The Hidden Cost of Waiting

My daughter, Bree’s “side hustle” is a community she created called Get to Not Have To. Her philosophy is change comes from an attitude of gratitude. You “get” to do something, rather than “have” to do something.

What she’s discovered is that people rarely change unless the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of changing. Please read that again.

The pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of changing.

That’s human nature.

I see this all the time with clients, with sellers and even with leaders. I was working with a seller recently who was frustrated about a proposal that had gone dark. The client liked the idea. The numbers made sense. The proposal addressed a real business challenge. Yet weeks had passed with no decision.

Wrong strategy?
Wrong station?
Too much money?

None of those.

Not enough pain.

When the seller finally reached the prospect, the response was familiar: “We’re still talking about it.” Translation: nothing had happened. We’ve all been there.

As salespeople, we often assume our biggest competitor is another company, another station, another agency or another seller. Sometimes that’s true. More often, our biggest competitor is something far more difficult to overcome:

Nothing.

Behavioral economists call it status quo bias. Researchers William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser found that people naturally prefer maintaining their current situation, even when better options are available.

Think about how often you’ve seen it. A business owner knows their marketing isn’t producing results. A manager knows their team needs training. A company knows its website is outdated. A retailer knows customer traffic is declining.

Yet months pass or sometimes years. It is not because they don’t recognize the problem. Change feels risky and staying the same doesn’t “hurt” enough.

Psychologists have found that people tend to fear losses more than they value gains. The possibility of making a bad decision often feels more threatening than the possibility of making a good one. As a result, doing nothing becomes the safest emotional choice.

That’s where this gets interesting for salespeople. When prospects say:

• “We’re not ready.”
• “We need more time.”
• “We’ll revisit this next quarter.”

Those statements may not be objections at all. They may simply be symptoms of status quo bias. The challenge isn’t that your prospect prefers a competitor. The challenge is that they haven’t become uncomfortable enough with the cost of staying where they are.

Great salespeople don’t spend all their time talking about solutions. They ask questions that help prospects confront the future. Questions that start with, “What would happen, if?” Here are five to get you started with that client who has been ghosting you:

1. What happens if nothing changes?
2. What happens if customer traffic continues to decline?
3. What happens if recruiting challenges persist?
4. What happens if competitors continue gaining market share?
5. What happens if another six months passes?

Notice what those questions do: they move the conversation from your solution to their situation. That's the whole game. Those aren’t pressure questions. They’re reality questions. The goal isn’t to create fear. The goal is to create clarity. Because every decision carries a cost, including the decision to do nothing.

In fact, doing nothing is often the most expensive choice a customer can make because the pain accumulates slowly and rarely appears on a single monthly P & L statement. Status quo bias whispers, “Things aren’t that bad.”

My daughter was right. People rarely change until the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of changing. The best salespeople understand they aren’t competing against another seller. They’re competing against comfort - against familiarity, against the belief that tomorrow will somehow be different than today.

If you want to help customers make better decisions, spend less time talking about the value of your solution and more time helping them understand the cost of waiting.

Your biggest competitor may not be the company across town. It may be the prospect’s decision to do nothing at all.

Think Big, Make Big Things Happen!

Jeff Schmidt is the SVP of Professional Development. You can reach him at Jeff.Schmidt@RAB.com. You can also connect with him on X, YouTube, and LinkedIn.