Too Many Cooks in the Deal: How to Sell to a Buying Committee

Good Morning. Today is National Awesomeness Day, which is basically every day on LinkedIn if you believe every post you read. Everyone's "crushing it," "grateful for the journey," and "excited to announce" something. Meanwhile, I’m 40% to quota with two weeks left in the quarter. And that’s the beauty of Sales. Some days you feel awesome. Most days, you have no idea where your next deal is going to come from. That's just how it goes. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

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In 1968, psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané ran an experiment where participants overheard someone having a seizure over an intercom.

When a participant was alone, 85% rushed to help.

But when they were in a group, only 31% did.

Researchers call it the Bystander Effect: the more people present, the less likely any single person is to take action. Everyone assumes someone else will do it.

That same dynamic could be playing out in your pipeline right now.

CEB surveyed 3,000 B2B stakeholders and found the average deal involves 5.4 decision makers. With one decision maker, purchase likelihood sits at 81%. Add five more people, and it drops to 31%.

The math is pretty brutal. Every stakeholder you add makes it less likely that anyone will say yes.

Which means the deals sitting stalled in your pipeline right now might be because nobody feels like it's their job to make the call.

Here’s three ways to fix that.

In every buying committee, there's usually one person who loses sleep over the problem you solve.

It could be the CFO who's watching costs bleed. The VP of Ops who's fielding complaints from their team every week. Or the director who just got tasked with fixing the exact thing your product addresses. Whoever’s feeling the most pain, that's your champion.

That person is the one who can push the deal forward when everyone else is comfortable doing nothing.

In your next discovery call, ask each stakeholder what happens if they don't solve this problem in the next 90 days.

The one who can give you a specific, painful answer is probably the person you want to build your deal around.

Note: Your champion might not be the person who ‘owns’ the decision or signs the contract. That’s ok. They’re the ones who can sell to the decision ‘owner’ for you.

Once you've identified your champion, your job is to enable them to sell for you.

They're the ones sitting in internal meetings you'll never be invited to, and making the case to their team. Give them everything they need to do that.

This could be things like:

The goal is to make your champion look smart in every internal conversation that happens without you in the room.

Because when you help someone look great in front of their team, they'll go to bat for you.

Buying committees don't respond to your timeline.

"Our pricing expires Friday" feels like fake pressure, and you don’t want to jeopardize your trust with the committee.

But on the other hand, they do respond to their own deadlines.

This could be a budget cycle that closes at the end of the quarter, a compliance requirement kicking in next month, or a product launch that they need support with.

Find the external deadline that already exists and tie your deal to it.

Ask your champion: "When does this need to be resolved by on your end?" Then work backward from that date.

TLDR: The Bystander Effect doesn't mean people don't care about the decision, but it does mean they're waiting for someone to go first. Your job is to find that person and make it easy for them to lead the charge.

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley