How likely is your customer to take action?

One of the most significant mistakes any sales person can make is to assume that their prospective customer is inevitably going to buy something, and that the only remaining questions are what, when, and who from.
Some purchases are admittedly inevitable – for example when an organisation needs to guarantee a source of raw materials for an essential process. But the vast majority of business purchases are discretionary in some way or another.
It’s no wonder that – according to a wide range of research – the most common outcome of a potential B2B buying exercise is actually a decision to “do nothing” and to stick with the status quo.
Selling against the status quo
You’d think it obvious, wouldn’t you, that any credible sales proposal ought to promote the need to take action as well as promoting the distinctive advantages of the vendor and their recommended solution?
And yet