Why Buying Teams Postpone or Stop Decisions
Develop a strategy to call on accounts at all levels.
In every selling opportunity, multiple buying influences shape the decision. Each of them faces a different kind of risk. When a salesperson understands these risks and proactively addresses them, the sale moves forward with clarity and confidence. When they ignore them, the decision team hesitates, stalls, or defaults to no decision. Winning complex sales is not only about value, it is also about reducing perceived risk across the entire buying landscape.
1. The User or Worker
Their Risk: The User worries about practicality. Will this solution make their job easier or harder? Will it disrupt workflow? Will it require new skills? Their risks are operational and personal: productivity, frustration, workload, and reputation on the shop floor or in the field.If you do not address their risks, users become quiet blockers. They may not veto the sale outright, but they can subtly sour the conversation by raising concerns internally. Their hesitation creates friction that can slow or derail momentum.
2. The Technical Influence
Their Risk: The Technical Buyer cares about compliance, standards, integration, and long-term fit. They carry the burden of compatibility, safety, maintenance, and regulatory risk. If your solution introduces complexity or violates standards, they are accountable.If you do not address their risks, they put up roadblocks, sometimes politely, sometimes firmly. Missing their requirements often forces the opportunity into endless analysis, additional testing, or outright rejection. A single unaddressed technical concern can override strong interest from every other influencer.
3. The Economic Buyer
Their Risk: This is the individual responsible for budget, financial ROI, and overall organizational impact. Their risk is strategic. They need to be sure they are spending money wisely and that their investment improves results. They must protect margin, efficiency, and resources.If you do not address their risks, decisions stall at the final mile. Even enthusiastic support from the rest of the team cannot overcome financial ambiguity. The deal stalls or is overtaken by a competing priority with a more understandable business case.
4. The Coach or Champion
Their Risk: The Coach or champion stakes their internal credibility on you. They are advocating for your solution because they believe in the value and in you personally. Their risk is political, visibility, influence, and perception among peers and leadership.If you do not address their risks, they pull back. Champions become fragile when they lack evidence, messaging, or tools to defend the solution. Without support, they may disengage, lose internal influence, or, worst of all, shift their advocacy to a competitor who equips them better.
The Real Risk Is Indifference. Most deals do not die because of price, competition, or features. They die because the salesperson failed to understand what each buying influence fears. When you uncover and directly address the risks each buying role faces, you transform the sale from a product comparison into a confident, low-risk decision that the entire buying team can support.
Winning complex B2B sales is not only about presenting value. It is about eliminating the personal, technical, operational, and political risks that stand between desire and decision. When you master that, you become a trusted advisor, not just another vendor.
