that and just going back and forth so again my point is don't be afraid to have a Radical Candor in your conversation that any part process and help guide them to how to

actually buy you'll save yourself a lot of time you'll save them a lot of time as well strategy number five sell against buyers remorse proactively so this ties into a little B I mentioned before by having a clear implementation plan but reality is is once someone signs once they pay whatever there's always a little bit of worry of hey what's going to happen next is this Going to be exactly what was promised to me so this is where you want to show as part of your process what's going to happen exactly help minimize that potential

concern they might have so this way they're not wor what's going to happen next what are you going to do blah blah blah make it really clear literally after you sign this is what happens next this is what you do this the means we're going to have and show them a very clear implementation Timeline and onboarding process whatever the backing customer whatever it's going to be so this way they feel good for example for some of the the custom Training packages we offer a lot of times the leaders want back and support too so they

want obviously the core session we going to have as well but they want to make sure part of the implementation we have other things too that's really going to help support them as part of the process we're sure it's Really clear hey here's a slock channel here's what's it's going to look like here's how they can use it here's the other coaching calls here's the other resources here's the implementation plan here's a step by step so we're showing them literally a blueprint for Success which again helps remove their risk increase likely for success in their

eyes but not just that it actually helps them get results which is also really important so don't forget that even as Part of your process your demo when you're showing them how amazing Your solution is show them what life looks like after after they sign this helps again remove their risk but on top of that if they need to go and justify the solutions to anybody else internally and you're not able to be in that room they set with the tools to explain very clearly this is exactly happens 1 2 3 4 5 this is

how we're going to be successful this is where our risk is Going to be it's very minimal we got this but on top of that when you actually proactive this shows you're a true Pro you're not just trying to sell the transformation you're a true professional who really understand from a business perspective I A to Z and how to make whatever you sell a huge success for them strategy number six prepare an executive point of view this is really for the very early on intro calls or calls with execs for the first time in Which

you want to obviously do your homework you want to prepare you want to do your research whether you use AI you come with your own research but you want to come to the table with a very clear executive point of view which is essentially being able to identify hey what are probably the clear priorities for this organization the are probably running into that point of view and the issues are probably running and how your solution help alleviate these problems And help them achieve their core objective and the reason this is a really powerful strateg for

helping drisk the opun even early on is this shows hey this sales person knows me they understand my BS they did their homework this is not their first rodeo when you're able to speak to a language and come to table with a very clear hypothesis of how you have helped other people just like them or companies just like them solve the problem they're like Okay I feel better and here's the reality when you start thinking this way and you start to quotequote drisk the opportunity even early on for them this increases your throughput for the

deal because now they're like okay I get this person they seem to they know my problems they're pretty much Nails in my pie poet I'm going to be open to them open to being their executive sponsor and have them go down to other stakeholders other teams and talk with Them on my behalf this is a very simple strategy but it just takes doing the homework upfront doing the research the Clear Point of View and leading with with in the executive conversation early on help you reduce your risk drastically to get by and deal much faster

strategy number seven deep Discovery I watch a lot of gong recordings I see a lot of call reviews and most people's Discovery is frankly quite terrible they do just enough to have try to check the box Whether you follow Med pick B whatever they're almost like got it and there's no real depth to it and the challenge is from there jump early into demo actually moving way too fast and this actually will potentially increase their risk because then they're not sh hey does this person really understand me understand my problems and that's a very dangerous

place to be so you want to really internalize deep Discovery and it's not just with that single person You're talking to this is with the end users with department heads these are people actually using the product the Serv that you actually sell and you want to do true deep Discovery and you want to make sure you follow a really core framework that helps you cover all the core components for example I teach what's called a powerful framework which we're covering eight core components that really help you understand the full situation for all the stakeholders so

Then this way when you fully understand them it reduces their risk of okay like this person actually understands my business because when you do that they're going to trust your solution far better so you want to make sure you're doing the hard work up front before you get to your demo to make sure you're even removing the risk of understanding their business up front so this way we make recommendations far easier and they're going to trust it much more Likely and that ties in strategy number eight a tailored demo the only way you can do

a tailor demo is if you do a really deep Discovery up front and reality is most people do a very generic demo they pull up the demo environment on there showing General things showing the same things every single time and the reality is yes in some situations you might be showing kind of similar things but what you would need to do especially for a demo situation when the More customized it feels to them it removes their risk they feels too General they're like this may not be for me right the reality is is like most

people think that things are just too they need something custom so if you can make it feel like a custom tailored suit to them the better it's going to be and that means you only show what you need to show to solve their core problems no more no less but also in order of magnitude of biggest problems they have This again helps drisk the decision that they're going to make and the more tailored you have for them the better it's going to be I'll give you a really simple example I remember hearing if you go

to Thailand you can get a pretty nice custom t I heard that before so remember going a couple this years ago went to Thailand they oh you can get this amazing customer suit it's only a couple hundred and I'm like that sounds like too good to be true I don't know I know True tayor suits are really used like a th000 2,000 $5,000 plus to get one for a couple hundred actually say high quality I'm not really sure what do they do first they did a basic Discovery right if you will like term really covering

walk me through was very interactive Discovery picking Fabrics Etc and then what they actually did was they said hey just hang out here for 20 minutes and we'll be right back and they went in the back and what they did was they came Actually they came out 20 minutes later and they had all the measurement they had preut all the components of the Jack and the pants to fit me and Lally they had me try it on they started measuring some more using safety pins p even tighter so it fit even better and they're basically

demoing really quick like a custom demo like oh wow this looks actually pretty decent I know it's rough FR this looks pretty good they said all right hold on we're going to Tail us even more give us 20 more minutes It'll be right back so we kind of show you what and by the way I hav paid for a single thing yet at this point they go back into the back 20 minutes later they even more adjustments they were doing something made it more tight if you will I put it back on it fits even

better and I'm like oh my God quality feels super good everything is very well done I can already tell this is crazy I'm like okay this sounds Really good I'll pay the 200 bucks and then they're going to bring me this in 10 hours I feel really good is custom t demo to me I pay the 200 bucks and 10 hours later they came my hotel room they had me try it on again it'sit like a freaking dream and I'm like my and my point to you was I was so sold on it right even

as part of the process because that demo they did which is me physically trying to think on felt so tailored to me now you might be saying Well hey Marcus I can't do the same thing because you know I sell XYZ software that's not my point is more so is how can you make sure what you are showing in the demo is tailored to solve their problem so let's say for example even if you have a standard demo deck that you're going to show them you don't have to show them everything only show them what's

most relevant to them if it's a demo environment don't go through all those things only show them what's Relevant to them that's it and if you're in a situation where you can make some customizations to the deck or customizations to even the demo environment then make those Chang in advance so this way the demo feels like it's literally made for them and when it feels like it's made for them it again reduces their risk of okay this is a wrong decision but when they can see it's just like them they're like okay their trust level

with you increases the Risk level goes down and their upside goes up that's really key so it's very small detail but wiely by because I see a lot of demos which most people just vomit everything on there and that will actually increase your risk versus drisk the deal strategy number nine active listening when you're in a live sale situation this could be Discovery call Demo call any have a stakeholder call you want to be actively listening to not just the words they're saying but how They're saying it their body language shifts and tonality literally everything

this is really really important because this may help you identify potential concerns or objections that might be on their mind and if you're not actively listening you're not going to catch these things so what happens is in their mind they have perceive some sort of risk and they keep thinking about it still and that will grow over time potentially depending what this question Was or what was said at the time I give you a simple example one of my early roles I remember I was being now the CEO and the prospect asked me me he

said hey are you guys local and I'm thinking like okay he wants to know is our office close by can we provide service blah blah blah whatever and I'm like yeah absolutely we're local we're actually make 20 minutes from your office right here so like any time of the day you need our help we're here with the best Support blah we're all local right here we're all I'm in Portland like a whole team's in Portland we got you like it's amazing blah blah blah and at the time the guys okay got it and rookie Marcus

did not realize at a point that there was something else in that guy's mind so I'm like cool check mark sold that guy that were local to the awesome that's a huge benefit for him and later on I end up losing that deal I was talking to my Champion I finally got a hold of him not The CE but my champion and I said Hey listen I think his name is Jimmy I'm like Jimmy thought like we had a really great conversation you were on board the CEO's on board I'm just really confused what happened

why did you end up going with XYZ competitor he said because you guys are local I'm like what do you mean that's a good thing you guys are local Etc he's but we actually have five other operations around the us and we're actually going to expand about two more Other operations in other parts of the US and we end up partner with XYZ competitor because they actually have a nationwide presence and I thought I got punched in the gut because we were also a nationwide company but because I wasn't actively listening I didn't realize the

question he was asking his response was actually a risk for him and he saw it as risky to go with us because we would not be able to s by his current needs and future needs as part of it and I share that with you because it's a really easy mistake to fall for because sometimes we get happy using these conversations and we hear what we want to hear versus hear what the prospect is actually saying so this is strategy you want to focus on making sure you're 100% present you're listening to them you're hearing

what they're saying how they're saying but you're also visually looking at them so you can see any shifts in their body language and how they're Actually answering the question because it may Shi show you other risk factors that you might potentially be missing again this applies to any part of the sales process so active listening is a key strategy to help you drisk deals then you can actually address it accordingly if you identify anything that might be top of mind for them strategy number 10 world class recap emails okay you might be like that sounds

stupid right but hear me out Here's why this is really important what I mean by this is after you have a meeting with your stakeholder stakeholders you want to send a recap app highlighting what the key next steps are get you uncovered in there and this way they're on the same page with you as well and the reason this is really important is this shows you were listening now if you watch any my other videos that means even throughout when you're running Discovery you should be Recapping back to if I understand you're right Mr Mrs

Prospect you're saying this and this is that right yes cool hey if I understand sounds because your team has a 18% win right you want to get your team a 30% win right and because of that by them not being at 30% it's actually costing your team $2 million a month in loss revenue does that sound right to you got and that actually impact your personal bonus on how you earn as a Sal VP is that correct yes got it so that's Recapping you do it there but on top of that after your meeting is

done you want to send a recap highlight the key things as well and this again helps take all the stuff that's in their mind and make it very simple and concise and easy understand and here's a really simple framework it doesn't have to be crazy right literally sub can be recap and accepts it can be simple as that it can be literally High name great chatting today here are the next steps based on We discussed whatever actions are next so you'll do this I'll do this we'll have me on this day to discuss whatever right

so I have to put that first then next let's say for example if it's a discovery call we covered all their core problems right then I might list hey based on conversation here the core challenges XYZ comies run into challenge number one Challenge number two Challenge number three and then what I'll usually do a bolt on the Initiatives I say hey because of that it's impacting XYZ initiatives in this way anything I missed thanks so much and that's really a simple recap by showing that after that meeting this helps them see number one this guy's

a pro but number two this guy actually paid attention he actually gets my business and gets them more excited for the next steps these are little detail but imagine doing that every single meeting that you have with these different Stakeholder this helps them realize you know what what you're doing which helps reduce your risk increase potential upset strategy number 11 relatable stories and social proof I don't you think about some of your favorite movies or TV shows chances are pretty good the reason you like them is you have some sort of resonance with a storyline

or maybe even some of the characters in the show right so for instance one of my favorite shows is breaking mad if you Watch Breaking mad phenomenal series I really that character of Walt a bit of an underdog Rose buil a criminal Empire which is not necessar something you want to Aspire to but I felt very relatable where it's man those days where you feel like things are just going wrong nothing going right in your life and you're the underdog and people are getting above you I think we've all felt that way I have felt

that way personally so I really just connected with that and was Cool and the reason I bring this point up is we like things are relatable to us right and when you tie us back into a sales situation the stories you're sharing about different customers and process and case studies are they relatable to them can they see themselves in that shoes of that customer who had success with what you sell and this is really important because unfortunately I've seen situations where you know reps are using Uh stories or social proof or big logos to talk

about and it doesn't resonate well with who they're selling to for instance sometime see second you're you're meeting with a SMB or mid Market company and the logos getting dropped are like Fortune 50 companies and they're not there yet right maybe they don't Inspire to be there but they just not resonate with that type of story right so what you want to think through is as you're sharing stories and you're Sharing social logos on any of your decks or even as part of your conversation or part of your demo whatever are they relatable can they

see themselves in that situation when they can see themselves as that person who got the incredible benefit and result that you're talking about it reduces the risk again increases their upset because like this is just like me this is actually why we post so many testimonials and case studies and videos And screenshots on all our social media it's quite common people literally message us and book calls with us because they say wow hey we watched this video where you know Dustin and his team 100% of the team hit their number at a big company hey

we're also big company and our team is hitting 40% gold across the board we saw what you did we saw ourselves in Dustin shoes can you show us what you de with him and can you help us do the same thing because again they Can see themselves in that situation this reduces their risk increases their upside if you can't tell by now that's the theme of every single one of these things how can we reduce the perceived risk increase their upside and relatable stories relatable logo social proof is a really powerful way to do that

so what that means next is before you jump into a sales called any heart Prospect and you have stories you want to share before you go just write down some Examples of relatable stories in that situation if you even just do that in advance this prepares you for when you're on your call Tal story story you can pull right there and start sharing that exact example which makes them feel like wow this guy really gets me strategy number 12 the what we learned slide now if you're not familiar with this this is just a really

simple slide or even a Google doc that has just bullet points showing what you've Learned so far in the process and this is like wildly underrated it sounds so simple but by literally pulling up what you have uncovered the last call and they see it now they're like okay this person gets me so if you cannot bolt on something these strategies together and you had a great discovery call you s Incredible World Class recap you like I mentioned they're like okay that's impressive this guy actually did that first off and by the way when you

send Recap email do it like after the call don't like four days do it like after the call because it's still top of mind right and now you're taking a similar bolt points and now you put on a slot and you say hey before we dive into let's just make sure we're all on the same page dial a little bit based on we covered last week or last call you have these challenge one two and three and L to list impact does that sound about right cool anything else you want to add To that so

again this is power and again imagine if you do throughout all the parts of the sales process each time you do it this is showing them you're a true professional that you truly understand their business and the best part is is this takes you a minute to do before a call and it makes such a big difference in how they actually perceive you as well but have a simple visual reminder like hey this guy or G is actually Pro and they know my business strategy Number 13 limit the options now this getting close when we

actually provide a proposal for them you give different options and what you don't want to do is say Hey listen we have 30 things we can give to you or 10 even give to you that's too much have you ever been to like Cheesecake Factory in the US have you ever seen their menu the thing is like a thick book and you have I don't how there's like dozens of options I go there I can't even decide what I want There's just too many options right versus the smart restaurants they really limited down and when

you have limited options it makes it easier for them to choose and I'll give you really simple example we have this great restaurant in Portland Oregon it's called anda's provan restaurant we've been going for years and I remember when we first started going there they had a pretty robust menu and remember my first time eating Peruvian food I really didn't Know what to choose so what did I do I literally once I think Google reviews are Yelp started looking like the most common one I'm like I'll just pick that right and it worked out pretty

well there's just too many options I really didn't know how it was side side so I need someone to guide me which was basic Google reviews Y at the time now fast forward to recently we went there for Valentine's Day and took look at the menu they had completely simplified it Down they went from like multiple pages so literally a front and back of a card from on trades they had five options and I'm like okay I'm like At first I like I don't know if I like this I'm like actually these are probably the

five most popular ones and I actually like this one right here so it made it much easier right so it it made it easier for me to decide as a result now bring us back to your B2B sales call rather you're having and you're going over Different options if you have too many they get very overwhelmed and they get into send me more information let me think about it and that makes it really hard the easy solve literally limits it down maybe have three or less options just by simply doing that it reduces that decision

fatigue that they might have to have because again there's too many options now they're like how should I pick let me talk to other stakeholder it becomes like a whole thing versus Okay here the three options this is what we have this makes it very clear I'll give you a really simple example even with my own business and we have really Three core offers okay for team we have either an enablement offer where we basically provide them the LMS and the learning path and they basically have Team themselves we have just pure training session where

I do sessions with the teams and then we have a custom model we bu on custom for them now as Three general ones as I'm saying as a whole with the custom one though it can spin out to dozens of different examples and that is if I was to say Hey listen like we actually have 15 different packages we can offer to you so which one do you want most buyers be like oh my God that's going to be too much right so what I actually do is even in the first discovery just suceed in

a little say hey just high level we have three core packs walk one two and three like What I'm think is make most sense based on our conversation today is we put together something custom for you and that's what I'm going to recommend I'll probably be do two custom packages that's probably best for you does that sound about Fair they're like yeah that sounds great so then from there I know I can just create do custom options for them that's all I need to do right but I also know as a card in my back

pocket if I'm in the next conversation and maybe They want other things as well we can make some tweaks and I can create other things too and I share that with you because you might have many options to sell somebody but you don't want to say we can do it all right you want to make it very simple for them and easy to decide this is actually why if you look at many software sites with different packages most of them will generally have just three options that's it CU they had 10 options you be like

know What to pick it' be very overwhelming so it's a very simple Sol we apply right after this video strategy number 14 make a recommendation this is a very simple thing but unfortunately I've seen many demos where let's say for example there's even three options I've seen the AE say hey here's my three options option one two and three what do you think and the process oh I think it's it's a lot let me think it through let me get back to you right remember if you Done a good job you done these other strategies

I've shared with you so far you should be perceived as a trusted advisor this gives you the opportunity to make a recommendation so it's literally a simple simp saying something like hey here's option one two and three based on what you told me here's why I recom option number two and here's why by simply doing that you are helping them block out the other thing focus on a single thing and this helps reduce That decision fatigue and reduce your risk level this is really powerful especially if you're working with an indecisive buyer and if you

ever Sho on Amazon you see this in real time every single time you're on Amazon you go on the app and it shows you look up anything say for example you want to buy soul St shoes it shows you hundreds of examples but then what do they have also on certain ones best seller recommended it makes it really clear which ones are Guiding you towards and what they're doing is they're reducing your decision fatigue that's what they're doing so you want to do the same thing with your problem by just simply making a recommendation so

literally just imag this is what you do after this video you present your option you say all right cool based on what you told me here's what I recomend commend option X here's why what do you think that's it that's simple strategy number 15 consistent Communication here is the sad reality is I've worked with a lot of AES over the years I have bought many products many pieces of software many things unfortunately most salespeople have very poor followup very poor response times when ask questions or they don't get back to you on a certain time

it's EX wildly crazy on how poor Acumen some people have now this is not my point dog on these AES this means this is an opportunity and what happens is when you Are inconsistent with being responsive and getting back to your customer in a timely manner or you're inconsistent with even how you communicate it increases their risk level are they going to mess up working with me are they going to mess up the oil are they going to mess up what it's going to be and that increases the risk level with you and decreas your

Chan of actually moving them forward so what you don't want to do is you don't want that to be A reason they don't move move forward with you all right so what does that actually mean that means literally you are consistent with Community came back in responsive to them so if they call you today you don't wait like a week to call them back you call them within 24 hours if they email you a question depending what the question is don't wait 3 days to email them back email them back that same day or pick

up a phone and call them and these little Things it seems crazy but when you actually are really consistent you are really reliable they are seeing you now as a trusted they're seeing you as a true professional and when they you do that consistently you will win more deals by way this applies across the board let's say for example the deal stalls out a little bit is it just disappearing you put them into a nurture sequence you follow period you nurture the value just by being consistent on Communication you'll see you will win deals because

of that I what deals years after because of the consistency in the community ation and the responsiveness and I One deal when say listen we try to get a hold of our current vendor our competitor X and it would just take forever to get back to us and it's crazy to me that would happen if that's you first off start getting consistent that might mean getting more organize manag your emails better managing your phone Calls and texts better like be you and you want to be consistent with it that's really it if you just do

that consistently you will decrease your risk level of them perceiving you as some who's not reliable and increases the Chan of actually them seeing you as a trusted adviser instead so there you have it 15 specific strategies to overcome the no decision problem in your sales process now here's the truth you can either spend the next 5 to 10 years Figuring this out through painful trial and error which you know I'm sure you probably will eventually figure it out just depends on how long it'll take to actually get to the point where you consistent with

all these things or you can Implement a proven system that's already working for ear hundreds of sales professionals across multiple Industries for accting executives out there I package all 15 of these strategies and dozens more into a Complete sales accelerator X Program if you're serious about breaking through the no decision barrier and want to see exactly how our clients are getting results on average in 13.44% remember in today's time the difference between average performers and top performers is not Talent it's having proven systems that consistently deliver results if you're a sales leader who wants to

get their team to break through the same barrier in W look at Team programs as well you'll see a different link below for team programs I hope you enjoy this video and I'll see you in the next video