“I close 90% of the qualified buyers I talk to.”
When I hear a B2B salesperson say that, I don’t hear excellence. I hear a confession.
I hear a rep who is skimming the cream off the top. I hear a rep who is only closing the “lay-ups,” the qualified leads who were already looking, already convinced, and basically walked in with their checkbook open.
That is order taking.
Table of Contents
If your closing rate is astronomically high, it usually means your funnel is dangerously narrow. You are closing layups, usually those that are referred and the pre-sold.
Real sales pros—the top 10% who consistently crush quotas—don’t just close the easy ones. They excel at closing the “wavering middle.”
On one end of the sales prospecting spectrum, you have the “buy now” crowd represented by dark gray, while on the other end, you have those that will never buy. In between, you have different shades of gray between “where have you been all my life” and “get lost.” Those that have the highest incomes can close deeper into the shades of gray than most.
These are qualified leads. They have a problem you can solve. They have the money. But they are hesitant. They are undecided. They are stuck on the fence. They have questions. They may not understand their options. This group is known as the “wavering middle,” or the fence sitters.
The average rep lets these opportunities drift into the abyss of “maybe” and “call me back later.” Pros qualify leads, guiding them to a decision or setting follow-up times if they are worthwhile.
The conventional wisdom in B2B sales often pushes reps to “find the pain.” The implication is that if the prospect doesn’t scream in agony or share their full thoughts right away, they aren’t a buyer. So, the rep moves on, looking for the next “lay-up.”
This is not what the most successful do.
The Reality of the “Wavering Middle”
Most of your market isn’t in active “buy mode.” At any given time, only about 15% to 18% of your high-probability targets are “in play”—meaning they will purchase or change vendors within the next 3 to 15 months.
The rest? They are in the wavering middle. They are the qualified buyers who don’t yet fully understand their needs or your value.
These prospects are comfortable. They have a vendor. It might not be perfect, but it’s familiar. They are busy. They have 20 other projects on their plate.
If you approach these prospects with a standard “do you want to buy?” sales pitch, they will shut you down. They will tell you they are “all set.” And if you believe them, you lose.
The order taker accepts “we’re all set” as a fact. The sales pro recognizes it as a knee-jerk reaction to a disruption and knows that the real sale begins right there.
The Psychology of the Fence Sitter in B2B Sales
To close the wavering middle, you have to understand why they are wavering.
It is rarely about your product features or even your price. It is about risk.
Studies show that between 40% and 60% of B2B sales opportunities result in no decision. The prospect doesn’t choose a competitor; they choose to do nothing.
Why? Because buyers fear making a mistake more than they fear missing out on a potentially superior solution.
They fear the hassle of transition, often called transition risk. They fear looking bad to their boss if the new vendor screws up. They fear the unknown. The status quo, even if it’s mediocre, feels safe.
You are not just competing against the other vendor down the street. You are competing against inertia. You are competing against the “do nothing” option.
If you want to win this battle, being “nice” won’t cut it. You need a sales process that disrupts their comfort zone.
Strategy 1: Rub Salt in the Wound
This sounds harsh. It is not. It is professional.
Think of a doctor. If you go to a doctor with a vague pain in your shoulder, and the doctor just glances at it and prescribes aspirin, you might feel dismissed. But if the doctor presses on the injury, moves your arm to find the limit of your range of motion, and finds the exact spot that hurts—that hurts.
But that pain is necessary for a diagnosis.
To win the wavering middle, you must do the same. You must strengthen their perception of their own need by uncovering their pain points.
Many prospects view their current problems as minor annoyances. “Yeah, our vendor is late sometimes, but we manage.” “Yeah, our software is slow, but we’re used to it.”
If they view the problem as a minor annoyance, they will never buy. You must help them realize it is a critical issue that requires a solution.
You do this by asking consequence questions:
- “If that shipment is late again, what does that do to your production schedule?”
- “How much management time is being wasted fixing these billing errors every month?”
- “If that risk isn’t mitigated, what is the exposure to the company?”
You must educate them—sometimes uncomfortably—about the hidden costs of staying put. You are not being mean; you are acting in their best interest. This is proactive selling. If there is a looming problem they are ignoring, you are the professional who helps them see it.
Strategy 2: Create Contrast or Lose to “No Decision”
If a buyer cannot see a distinct difference between working with you and their current situation, the safest decision is to do nothing.
Order takers rely on generalities. “We have great service.” “We have high quality.” “We are experienced.”
These are meaningless fluff words. Everyone says them. They create zero contrast.
To close the wavering middle, you must use contrast selling. You need to position your solution against the status quo with specifics.
- Don’t say: “We have better service.”
- Say: “Clients like MegaCorp chose us because we reduced their downtime by 12% and eliminated unplanned expenses, which means blah blah blah”.
- Don’t say: “We have experience.”
- Say: “We have managed 30,000 moves for 500 companies in the last year alone”.
Specifics sell. Generalities repel. The wavering prospect needs specifics to justify the risk of change. If you don’t provide it, they will stay right where they are.
Strategy 3: The Value Exchange (Your Sales Pitch for the Meeting)
When you are trying to get a fence sitter to commit to a discovery call or a next step, you must offer a fair value exchange.
Most reps pitch the meeting like this: “I’d like to meet to learn about your business and see if we can help you.” (Weak, meaningless, and a refuge for the unprepared.)
Translation: “I want to interrogate you for 30 minutes so I can try to sell you something.”
That is a terrible deal for the prospect. They take all the risk (wasting time) and get zero guaranteed rewards. No wonder they waver.
To win the middle, you must offer value at the meeting, offer value at every step, regardless of whether they buy.
The Sales Script Shift: Instead of asking for time to “learn about them,” offer to “share what’s working for others.”
“I’d like to introduce ourselves and share specific examples and strategies other companies in your industry have used to reduce delivery times and cut costs. Even if we aren’t a fit, you’ll walk away with some ideas on how to benchmark your current process. Is that worth some time?”
Now the meeting is a resource, not a sales pitch. You have lowered the barrier to entry. You have given the wavering prospect a logical reason to say “yes” that doesn’t require a commitment to buy yet. This is effective lead nurturing in action.
Strategy 4: Using Lead Qualification for Future Revenue
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the answer is still “not now.”
The order taker hangs up and marks the lead as “dead.” The sales pro knows that “not now” is often code for “call me in 6 months when this contract expires.”
But if you just guess when to call back, you are gambling. You need to know exactly when they will be back in the market.
This is where the “Magic Question” comes in, a cornerstone of any effective sales follow-up strategy.
When a qualified prospect shuts you down or says they are all set, you respond with professional persistence:
“That’s fine. I don’t want to be on your back, but we do an awful lot of this. Could you suggest a time for me to be back in touch?”
It sounds simple. It is. But it is psychologically powerful.
- It respects their “no.”
- It asserts your validity (“we do a lot of this”).
- It asks them to tell you when to sell to them.
About 50% of the people who provide a time frame will eventually book a meeting. These are future sales. But you only get them if you have the guts to ask the question today. Calculate your closing rate, average sale, and commission, then calculate how much the magic question, one stupid simple question, will put into your pocket.
Stop Skimming: Build a Step by Step Sales Process
If you want to move from the middle of the pack to the top 10%, you have to learn how to sell deeper into the wavering middle.
The wavering middle is where skill gets paid.
- Stop accepting “we’re all set” as a final answer.
- Stop fearing the discomfort of digging for pain points.
- Stop using generic pitches that create no contrast.
Build a step by step sales process that identifies the wavering middle, educates them on the cost of their inaction, and leads them safely to a decision.
You are not there to take orders. You are there to change minds.
This is the essence of sales psychology and successful client engagement.
