Lenny Distilled

Fear of failure blocks more deals than competition

Growth → Acquisition

We're losing most of your sales deals, not to competition, but to indecision. And that indecision stems from their fear of failure. Dialing up the FOMO backfires 87% of the time. They're not afraid of missing out, they're afraid of messing up.

Matt DixonThe surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations
Supporting

Anywhere between 40 and 60% of the average salesperson's qualified pipelines will be ultimately marked as closed loss, no decision.

Matt DixonThe surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations
Supporting

The FOMU actually matters more than the FOMO. The FOMU is the fear of messing up. If you are trying to scare your customer into action, you're using scare tactics, but you're trying to scare somebody who's already afraid. The problem is they're not afraid of the thing you think they're afraid of.

Matt DixonThe surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations
Supporting

80% of customers buy to avoid pain or reduce risk as opposed to increased upside, which is a good thing for startup founders to understand. We all love to talk about the art of the possible, everything we're going to enable in the future, but that's often really a sale that's going to resonate with another founder. For everybody else, particularly enterprises. You're avoiding the risk of not making your revenue target next quarter.

Jeanne DeWitt GrosserWhat world-class GTM looks like in 2026