Competition comes in all shapes and sizes today; direct, indirect, and disruptive; however, there is another internal competitor in our midst – indecision. This sales trend is about the new stagnancy – procrastination culminating in no decision. We are seeing global buying decisions taking a lot longer. Most global sales organizations try to implement key account sales programs which gets more people involved from both the buy and sell side. There are on average 5.4 buyers involved in a new supplier decision. Decision by committee add, on average, 20% more time to the decision making process. Frequently their decisions are postponed ad infinitum. Buyer indecision making (my new Wikipedia word) has become more commonplace and acceptable. There lacks a sense of urgency to change. Why is “indecision making” a growing trend in business? Information overload. There is so much information available to buyers today-the oft quoted statistic is that they have 80% of the information required to make a decision prior to seeing a sales rep. With information comes choice and without proper guidelines and filters in place to guide decision making, too much information and too many choices can lead to indecision. Data then needs to be compiled....and sometimes resurfaces in the corporate limbo. The general causes of information overload include:
What are the by-products of information overload?
How as suppliers do we overcome decision inertia? We need to know our product offering, business, markets, and customers inside and out to present viable solutions for effective decision making. If our clients are indecisive then we need to:
There is no one right solution anymore. There are options and each comes with the various benefits and risks. It’s how we help prospective customers decide what is best for their situation now and moving forward that will help them make a difference. This is how true Business Development should work. Good selling!
5 Comments
Bhavana Raina
24/4/2016 09:17:00
Agree...Information overload, too many people in decision making and too many choices leading to delays. Sales person has to be a good consultant to the buyer to help ease out the process...and the inevitable use of Big Data and Data Analytics is probably the obvious choice.
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JIm Thomas
24/4/2016 10:31:20
Bhavana
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3/1/2017 04:45:00
I was surfing net and fortunately came across this site and found very interesting stuff here.
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21/4/2018 07:14:34
I appreciate your commentary. Please send me your e-mail address and I will send the monthly blog by MailChimp
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