There are two distinct categories involving buying decisions: the behind-the-scenes issues buyers must manage internally to get stakeholder buy-in for change and for going outside their status quo for a solution and the solution-choice issues.
We are all very familiar with the latter: that’s what sales handles so well. But sales does not handle the former at all:

I’m here to tell you that cold calling can be one of the most effective ways to meet new prospects and close sales. And it’s a whole lotta fun.
I know, I know. Most sellers eschew cold calling, preferring instead to network, get referrals, golf, meet face-to-face or make friends through facebook and twitter.
Did you ever [...]

Depending on the selling approach you’re using, you are closing between .6% – 7% , regardless of size of solution or industry.
These numbers are far lower than they need to be: so long as your primary focus is on making a sale and you focus on needs assessment and solution choice (factors which are the buyer’s final considerations), and ignore the [...]

The steps of a buying decision differ from the steps of a sale. The sales model has no way to influence the private decisions and buy-in issues that buyers must address before they can buy.
Buyers live in a ‘system’ that maintains their Identified Problem (or ‘pain’)  over time, creating work-arounds that become part of the system [...]

As sellers, we waste over 90% of our time. We need to find prospects, get them bought-in to the possibility of using our solution, get them what they need to understand our solution and how it might fit, get past gatekeepers, manage objections, get to the right people who will know how to buy us, [...]

If you attempt to get meetings just to ‘get in front of’ a prospect (assuming that your solution will rule the day); if you present to whichever prospects will agree to see you; if you pitch when the buyer doesn’t have all of their ducks in a row, you’re not only wasting your breath, but potentially [...]