No background in strategic sales or lack a clear roadmap of what it takes to manage a deal process to close. It’s akin to flying a plane with no training—eventually, you're bound to crash. Without understanding how to steer a deal from interest to signed contract, there is a significant risk of failure, wasted resources, and missed opportunities.

Root Cause: No practical know-how of managing multiple stages—discovery, qualification, proposal, negotiation, and close.

Sales isn’t just about charisma or pitching a great product. It's a multi-layered discipline requiring numerous skills, including stakeholder management, consultative selling, deal qualification, and consensus building. Often you don’t know what you don’t know about the critical skills that could make or break the deal.

Root Cause: Without sales experience, you may not recognise the importance of structured methodologies like MEDDPICC, SPIN, or Challenger that guide complex sales so fail to manage the buyer journey effectively.

Strategic sales typically take many months. Without experience getting impatient or losing focus on the next best action, leads to lost momentum and poor deal management. Failing to execute long-term follow-up, nurture relationships, or align with the buyer’s timeline and strategic priorities, often letting deals slip away.

Root Cause: Not understanding that enterprise deals are long and require persistence, strategic communication, and ongoing engagement to stay alive. Without clear next steps and ongoing engagement strategies, deals fizzle out.

Selling to enterprise means selling to a group, not an individual. You may not realise that to close a deal, you need to navigate a complex network of influencers, detractors, champion(s), decision-makers, and gatekeepers. This requires multi-threading—building relationships with various stakeholders across departments.

Root Cause: Sales approached as though selling to one person, failing to gain consensus across the buying committee. Without building multiple relationships, deals stall, delay, or die without knowing why.

Failing to create a compelling case for urgency. They don't know how to quantify the cost of inaction or build a strong business case to justify the investment. This makes it easy for buyers to delay or deprioritise their solution.

Root Cause: Relying on product features instead of focusing on solving key business problems that impede goal achievement. Failing to link solution to the buyer’s strategic initiatives, making the deal less compelling.

Even experienced sellers struggle in today’s saturated market where SaaS teams, often with hundreds of sales reps, are fighting for the same buyer’s attention. You're are up against massive competition—not only for deals but even for initial meetings. With buyers overwhelmed by both external & internal options, breaking through the noise is harder than ever.

Root Cause: Underestimating the sheer volume of competitors and the noise in the market, thinking that a strong product will sell itself. Being unaware that securing a meeting, let alone closing a deal, requires precise, tailored messaging, value alignment and execution.

Founders face an even tougher challenge when their product is new and lacks market validation. Without an established brand or customer base, it becomes exponentially harder to build trust with potential buyers. Buyers are naturally risk-averse, and an unproven product is seen as a potential risk rather than an opportunity.

Root Cause: Not prepared to overcome buyer objections related to risk. Without sales experience failing to de-risk the product in the eyes of the buyer by providing customer success stories, case studies, or detailed ROI projections.