Overcoming Sales Obstacles: How to Fix “No Need, No Money, No Hurry, No Desire, No Trust”
Deals don’t usually die at the close. They die quietly and early, when your process leaves gaps you don’t see until the end of the quarter. Zig Ziglar named the five killers: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust. Most teams treat these as objections. They’re not. They’re diagnostics. If you want to start overcoming sales obstacles, fix the upstream issues that create them.
I’ve rebuilt a lot of SMB B2B sales teams. When we start treating these five as “process failures” instead of “rebuttals,” close rates climb, cycles shorten, and the forecast stops lying. Here’s how to do it.
Sales Obstacle #1 – “No Need“: You Haven’t Quantified the Cost of the Problem
If a prospect doesn’t feel real pain, your deal is a nice-to-have. That’s when meetings go “great” and nothing happens.
What’s broken: Discovery that collects facts but never puts a price on the status quo. Reps can describe the problem but can’t prove it’s expensive.
Fix it: In discovery, anchor on impact. Ask questions that surface measurable consequences: lost revenue, wasted labor hours, scrap, rework, missed SLAs, risk exposure. Turn that into simple math: “This is costing you about $42,000 per quarter.” When the problem has a number, it becomes a priority.
What to watch weekly: Percentage of opportunities with a quantified problem statement logged by Stage 2. If it’s not in the CRM, it didn’t happen.
Sales Obstacle #2 – “No Money“: You Waited Too Long to Talk Budget
Late-stage sticker shock isn’t a price problem. It’s a timing problem.
What’s broken: Reps “earn the right” to discuss money only after a demo. Then the buyer reveals a ceiling that sits 40% below your proposal.
Fix it: Normalize budget early. Use language that respects reality:
“On projects like this, clients invest between X and Y depending on scope. If we’re in that range, should we keep going?”
Pair it with options: a good, better, best model that ties price to outcomes, not features. And capture where the funds come from and when they reset.
What to watch weekly: Budget field completion by Stage 2, win rate by budget fit, and discount rate trend. If you’re discounting to win, you didn’t position value soon enough.
Sales Obstacle #3 – “No Hurry”: You Didn’t Create a Compelling Event
“Let’s revisit next quarter” means the status quo is safer than the change you’re proposing.
What’s broken: You’re selling benefits in general terms, not consequences of delay in specific terms.
Fix it: Tie your solution to a date the buyer already cares about: peak season, contract renewals, fiscal cutoffs, launch windows, compliance deadlines. Build a Mutual Action Plan (See FAQ) with milestones and owners, so the timeline isn’t yours…it’s ours. Show the cost of slippage in dollars and opportunity.
What to watch weekly: Stage age, number of deals with an agreed MAP, and slipped-close count. If deals float month to month, you don’t have a plan; you have hope.
Sales Obstacle #4 – “No Desire“: You Never Connected to Personal Wins
Businesses buy with logic. People buy with emotion. If you miss the personal “why,” you get polite interest and zero momentum.
What’s broken: You connected your solution to company outcomes, not to the personal wins of the champion and the economic buyer.
Fix it: Map the before/after story at the human level. “With this in place, your team gets their Fridays back. You get accurate forecasts. You stop firefighting.” Bring proof moments early: quick demos that land one meaningful outcome, micro-pilots that create a fast win, and customer stories from the same industry. The job is to make the future feel real.
What to watch weekly: Meeting-to-next-step rate and second-meeting acceptance. If the story lands, momentum shows up.
Sales Obstacle #5 – “No Trust“: You Sold Alone
Trust isn’t built by clever handling. It’s built by consistency, transparency, and multi-threading.
What’s broken: One champion, one relationship. When your champion goes on vacation, your deal goes with them. Or procurement shows up late with a committee that’s never met you.
Fix it: Multi-thread by design. Three stakeholders, three angles: user pain, economic impact, risk/security. Share the warts and what can go wrong and how you mitigate it. Put real customers in the room early. And be predictable: crisp recaps, clear next steps, on-time follow-through. Reliability is the shortest path to trust.
What to watch weekly: Average contacts per opportunity, reference usage, and time between meetings. Thin threading is the first leading indicator of surprise losses.
Make It Stick: Turn Sales Obstacles Into a Manager’s Operating System
High-performing teams don’t “remember” all this. They operate it.
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Code your deals: Tag every stalled deal with NN, NM, NH, ND, or NT. Review by code, not by story. Stories hide problems; codes expose patterns.
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Run real deal reviews: One problem, one plan, one owner, one date. No tourism.
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Enforce pipeline hygiene: Advance or kill. Stagnant deals pollute energy and forecasts.
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Hold the rhythm: Weekly team meeting, weekly 1:1s, MAP checkpoints, and a simple scorecard: quantified pain rate, budget capture rate, stage age, contacts per deal, slip count.
When you coach to these numbers, your team stops chasing maybe’s and starts building momentum deal by deal.
Where Fractional Sales Management Helps
If you don’t have the bandwidth to install this operating system to tackle sales obstacles, that’s exactly where Transformative Sales Systems plugs in. We stand up the process, coach the team, run the cadence, and make the numbers move. You get leadership without the full-time overhead, and your team gets clarity, accountability, and wins.
Quick Reference: The Obstacle Code
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NN – No Need: Quantify the cost of the problem.
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NM – No Money: Normalize budget early and give options.
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NH – No Hurry: Tie outcomes to a real date and build a MAP.
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ND – No Desire: Tell the before/after story and land proof early.
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NT – No Trust: Multi-thread and be relentlessly reliable.
Print this. Bring it to every deal review. You’ll start seeing patterns you can actually fix.
FAQ
What’s the difference between “need” and “desire”?
Need keeps the business running…pain, risk, or performance gaps that cost money now. Desire is ambition, the better future people want. You win consistently when you connect both.
How do I create urgency without discounting?
Tie delay to a cost buyers already accept: deadlines, seasonality, renewals, compliance, or lost productivity. Then build a Mutual Action Plan so the path is concrete, not conceptual.
When should budget come up?
By the second conversation. Early transparency avoids late-stage surprises and lets you shape scope to value instead of haggling over price.
What is a Mutual Action Plan?
A shared checklist of milestones, owners, and dates. It turns “we’ll think about it” into “here’s what we both do next.”
How can a fractional sales manager help?
By installing the process, coaching the reps, and running the weekly rhythm until it’s habit. Most SMB teams don’t lack effort; they lack a system and a leader to enforce it.
Ready to Overcome Your Sales Obstacles?
If you’re seeing the same blockers quarter after quarter, let’s do a 20-minute Sales Obstacle Audit. We’ll identify your top two obstacles and give you a 30-day plan to fix them. If you want help executing, my team at Transformative Sales Systems can lead the charge.
Schedule a call and let’s turn “stalled” into “closed.”
Transformative Sales Systems
812-924-7085
Schedule a 30 minute meeting: https://calendly.com/anthony-nicks/30min
Learn more about Fractional Sales Management at https://transformativesalessystems.com/sales-leadership/
Read more about Fractional Sales Management: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLWSXX5D