If you had to pick one (and ONLY ONE) obstacle to single out as the biggest challenge/hurdle/culprit/excuse of deals not making it over the line in 2023, what would it be?
(and why did you pick that?)
Elimination of budget is #1. With companies tightening their belts in unprecedented ways, the drastic decrease in budget simply vaporizes opportunities that were once there.
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Same here. Budget. Renewals harder than ever. Never mind new business. If the money just isn’t there, it feels like my hands are tied.
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Budget scrutiny along with mass layoffs derailing deals, too many examples in the past year of deals falling apart because key stakeholders are let go.
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Line of business executives not understanding the new constraints around budget and spend available to them. Previously a lot of these folks have been able to spend considerably more without scrutiny and have not yet adjusted to the new paradigm of CFO power
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The amount of intenral and external noise in the workplace that has kept key decision makers focused on following through with the sale. This has always been an issue but seems to be more acute the past nine months. Customers concerns about a possible recession, layoffs in B2B and B2C companies, issues about getting employees back to the office have made it harder to get key decision makers to commit. The book “Jolt” has been a good resource about how to better handle the challenges above.
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People were slower to champion new ideas as the political risk was much greater for a bad decision or average results vs in years past.
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Getting through procurement when landing a new account in financial services.
I would say, the overall inertia in decision-making circles: when businesses are super careful with the existing expenses, it is safer not to rock the boat and say “not now” to any changes, small or big, simple or complex. Breaking through this state is quite difficult and time consuming.
Economic uncertainty is creating headwinds as companies look to tighten their budgets and delay new spending
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Recession, No Recession. Which is it? Too many companies are using this as an excuse to not move forward with plans because they don’t know what is going to happen. Yet the best time to be planning and preparing for the future is when the economy is down or when it is humming along. Which means the best time is always now! When good times come back, you’re ready. If they keep on humming, you’re ready. I see a theme. Be ready!
Hm? For me, it would have to be getting through Procurement and all the redlining that is taking place, especially with the economic downturn. CFO’s are looking very closely at every dollar and Procurement is being asked to review every character of verbiage within a document. If there’s anything that would slow down an opportunity and become the bottleneck in 2023, it’s getting past the CFO and through Procurement.
Similar to what others have said but for me it showed up as not investing in new strategic initiatives because the mandate is to wait and watch.
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Not necessarily related to getting deals over the line (I am not in a closing role), but has definitely been more of a struggle to get people engaged due to lack of budget and lower appetite for risk. Having a strong business case and framing what a win looks like for your champion feels more important than ever
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