What is the Risk to do Nothing?

I often talk to founders and VPs of Sales about the risk/reward equation as it pertains to prospective customers. Both for the prospects business as well as for them personally. After 20 years in building startups, it still surprises me when I get empty stares when I ask them “What is the cost/risk of doing nothing?” Sometimes they understand it and reinforce it in the sales cycle. But 99% of the time they only talk about  risk/reward at the company level, not for  the buyer himself/herself. They're thinking about “what is the value/opportunity vs risk for the business" rather then "what is the value opp vs risk for the buyer himself/herself."

 That’s not good enough. And it isn’t close either. Not in a startup. Not as you scale. Not when it's postscale.

 People think I’m terms of “me” first when it comes to business. Before a buyer makes any decision to buy or not, irregardless of if it’s good for the company, they think “is it good for me?” “What is the risk to me to do it and what is the risk to me to not do it”. And that’s the battle you’re fighting. The perceived risk in not doing it has to overcome the risk to do it.

 I’m not saying you should sell on risk exclusively. The value and opportunity has to be prescient. But the fact remains that “do nothing” is gonna be the default decision until your company and category reaches a certain level of maturity. Opportunity and risk needs to be present at all times.

 We will get to how to layer the risk/reward equation in at both levels into your sales process later. But the sooner you start thinking about it the sooner you will gain a lot more control over your outcomes.