The Science of Sales. Why Buyers Forget Your Pitch and Why Pressure Kills Deals
- Matthew Earle
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
Why Buyers Forget Most Of Your Pitch - The Science of Sales
Buyers do not forget because they are disinterested. They forget because their brain is overwhelmed. This is the Science of Sales
Cognitive Load And Memory Decay In B2B Sales
SPIN Selling research shows that buyers forget more than half of a product pitch within a week in multi conversation sales cycles.
Your pitch is not competing with competitors. It is competing with their inbox, their pressures, and their internal noise.
The Commercial Impact
Your product message fades quickly
Champions cannot retell your story internally
Your value proposition becomes diluted
Momentum disappears
If a buyer cannot remember the pain or the impact you outlined, they cannot act on it.
Safe or over complex messaging will be forgotten.
Why Pressure Kills Deals Before They Move Forward
Most deals are not lost in negotiation. They are lost the moment the buyer feels pressured.
Reactance. The Psychological Reason Decisions Slow Down
Huthwaite data proves that closing tactics reduce success rates as deal size increases. Reactance is the instinctive resistance people feel when pushed.
The Hidden Warning Signs
Senior buyers disengage
Champions lose confidence
Decision cycles lengthen
Deals fade without a clear no
How To Fix Both Problems With Problem Centred Selling
Lead With The Problem. Not The Product.
Problem centred selling removes pressure and improves memory. It makes your value easy to remember and even easier to repeat internally.
Practical steps:
Start with the commercial problem
Quantify the cost of doing nothing
Demonstrate urgency through impact
Use implication questions that make the problem unavoidable
If you have not defined the problem your product or service solves, and if you don't own that problem (i.e. what language is used to describe and quantify it, how does it manifest itself etc) then your positioning will not make sense to your buyer.
The Bigger Picture For Sales Leaders
If you want consistent pipeline quality, shorter deal cycles and better forecasting, you need to understand the forces shaping buyer behaviour.
Memory decay.
Threat detection.
Risk aversion.
Political pressure.
Emotional safety.
These psychological forces govern buying decisions far more than feature sets or pitch decks ever will.
If you want to improve how your team sells, you need to start with how your buyers think.
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