The deal has one contact. The decision has five.

Single-threaded deals rarely lose outright. They stall, and stalling follows an arithmetic most pipelines are not built to see.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for The deal has one contact. The decision has five.

A deal with one contact inside the customer is not necessarily a weak deal. It is an unmeasured one. The champion is enthusiastic, the calls are warm, the notes say “positive: sending internally for sign-off.” Then the date moves once, moves again, and eventually the opportunity is closed as lost with a reason code that says budget or timing. Nobody chose a competitor. Nothing was decided at all. This is the most common failure mode in considered B2B sales, and it is systematically invisible because it looks like patience rather…

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