In sales, it is common for customers to express interest in purchasing a product or service but ultimately fail to follow through, resulting in a lost deal. 

There are many reasons that can cause a stalled pipeline. In our previous blog post about cognitive biases, we talked about the impact of the status quo bias - people tend to stick with what they have and avoid changes, even if the changes may bring positive outcomes. Today we talk about another difficult obstacle for salespeople to overcome. That is the customer’s inability to make a decision.

Indecision is driven by another cognitive bias called the omission bias: people often evaluate an action more negatively than an omission (inaction), even if action and inaction lead to the same negative consequence. An “action” that leads to bad consequences seems more detrimental than “no action” that leads to the same outcome.

Here is an omission bias example:

• Scenario 1: Your customer is currently subscribed to an existing supply chain management platform. However, certain limitations of the current platform caused a loss of $150,000 in revenue by the end of the year. That was not a pleasant experience.

• Scenario 2: Your customer has their own supply chain management system. You tried to sell them your platform to replace their existing vendor. Trusting you, they decided to change their solution. However, this change caused a loss of $150,000 in revenue by the end of the year.

For most customers, Scenario 2 is much more stressful than Scenario 1 due to omission bias. 

Both the status quo bias and the omission bias can lead to stalled deals. However, it requires different tactics to deal with these two different biases:

• To overcome the status quo, it is about emphasizing the fear of not buying: “You will miss out on important things if you do not act.” 

• To overcome indecision, it is about removing the fear of buying: “It is safe to act. We’ve got you covered.”

The tricky part of identifying indecision is that buyers may not even know that they are struggling with decision-making. No one is going to openly admit that they are unable to make decisions. In order to find out the causes of indecision, salespeople can probe the most common causes and address them accordingly:

1. Are there too many options or features for clients to choose from?

2. Do they have too little knowledge about your offering?

3. Are they uncertain about the possible outcomes after the purchase?

For points 1 and 2, in a past blog post, we talked quite a bit about how not to overload customers with more information, which contributes to even greater indecision. Contrary to many sellers' beliefs, to move to a decision-making point, removing information from the buyer can be a good solution. After initial discovery calls, salespeople should be able to explicitly tell the customers which component to focus on, and salespeople should limit oversharing information beyond these focal areas. 

For point 3, going back to the core of omission bias, it is to deal with the fear of taking action. Salespeople should provide safety guarantees. For example, almost all car manufacturers have a minimum five years warranty. Many retail businesses have a refund and return policy. If you are able to create a sense of safety for the customers to make a purchase, it will be much easier to overcome the omission bias.