A few years ago I detected a strange pattern – a sinking feeling in my gut.

I noticed that whenever I was waiting on a ‘verdict’ from a potential customer, I lost the deal.

“We have a final budget review meeting on Tuesday where my boss is going to make a decision. I’ll let you know on Wednesday what we decide.”

While some might get excited over those words, I dread them.

I found that a disproportionate amount of the time the decision went against my favor.

This wasn’t true when closing SaaS deals.

I noticed the same thing when raising our first round of funding.

I noticed it again when recruiting people to be on my team.

Whenever I had a great candidate that I was trying to recruit say something like this, I usually lost that candidate:

“Thanks Chris. I’m making my final decision on where to work next by Friday. Can I call you then and let you know what I decide?”

Music to some’s ears.

After all, they’re making a decision!

And they’ve given you nothing but positive signs!

But trust me when I say this:

If you’re passively awaiting a verdict like that, take it as a bad sign.

Unless you do something, you’re almost certainly going to lose it whenever the dynamic is “Final decision meeting is on Monday. I’ll let you know then.”

Now.

You might be thinking about your recently lost deals and saying to yourself:

“Damn Chris, you’re right! I lost 8 out of 10 deals where I was ‘awaiting a verdict!’”

If that’s you, then your next thought is probably this:

“So what do I do in that situation so I don’t lose the deal?”

Follow a simple rule I rolled out to my sales team last week:

Don’t await the verdict. Influence the verdict.

Whenever I’m in a pipeline review, any time I hear one of my AEs in a situation where they’re awaiting a verdict, my next question to them is this:

“How can we move from awaiting the verdict to influencing the verdict?”

Here’s a few examples of what that looks like:

Example 1:

Buyer: “I’ve got a final meeting with my CFO to get budget for this on Friday. I should have an answer after that.”

Instead of just waiting around until Friday afternoon where your weekend will promptly be ruined by the bad news, say this:

“As you can imagine, I’ve helped a few dozen of my other customers sell this internally to their CFO, so I’ve seen this movie before. MInd if we find 30 minutes before the meeting putting a one-page business case together?I can bring some of the angles that worked in the past.”

Perfect.

Now you’re not passively awaiting the verdict.

You’re taking the bull by the horns and influencing the verdict.

Trust me when I say this, you will win a lot more of these when you approach it like this.

Ok… Here’s one more:

Example 2:

Your buyer tells you this:

“I’m reviewing all of my notes between the vendors I’ve reviewed and I’ll be making my final decision on Tuesday.”

This one’s harder than example 1.

Why? You had a champion in your corner in the first example.

But this? You’re dealing with a coy buyer.

So what do you say?

“I can understand that, and I have to ask: If you learned nothing new between now and Tuesday, what would you decide and why?”

A tad on the aggressive side?

Sure.

But now you’re getting them to respond with something you can work with.

Instead of just passively responding with, “Ok… Talk Tuesday…!”

You can instead further inform and influence their thinking based on how they respond.

Are you getting this? 

Are you seeing the difference?

If you’re awaiting a verdict, you are an ‘effect,’ you are not a ‘cause.’

But.

If you’re influencing a verdict, you are a cause, not an effect.

You’re influencing things to happen instead of letting things happen to you.

Big difference.

As I reflect on the last decade selling SaaS, recruiting people, and even raising capital, I’ve found this to be true:

You will lose roughly 8 out of 10 deals where you’re passively ‘awaiting’ a verdict.

Navigate your deals accordingly.