The most formidable competitor faced by B2B marketing and sales professionals is not usually a company that provides an alternative product or service, but rather the processes or solutions that their prospects are already using, i.e. the status quo. Most companies record a “loss” to the status quo as a no decision, and research shows that no decisions are a prominent feature in the B2B demand generation landscape.
The 2015 Sales Performance Optimization survey by CSO Insights revealed that between 20% and 28% of forecast deals result in no decision. Note that these percentages refer to forecast deals – sales opportunities that were sufficiently “mature” to be included in revenue projections for a specific fiscal period. Taking a broader view, Sales Benchmark Index has estimated that 58% of the typical sales pipeline will stall or result in no decision…
