#062: 5 Reasons Deals Are Stalling

Read time: 3 minutes

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Driving deals to close right now is harder than ever. Prospects are cautious, budgets are tight, and initial meetings are harder to find.

If you’re finding that opportunities are stalling or dropping off altogether, you’re not alone. Right now, every step in the sales process is under more scrutiny. But knowing the exact reasons your pipeline keeps hitting roadblocks is half the battle.

Here are five common challenges that might be causing your deals to stall.

1: Qualification

If you have unqualified deals in your pipeline, you’re going to spend resources trying to follow-up and close deals that have no chance of closing. This takes time away from real deals or finding new opportunities that would have a chance to close. Time is the most important asset we have in sales and if you’re spending it in the wrong places, it will not only be frustrating, but it will prevent you from building more pipeline.

Come up with some sort of qualification framework that lets you know when you have a real deal or not. BANT (budget, authority, need, timeline) is a classic and something like MEDDIC (Metrics, economic buyer, decision process, decision criteria, identify pain, champion) is great for more complex deals.

Go back to our newsletter last week for a full guide on running discovery calls.

2: Lack of Urgency

If prospects don’t feel a reason to act now, they won’t. They’ll delay, wait for the “right time,” or worse, forget about you altogether.

If you always revert to discounts, you’re training your prospects to only act when pricing is involved. Instead, give them a reason to act by linking your solution to a high-priority problem or an upcoming critical event. Uncover something going on in their company/lab and use that as your leverage point to build urgency around.

Once you align to that problem or critical event, use this process to create a timeline for getting your solution in place.

3: Not on the critical path

Most biotechs are treading water cutting everything they can to stay afloat for as long as possible. This means, that if your solution doesn’t align to a critical path problem, there is little to no chance they move forward. Asking the simple question, “Where does this fit on your long list of priorities”, will help you understand the importance of the project. Unfortunately, many of you will be selling “nice to haves” that are great for exploratory projects. You’ll need to reframe how you position your solution around critical path problems.

4: Don’t have a champion

I talk about this concept a lot. Deals are won or lost based on having a champion that’s willing to sell for you when you can’t be in the room. Pretty much every decision to buy a product or service happens in an internal meeting where someone is pitching the idea to buy the product or service to a group of other influencers and decision-makers. More often than not, you aren’t in the room for that conversation.

The average purchase decision has 7 people involved in the buying committee. But 78% of deals only have one point of contact. There’s clearly a problem there. On average there are 6 other people influencing a decision that you haven’t spoken to.

Multi-thread by developing 1:1 relationships with multiple people involved in the buying committee. Find a champion that has power, influence, access to the economic buyer, and is willing to sell on your behalf when you can’t be in the room.

When you’ve found a true champion, arm them with a business case so they can sell on your behalf. Teach them how to sell internally because you can’t always be in every meeting with them.

More on this can be found in this video: https://youtu.be/uaphjeAoIC0

5: Weak (or lack of) Differentiation

If prospects can’t see why your solution is different (or better) than others, they’ll hesitate or fall back on price comparisons. You’ll end up defending your price rather than your value.

Make it very clear how you can uniquely solve their needs. Instead of commoditized capabilities (quality, expertise, certifications, save time, easy to use) focus on the specific outcomes your customers are trying to achieve.

When you can connect your differentiated value to their specific outcomes, you make your solution the only viable option.

Here is a quick article to help define your differentiators and embed them into the decision criteria. And if you’re in highly competitive deals, here is a quick read on how to win competitive deals.

Conclusion

Prospects are cautious, budgets are tight, and every decision is under more scrutiny. Focus on these 5 areas to eliminate pipeline blockages and drive deals to close.

1. Qualification: Unqualified leads waste time and resources. Use a framework like BANT or MEDDIC to qualify real opportunities.

2. Lack of Urgency: Prospects won’t move without a reason. Tie your solution to a high-priority problem or critical event to build urgency.

3. Not on the Critical Path: If your solution isn’t essential, it may not get prioritized. Position your solution around critical path projects/initiatives.

4. No Champion: Deals need an internal champion. Build multiple connections and arm a champion with a business case to sell for you.

5. Weak Differentiation: Without clear, unique value, prospects default to price. Focus on outcomes that only your solution can deliver.

Apple Podcast | Spotify | YouTube

Episode 51: [Leadership] How the CEO of a public company views sales and marketing with Kara Cannon

• How CEOs think about sales and marketing alignment

• Selling has changed a lot and reps need to take more risks

• Running a small company under public scrutiny

• It's ok to complain but figure out how to solve problems

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