When applying our ethos to complex sectors like insurance, professional services, B2B technology, education, and property, we anticipate the unique complication of long sales-cycles and have devised a strategy to navigate this.
The decision problem: The Confidence Gap™
With 60% of complex deals ending in no decision, sellers frequently hit a wall of silence after months of strong engagement.1 Google researchers have found that the average B2B decision involves 40 or more interactions with a brand, and around 80% of the research is self-directed.2 In what they have coined the ‘messy middle’, buyers constantly loop between exploring and evaluating options, changing their position with every new stakeholder.
Stalled buying committees rarely lack information, only the confidence to act. So, closing that Confidence Gap™ and turning intent into action needs to drive how we approach this problem.
How can you recognise what the problem is?
Use data to see where decisions stall
In a long sales-cycle, last-click attribution is rendered useless when a single decision has taken 9 months and 40 interactions to reach. We therefore measure the journey itself, across visibility, engagement, consideration, conversion and repeat, looking for the points where movement stops.
This provides leadership an honest read on where growth is being lost, giving the team a prioritised list of what to fix. We can then work in six-week cycles that analyse, optimise and measure.
The real key to conversions - confidence
However, while data may show you the trends to target, securing confidence is the real key to producing a reliable conversion rate. As demonstrated by Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize (1978) winner, people only proceed when a choice feels good enough, and stall when it doesn’t.3
So, although you can't necessarily persuade people to buy, you can give them the confidence to act.
We’ve seen what this looks like when in place for our own clients:
- Miller (specialist insurance broker): Confidence-led LinkedIn campaigns delivered 390% more leads at a 77% lower cost per lead.
- SHL (a global talent business): Work that ran from strategy through to delivery and ongoing optimisation contributed £22.7m in incremental revenue.
What does action then look like off the back of this?
Who to start with and why
Having established how to identify the problem (unique data), and the driving force behind complication (confidence), we can review the action that must follow. This starts with who to focus on helping within a company.
A multi-stakeholder proposition is read by different people from distinct standpoints. A CEO may read it for strategic gain, a CFO balances it against risk analyses, while the head of the team who will live with it reads it for day-to-day workability. Any of them can veto; none can approve alone.
Shape and sequence your messaging
The most common mistake is leading with the solution prematurely. As explained by Kahneman and Tversly’s prospect theory (1979), people respond far more strongly to risk and loss than to promised gains.4
- Early stage: Frame messaging around the problems a buyer already lives with to build credibility and demonstrate deep understanding.
- Late stage: Once a shortlist forms, shift to reassurance, proof, references, and risk mitigation regarding the solution itself.
Focus content on decision support
Content in long-cycle industries is typically written for awareness purposes. Yet the bigger opportunity is decision support, ranging from honest comparison pages to case studies with solid figures and clear implementation details.
It must be concise and written in a way that can be being forwarded and summarised throughout a decision committee, holding up against inevitable contention.
Unify marketing, sales, and customer experience
A final and important factor is the general experience for a customer. While you may have created a strong mapping, messaging and content infrastructure, a good experience will finalise their decision to choose you.
In a long cycle, the buyer experiences your organisation as one thing, yet, internally it is usually three components:
- Marketing: Builds interest.
- Sales: Runs the deal.
- Customer experience: Delivers what was promised.
Every handover is a place where confidence can leak. The solution is to design them as a cohesive system. Marketing arms sales produces content that committees are using; sales feeds back realistic, real-world objections; and customer experience generates the proof, results and case studies that make the next deal easier. A customer who buys with confidence renews, grows and recommends.
Where to start
If you are sitting on a pipeline full of stalled deals, the most useful first question is 'where, specifically, are buyers losing confidence in us?'
It's a question you can answer with evidence, and the answer tends to change the plan.
We'd love to help you answer it. Our free 5Cs Snapshot is a 60-minute session that maps where growth is being won and lost across your journey, with a one-page output you can take to the board.
References
1* Challenger, 'How to Overcome Customer Using the JOLT Effect Approach', https://challengerinc.com/losing-to-customer-indecision/, (Feb, 2024).
2* Doug Nouvak, Marketing Dive (Spons. by Google), 'The new B2B landscape: Aguide to connecting with B2b buyers', (Dec, 2022).
3* The Nobel Prize Organisation, 'Herbert A. Simon - Facts', https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1978/simon/facts/, <Last Accessed, 29 September, 2026.
4* Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, 'Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk', 47.2 (1979), https://doi.org/10.2307/1914185.
