This post will be of interest to CXO’s and revenue leaders in B2B SaaS companies because 25% of revenue is leaking from your funnel due to buyer indecision.
This couldn’t be happening to me and my company I hear you say. But it probably is, and the level of indecision present in the market is an astonishing finding. After reading The Jolt Effect, by Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna, where they analyzed more than 2.5 million sales calls recorded and digitized in the Tethr call recording system, we know the problem exists across the entire SaaS B2B market, regardless of sector or deal size.
The insights from the analysis published in The Jolt Effect result from an AI model created after analyzing 8,300 data points in a 2.5 million call sample. The model reliably predicts the outcomes of a deal with 85% accuracy, based on the language the buyer uses in the call.
This is a historic and watershed study of buying behavior and sales leaders who ignore the findings or fail to read and absorb the lessons in this book, do so at their peril
What’s Going on?
In the past 5-7 years win rates (from qualified prospect to close) have nearly halved, while deals ending in no decision have more than doubled. Until the Jolt Effect was published, few people knew why or could tell you what to do about it. As revealed in the study, elite salespeople could intuitively detect indecision and took steps to overcome the indecision to bring in the business or recognized the buyer could not decide and they moved on.
But what about the other 94% of salespeople?
If you are not recording every sales call and Zoom/Teams/etc. call and your sales managers are not analyzing sales calls and coaching, peer coaching, and mentoring salespeople and SDRs on a weekly basis, then you might as well click away now because nothing is going to change and your %age of deals ending in no-decision number will remain the same
Why are so many deals ending in no decision?
Based on the data, 44% of deals that ended in no decision because the buyer preferred the status quo to change. The other 56% of deals were lost because of buyer indecision, see Figure 1.1 from the Jolt Effect Audible download.
Buyer indecision is not new. We know in every decision involving change that there are two opposing sets of forces at play. This is well articulated in the Jobs to Be Done framework or mental decision model, articulated originally by Bob Moesta 20 years ago, alongside Clayton Christensen.
There are opposing forces at play in any decision to change that result in behavior change. On the forces pushing forward to a new choice; there is the urgency of the current problem and the desire to make things better, combined with the attractiveness of the new solution. The forces blocking change are the habit of the present and the tug of historical allegiances, combined with the anxiety and uncertainty of making a new choice.
What is causing buyer anxiety and uncertainty that leads to indecision? It’s human nature and the fear of messing up is causing high levels of indecision for three main reasons. These could resonate with you as you think back about deals that didn’t close for your team over the past year or so.
What are High Performers Doing to Overcome Indecision?
The JOLT in The Jolt Effect title is an acronym for what elite salespeople are doing that is different from the rest and it starts with a J.
What to Do?
Why bother?
The data in the study reveals that Jolt seller win rates are nearly double that of average sellers in deals with low indecision, and more than double in deals with medium levels of indecision, but when buyers have a high degree of indecision, Jolt sellers have a win rate 5 times higher than average sellers. This chart is from the Jolt Effect Audible download.
I know of no other lever that sales leaders can pull, capable of increasing revenue that would otherwise be lost to no decision. What is the financial impact to your company if in the first year of implementing Jolt training, deals lost to indecision were reduced by 10%, which means your win rate increased by 10%? What if that was 20%?
Want to implement the Jolt training outlined above? Get in touch and book a free consultation.