Dear SaaStr: What’s The Lamest Thing You See Sales Reps Do To Close a Deal?
The “lamest” is Fake FUD.
But the thing is, it works. Up to a point.
What is Fake FUD?
FUD is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt … that isn’t true:
- “They just lost Google as an anchor customer”
- “We just beat them out for Facebook”
- “Their mobile product crashes all the time”
- “They had a huge security breach”
- “They were down for an entire day last month”
- “They are running out of money and couldn’t raise a Series B”
- “Their product isn’t ____ compliant”
In competitive situations, FUD does work — at least sometimes. It is generally presented in a negative fashion, and because it is, it can backfire. A lot of prospects will see it as smarmy and unseemly. But others, struggling to decide which vendor to chose, will prefer the Least Risky Vendor. And here FUD helps them decide, with limited data, which vendor is the least risky.
FUD is frustrating, but Fake FUD is worse. It’s stuff sales reps just make up. Some prospects will test it out to see if it’s true. But some won’t …
You need to develop Counter FUD. Counter FUD to the truth is a lot of work as is it. Counter FUD to Fake FUD is harder to plan for, until it becomes a pattern.
Your Sales Ops team needs to man the Counter FUD war station. And update it regularly, even every week sometimes, with clear, crisp answers. And sometimes even Counter-Counter FUD.
Even if you don’t want to do this.
