The Psychology Behind "We Need To Think About It"

Most salespeople hear “We need to think about it” and assume the buyer needs more time.

Usually, that’s not the real problem.

In this episode, we break down the psychology behind one of the most common — and misunderstood — phrases in sales. Because buyers rarely say what they’re actually thinking.

“We need to think about it” is often a polite way of saying:
• “I’m not fully convinced”
• “This feels risky”
• “I don’t know how to justify this internally”
• “I’m still uncertain”

You’ll learn why top salespeople don’t treat this as an objection-handling problem — they treat it as a certainty problem.

We cover:
• Why buyers delay decisions even when they like your solution
• The emotional drivers behind hesitation and indecision
• How weak discovery creates late-stage stalls
• The hidden role fear and internal politics play in B2B sales
• Questions elite sellers use to surface doubt early
• How to create urgency without pressure
• Why pushing harder usually makes buyers pull away

If you’ve ever had a deal that looked positive… only to suddenly stall, ghost, or disappear after “We’ll think about it,” this episode will help you understand what’s really happening beneath the surface.

Because most stalled deals aren’t information problems: They’re emotional certainty problems.

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If you have a sales problem you'd like covered in a future episode, contact Graham Elliott directly or learn more about Salescraft Training.

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Transcript

Why “Think About It” Happens

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Most salespeople think we need to think about it means the buyer needs more time. Usually it means they don't feel safe enough to move forward. And what's the dangerous part? Well, most buyers already know what they want before they say it. So, what we need to understand is that it's often the polite version of the buyer expressing uncertainty, it could be to do with internal politics, it could be the fear of making a mistake, or it might be that they're feeling pressure that they don't want to admit out loud. So, today in this podcast, I'm going to break down what buyers are actually thinking when they say it and how top salespeople prevent it before it ever happens. So most salespeople treat this as an objection handling problem, and this is the major

Objections Versus Proper Diagnosis

SPEAKER_00 0:46

mistake they're making because it's actually about diagnosis. So top salespeople elite sellers will treat it as a diagnosis problem. Because buyers rarely say I'm unconvinced, I don't trust this, I'm nervous about defending this internally. Instead, they say we need to think about it. The important thing to remember here is that people don't delay decisions because they need more information. They delay because they don't feel enough certainty, they don't feel safe enough. So we need to think about it. And what you have to remember is that more brochures rarely solve uncertainty, more pressure simply increases resistance. So the issue is about emotional safety, it isn't about missing information. Now, when you get, I don't fully trust this yet, this is because the buyer

The Hidden Meanings Behind Delay

SPEAKER_00 1:42

still senses risk. So what are the possibilities here? Well, it could be that they're unclear about the return on investment, it could be the outcomes that you've offered or presented are quite vague. It could be they feel you're overpromising, or it could simply be that the seller feels very rehearsed. And we've probably all experienced that where, yeah, they're saying all the right things, but there's something about it that just doesn't feel right. And if you get any of those feelings, you're not likely to go with that person. So you have to remember that trust isn't built when you answer questions, it's built when the buyer feels understood, and that is really, really important. Okay, what's um another possible meaning of this? Meaning number two is I'm scared of making the wrong decision. And this is especially true in business to business. So I've already expanded on this in another podcast, but the kind of issues that could be coming up here are that this could be a career risk for the person making the decision. This could be a stakeholder judgment, they've got a lot at stake if they make the wrong decision. It could be fear of regret, it could mean for them a potential loss of status. So the important thing to remember here is that most decisions are emotional first and logical second. And as much as we like to think that they're logical, if we present all the facts, it becomes pretty obvious what they should do. You have to accept that you're dealing with people, and people are emotional first, logical second. Another possible meaning is I don't know how to defend this internally. So this simply means the buyer feels they lack the language to sell this solution, this solution to their problem internally. And the thing that is really critical to understand here is that your buyer often becomes your salesperson once the meeting is over, once you've left the building, they are the person who is responsible for selling that product internally or that solution internally. So you have to make sure that they are as fully equipped as you can make them before you let them loose. Okay, meaning number four, I'm not fully convinced the problem is urgent. So, what that tends to point to is that your discovery session has been quite weak, and it's weak when it comes to urgency. So remember, when you're going through your discovery process, when you're qualifying your lead, you need to be very, very clear on urgency when they need a solution, and also looking at whether or not they've correctly assessed just how damaging their current position might be to them. And then obviously, our role as salespeople is to make sure they fully understand that. So again, the point to remember here is if the pain isn't emotionally expensive, delay tends to feel safe. So remember, we tend to we tend what tends to push it into action is that the pain we're feeling reaches a point where we have to take action. We're not attracted to the solution, we're attracted to stopping the pain. And it's really important to understand that, and it means that when it comes to qualifying, when it comes to making a case for someone to invest in whatever it is you're offering, you really need to make them feel the pain, and that will motivate them to take action. Okay, so buyers are not just deciding whether your solution

Reputation Risk Drives Indecision

SPEAKER_00 5:26

works, they're deciding whether they feel safe being associated with the decision. So, what is that all about? Well, basically, buyers are protecting the reputation. Remember, if this, particularly if this is a major investment or a key investment, if it goes wrong, it isn't just that this has gone wrong and they might lose some money. This can blow back onto that person in terms of their own reputation, their career prospects. So they have they can have a lot more at stake than simply making a wrong decision and um coming having a solution delivered that doesn't quite work. This can be especially true for senior stakeholders. This can also be driven by a fear of embarrassment. So you really need to be clear on what the emotional risks are for them, and you have to look at risks that go beyond simply what your solution is delivering or potentially can deliver to this prospect. So, how do top salespeople prevent the the I want

How Elite Sellers Prevent Stalls

SPEAKER_00 6:32

to think about it response? So the very first thing to do is to slow the conversation down, and I've spoken about this in other podcasts, so it might be worth going back and looking at those, but slow the conversation down because pressure increases resistance. So if you slow it down, the buyer isn't feeling pushed anymore. So if they're feeling pushed, then we're the more they feel pushed, the more they are going to emotionally step backwards. So slow it down, give them breathing room, take the pressure off. The second thing to make sure you do is get those doubts out early. And this is all part of the discovery process. It's something I go into in a lot of detail in my online course, uh consultative selling, and this is absolutely critical. So the kind of questions you can ask could be what concerns would somebody internally have about moving forward with this or with this solution, however you want to put it. Or you could ask something like, what would stop this from feeling like an easy decision? So, what are you doing? You're inviting them to get downs out into the open, things that might come back and stop the sale later, and you're also creating a feeling of safety. You are in there with them, working with them to not only provide a solution, but to make sure that all of the potential areas where the sale can stop are already dealt with before you go any further. You create that feeling of working with them, you're on their side. The third thing to think about is to quantify the cost of delay. But this is to do this without pressure. So, again, typical questions you can ask, and this should all be part of your discovery process, is what happens if this stays the same for another six months? Or what's the cost of inaction here? In other words, you are not creating urgency through pressure, but you're creating urgency through clarity. And what you're doing is you are making those fears, you're identifying the fear, you're identifying the pain points that have taken them this far. They've taken them to the point where they're giving where they're giving you time, and you're in this this discussion to solve the pain for them. So having questions like this is really, really important to avoid having these delays come up later. Okay, action number four is give buyers internal language. So, in other words, help them explain the decision internally. So, this is again where your discussion needs to make clear what are the issues they have to address internally? Is it return on investment? How are they framing that when they talk to other stakeholders within the business? Um, is it about risk reduction? What can you do? What are the words you can give them? What is the um approach you can give them that they can use internally to demonstrate a reduction in risk? What are the operational outcomes that this solution needs to deliver? What's the impact on the teams that are that are affected by this? So you need to have that discussion with them. And as I said before, you need to remember they are the salesperson once you walk out the door. So you've got to coach them, you've got to put them in a position where it is much, much easier for them to do the sales job internally. That's essentially what your role is in moving this forward. Now, one of the best sales questions you can ask is what would stop this from feeling like an easy decision?

The Question That Lowers Defences

SPEAKER_00 10:22

So I've mentioned this one before, but what makes this a good question to ask? Well, the first is that it lowers defensiveness. You again are working with them, it's not you against them. It provides an opportunity to get hidden objections out into the open. It provides the opportunity to create honest dialogue, and what it's doing is also helping you to prevent ghosting later where they just disappear and you can't get hold of them again. So this is a really important question. If you take nothing away from this podcast, write this question down and use it. So the question is again, what would stop this from feeling like an easy decision? And remember, these are the reasons why you are asking that question because it gives you an opportunity to get future objections, future delaying tactics out of the way. Anything that might lead to those become open and you can then deal with them. Okay, what's the biggest mistake salespeople make? And as I've already mentioned earlier,

Overexplaining And Pressure Kill Trust

SPEAKER_00 11:31

what a lot of salespeople will try and do is to handle the objection instead of understanding it. So, how does that play out in practice? So, common bad reactions are over-explaining, or people will start discounting, or they'll try and apply pressure, often they'll talk too much, or they'll deliver rapid-fire rebuttals, it will become a verbal confrontation, basically. So the important thing to remember here is that the moment salespeople become emotionally attached to the outcome, buyers are going to feel the pressure and they're going to feel it immediately. So you have to stand back, you don't get emotionally involved, you don't need the sale. That's absolutely critical. There is no sale that you need emotionally, whether you might feel that when you're outside of the room, that's fine. But when you're with a client, emotionally, this is a discussion. So the kind of things you need to be aware of in yourself, and when you're in these situations, is the energy that you're presenting, is it needy energy? Do you need to get that sale? Because that will come across straight away. And you may well have experienced this with salespeople who are under pressure. I mean, we've all been there, uh, we've all felt we really have to get this sale for whatever the reason, but you really have to manage that and not let that come out energetically. Um, it could be approval seeking. I've done a whole podcast on why trying to be light is one of the worst things you can do as a salesperson because, again, people pick up on the energy and they may not be able to put a name to it, but they it will feel wrong. It'll feel like there's something else going on here. And of course, pretty much all of us, when we feel that, it immediately starts put setting up red flags. That there's something wrong here. I'm not getting it, I don't think I'm happy going ahead with this person, which is of course what we've been talking about from the start. And then when your energy is like this, you lose all authority. And remember, one of the most important things that you are doing for this person is you are being the authority on whatever that solution is. So you know much more about the solution than they they do in most cases, and what they are looking for from you is to have the authority to answer their questions, to make them feel confident about moving ahead with you. And obviously, if they're talking about delaying, they're not feeling confident, and you have to sort out why that is. So, what's the hard truth here? Well, if you find that buyers keep saying we need to think about it, the problem has usually started long before the close. And I can't emphasize this enough, it's something I've spoken about a lot now. I'm not sure where I'm at on podcast, it might be up around 80 or somewhere. And I definitely talk about this in the sales training course. The problems come up right at the start. So if you're getting a we need to think about it, where you need to look is your discovery process because it points to weak discovery. You have not clearly identified all of the reasons, not only why this person is speaking to you, but what their concerns are about making the wrong decision. You quite likely have a weak emotional connection. I've just gone through how that can come about, um, the kind of energy you're presenting. Do you are you coming across as needy? Are you but are or are you coming across as authoritative, that you know what you're talking about, that you're someone that they can have confidence in? The chances are you're not. So you need to look at how you're building emotional connection with your clients. It could be urgency, you just have not done enough to establish the urgency of getting a solution in and what the outcome will be if they do nothing for six months. Because, as I've said, if there's no clear push to move forward, why wouldn't they just stay where they are? Or it could be that you haven't made clear what the consequences are of not taking action, of not putting in your solution. So all of these things are really important. And if you find that you're repeatedly getting delays, then you really have to go back and go step by step through each of your processes and begin to identify where they're not working. Because if you don't do that, you'll just keep getting the same problem. So the important thing to remember here is that closing problems are usually diagnosis problems, and diagnosis problems mean that you have not got your discovery, your initial conversations with the client to the point where they're gonna deliver for you. You are weak in that area and you've got to do something about it. Okay, so um, I'm gonna give you a framework. Uh, this one's safe,

The SAFE Framework To Close

SPEAKER_00 16:22

so hopefully that's pretty easy to remember. So this is a practical framework you can apply. So, first of all, with their surface concerns early. Get the surface concerns out early when you're having a discussion. This is not something to come up when you're trying to close the deal. The A is amplify the cost of staying the same. So this is about building urgency. What happens if they take no action? What are the pain points? Building the pain, that might be cost, it might be something else. F frame internal value clearly. You need to be very, very clear on how this will be presented internally as something that adds value, and you need to be coaching the buyer or whoever you're working with because they are doing the selling internally for you. And then the E is eliminate pressure. So remember, if you if people feel pressured, they're gonna that that just feeds resistance, so that is gonna stop everything. So it's safe, surface concerns early, amplify the cost of staying the same, frame the internal values clearly, and e eliminate pressure. So the important thing to remember here is that top salespeople don't avoid we need to think about it because they're persuaded, but because there's persuasive, I should say. They avoid it because buyers feel understood, they feel safe and they are clear long before the decision point arrives that this is a good path forward for them. Most stalled deals aren't information problems, they're emotional uncertainty problems. And the sellers who understand that are the ones who buyers will trust the most. So I hope you found that useful. Please remember to like, subscribe, um, check out the website. There's a lot more information and useful stuff there. I'll

Final Takeaways And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 18:14

speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now.