A Decision to Not Make a Decision Is Still a Decision

By Cal Thomas, Sandler Training
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David Sandler emphasized this classic definition so often that it’s fair to say he considered it to be of central importance to the Sandler Selling System. While his idea may sound a bit confusing to you the very first time you encounter it, if you follow it through, you will find that it makes perfect sense. In fact, this simple Sandler guideline often serves as the last word when it comes to deciding whether you have a “live” prospect – or a “dead” lead.

THINK OF IT THIS WAY . . .
You’ve worked hard to help this potential client identify and quantify a pain that exists in their world. Together, you’ve created the necessary budget to make that pain go away. This potential client has agreed up-front to make a decision once you presented your solution – but then avoid making a decision as they had originally promised, without explanation or insight.

What has this potential client told you about their level of commitment?

Either the prospect is willing to operate within the contract you have both agreed to, or he or she is not.

Either the prospect wants to support the business relationship you have spent your precious time, attention, and energy creating, or he or she does not.
If the prospect chooses not to make a decision after having made a personal commitment to do so, and won’t give you any information about why, that really is a decision! It’s a decision not to work with you.

And you know what? That’s okay.

Understand what has happened and make a sound decision of your own: the decision to either (1) identify the roadblock or (2) move on and invest your time with another prospective buyer.

The one in our example is, for now, a dead lead. Could the lead come back to life? Maybe. Is that really what matters most right now? Is it possible that it’s more important that you stop anticipating income from this discussion… and start developing some other opportunity?

David Mattson, Sandler CEO and President, shared this definition of a decision in his latest book:

“We can’t fool ourselves into thinking that a failure on the buyer’s side to make a decision is a good thing. We can’t tell ourselves that it’s simply a delay we can wait out. We have to assume that it’s a bad thing, unless we get a clear understanding of why the decision is being postponed and what, if anything, needs to happen in order for our sales process to move forward. Sometimes, decisions are being made, but the buyer is just not telling us about those decisions. Sometimes there are internal obstacles to moving the sale forward, but we don’t know about them yet. And sometimes the buyer has put the whole idea of buying anything from anyone on hold, but they’re too polite to tell us that. In all of these situations, we want to find out what’s really going on. Our mindset should be, ‘Why can’t we make this decision? What’s going on to keep us from moving forward? Something is happening.’ If we can’t figure out what that something is, it’s a strategic mistake on our part to assume that everything is lined up for us—that the more time passes, the closer we will be to closing the deal. As a strategic and statistical reality, we have to assume that the opposite is true.”
— Excerpt from, How to Sell to The Modern Buyer: 52 Sandler Rules for Sales Success

MOVE ON

Understanding your leads this way is part of your job. If they don’t make a decision, and you can’t figure out why they won’t make a decision, you have to assume that they’ve decided not to work with you. Move on.

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