Sales opportunities: when should you stop investing?
In high-value-added selling, preliminary studies and technical discussions can occupy a team long before an order is placed. The managerial question is precise: what evidence should justify further investment in an opportunity that is no longer progressing?
What the literature establishes
Hal R. Arkes and Catherine Blumer (1985, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes) describe the sunk cost effect: having already invested money, time or effort can increase the tendency to continue. Their research shows that decisions depend not only on expected future consequences, but also on resources already committed. In a sales review, “we have worked too hard to walk away” should therefore be treated as a warning sign, not a justification.
Responsibility can sustain commitment
Barry M. Staw (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance) demonstrates experimentally that responsibility for an initial decision can encourage further investment following negative outcomes. The proposed mechanism is self-justification: continuing allows people to defend a decision they made. Applied cautiously to sales, this suggests that asking only the opportunity owner whether to continue risks confusing assessment of the opportunity with defence of their work.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that any sale taking too long should be abandoned quickly. That would confuse sunk costs with investment that remains useful: a pending technical approval may justify continuing, independently of past effort. The appropriate criterion is not the age of the opportunity, but what additional effort can reasonably be expected to achieve. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these findings cannot decide
These studies do not directly examine Swiss B2B sales teams and provide no universal stopping threshold. Experimental settings notably simplify contractual constraints and the learning benefits of real relationships. An opportunity review should therefore distinguish past expenditure, commitments that remain binding and plausible future benefits, rather than classify every slow-moving opportunity as irrational.
A practical check in Sion
Within the “Vente à forte valeur ajoutée” programme offered by SHR — Swiss Human Resources, an exercise applicable in Sion would be to review opportunities involving hydropower, healthcare, viticulture or Alpine tourism before authorising another study or proposal. For each opportunity, the manager would record the additional effort requested, a new piece of evidence expected from the customer and a condition for suspending work, then have someone outside the opportunity review this justification. At the next review, the team would measure the proportion of authorised reinvestments supported by these three documented elements and check whether the expected evidence had been obtained. This measure assesses decision discipline, not a demonstrated increase in sales. To go further: explore the High-Value Selling training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: High-Value Selling in Sion
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