Are companies taking longer to make buying decisions or does it come down to impatience on the part of the B2B sales person, in a hurry to reach their sales targets? It seems nowadays buying decisions are taking longer to make than in previous years.  This slow purchasing process isn’t just happening at the enterprise level in large scale businesses, it’s extended right across the board.

Protracted buying is dramatically slowing the sales process. The flow-on effects of such time delays are causing blow-outs in the cost of sale for many sales teams and businesses.  Delayed purchasing results in longer lead times and inconsistent pipeline predictions for sales teams. Of course, this in turn creates panic at the ‘C Suite’ when sales leaders can’t easily predict their forward orders and report on work in progress, thus leading to further indecision and so the cycle goes on….

Extended Pipeline Length

So what’s causing this to happen?

Firstly let’s look at what isn’t the cause. We’ve all known sales people who have ‘prospects’ sitting in their pipelines for months on end going nowhere.  Their ‘prospects in waiting ’ have usually turned out to be nothing more than phantoms put there by the sales person to make up the numbers so their figures look more impressive. This “puffing up the books” is all too common and completely useless to the salesperson, the team and the business. Many sales managers have to conduct a ‘chat’ with the sales person about the validity of these so called prospects to determine their bona fides.

However, effective sales people are now finding that the timelines on prospects in their sales pipeline are lengthening and more work needs to be done to get deals over the line. It’s not just happening at the enterprise, large scale clients like government, semi government entities or large public companies.  Dealing with multiple stakeholders was the domain of large scale businesses involved in large scale enterprise/contract  agreements.  Now, the lengthening of the buying process is occurring across the board.

So why are buying decisions becoming protracted? Are products or deals more complicated? It doesn’t seem so.  What then, is causing these delays?

Once upon a time, you could deal with a key decision maker and an influencer or two; now you have to sell to a committee.  It appears that many buying decisions are now being made by committees. No longer content to entrust the purchasing decision to one or two people who represent the whole business or division as the buyer,  many are now roping in people from across the organisation to give their input, ideas and suggestions as well as being involved in the final decision making process.  Buying decisions by consensus results in elongated sales cycles, more people to know and understand, more complication and increased cost of sale for the business doing the selling.

Uncertainty

It seems that the real culprit is ‘uncertainty’.  The current market conditions are making people reticent; more hesitant to commit and make decisions; they are looking to the opinions of others, seeing what ‘everyone’ is thinking before they make decisions. And even when they think they have made a decision something or someone else comes along and they change their mind again.  Sound familiar?  It’s not just businesses that are stuck in this loop, we see it on the political stage every day in poll driven politics.

Maybe there is some truth in this ancient Jewish prophecy which goes something like this: ‘There will be a time when leaders will act like dogs’.   What does this mean?  In short if your pet dog is at the off lead park and gets ahead of you, notice how often it will turn its head back to you to see where you are and look at what direction it needs to go in.  It takes it lead from you even though it is ahead of you and technically in the lead. That is how our political leaders are operating and perhaps this in now bleeding into our business communities where leaders are afraid to make decisions without excessive deliberation and consensus.

It is understandable that we need to be cautious as markets become less predictable and seeking people’s input to key buying decisions is important, however buying by committee is making selling and buying really challenging and we all know what can happen when a committee gets involved.  If it’s not paralysis by analysis, it’s certainly more protracted.  Here’s a five minute video that gives you some idea of the complications sales people face.  Although produced with large business deals in mind, I believe this video illustrates how this process is being replicated in smaller deals across the board.

So what does a sales person need to do to meet the challenge of protracted buying decisions?

• Understand the nature of the business you are dealing with

• Identify how many people need to be involved in the decision making process within the customers business and in your own business and learn how to connect and communicate with different types of people looking for common ground on which to build a case

• Get agreement on the customer’s vision and consensus on that vision so you know what they are aiming for and where you can work with them

• Offer to meet with the committee to ask and take questions face-to-face

• You may have one contact in the group but you need to get to everyone to understand their needs and priorities so that you are in the best position to demonstrate what you’re about and how you can help them

• Understand and clearly specify all stakeholders’ key priorities and build a business case that addresses them all (if you can)

• Be explicit about why you do what you do; how you do what you do; what you do; and how you help people achieve results.  No fluff here. Provide your credentials in a professional format that is written for the client in language they understand and can relate to

• Be prepared to engage in multiple meetings and be very clear on your purpose for each meeting or level of engagement – don’t leave loose ends

• Account for the time involved in each stage of the sales process and factor this into your planning, forecasting and costs of sale

• Don’t barrage your prospect with excessive phone calls or emails to try and speed up the buying process

• Don’t assume to know the reason for their delays

• Don’t be wishy washy or indecisive yourself as this will just fuel further indecision

• Feel confident to ask for timeframes

• Check if your sales cycle is costing you more than it is worth and where it may be eroding margins

• Rethink your pricing strategies and ensure they cover your cost of sale

• Manage expectations and be prepared to report accurately on your sales efforts and the pipeline so that Sales Leaders and the ‘C Suite’ can manage their part of the business and make informed decisions

• Control what you can control

Whether this is temporary or here for the long term, as sales professionals we need to adapt and work with what we have in the most professional manner possible managing expectations both internally and externally.  So hang in there, be persistent and have enough deals in your pipeline so that you have options and are not caught out with all your eggs in one basket.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, MD of www.barrett.com.au