90% of your prospects aren't actually ready to buy anything right now. Yet most of us keep approaching them with the same tactics we'd use for that eager 10% who are actively shopping for solutions.
We're pitching solutions to people who don't even recognize they have a problem yet. This fundamental mismatch wastes precious time, burns through hard-earned leads, and absolutely kills conversion rates.
Think about the last time you had to convince someone they needed something they didn't think they wanted. It's like trudging through knee-deep snow in biting, frosty wind—uphill, exhausting, and painfully slow. Every step forward feels like a monumental effort, while the wind keeps pushing you back. Meanwhile, selling to someone who's already convinced they need your help? That's like walking on a clear, sunny day with the wind at your back.
Most of us learned to sell by fighting over that tiny slice of buyers who are actively shopping. But what if there was a better way?
The 3% that everyone's fighting over
Chet Holmes talks about something that changed how I think about prospects. In any market, only 3% of potential buyers are actively shopping right now. Just 3%.
Think about it in your own life. At any given moment, only about 3% of homeowners are actively house-hunting. The rest? They might complain about their kitchen or wish they had more space, but they're not calling real estate agents.
The same dynamic plays out in B2B sales. While you're crafting detailed proposals for prospects who "seemed interested," they're actually nowhere close to making a purchase decision. They're just being polite.
Most salespeople spend their energy fighting over that 3%. They are the buyers who already know they have a problem and are comparing solutions. The competition is fierce, margins get squeezed, and you end up competing mostly on price.
But what about the other 97%? Are they just lost causes, or is there a smarter way to think about them?
Where your prospect really stands
The Buyer's Pyramid breaks down exactly where potential customers sit in their buying journey:
- Top 3%: Actively buying - they know their problem and are shopping for solutions
- Next 7%: Open but not searching - can be convinced with strong value
- Middle 30%: Not thinking about it - need education to see the opportunity
- Next 30%: Don't believe they're interested - need proof and patience
- Bottom 30%: Certain they're not interested - probably not worth pursuing right now
Think about your last three "promising" prospects who went cold. Where were they really on this pyramid?
If you're honest, most were probably in that middle 30% - not actively thinking about changing anything. You mistook their politeness and engagement for buying intent.
Consider how you'd approach the same prospect differently depending on where they are on the pyramid. Let's say you're selling marketing automation software:
Top 3% conversation: "We're evaluating three marketing automation platforms and need to decide by month-end. Can you show us ROI projections?"
Middle 30% conversation: "Yeah, we're doing okay with our current email marketing. We use MailChimp and our intern manages the campaigns."
Same potential need, completely different readiness levels. The first prospect wants feature comparisons and pricing. The second needs to understand what they're missing before they'll even consider changing.
Stop pitching, start investigating
You can't write an effective proposal until you know where someone stands on the pyramid. This is where many salespeople get it wrong - they assume the interest level is high instead of investigating it.
The SPIN Selling framework gives you a roadmap for moving prospects up the pyramid through strategic questioning:
- Situation questions: Map their current reality ("How do you handle lead nurturing now?")
- Problem questions: Help them articulate what's not working ("What happens when leads don't respond to that first email?")
- Implication questions: Explore the cost of inaction ("How much revenue do you think you lose when qualified leads go cold?")
- Need-Payoff questions: Let them describe the benefits of change ("What would it mean for your team if you could automatically nurture leads until they're ready to talk to sales?")
Here's how this might sound in practice:
You: "How does your team currently follow up with leads from your website?"
Prospect: "Our sales team gets an email notification and usually calls within a day or two."
You: "What happens if the lead doesn't answer or isn't ready to talk yet?"
Prospect: "Honestly? They probably get forgotten. Our CRM isn't great at reminding us to follow up."
You: "How many leads would you estimate fall through the cracks that way each month?"
Prospect: "I never really thought about it... probably quite a few. Maybe 30-40% of our web leads never get a proper follow-up."
Notice what happened? You didn't pitch automation software. You helped them recognize a problem they weren't actively thinking about.
Here's the key rule: If your buyer never actually says that they have a problem or need in their own words, you probably haven't done enough discovery. Without that explicit admission - hearing them say it out loud - you shouldn't be writing a proposal yet.
Why your perfect proposal falls flat
Most proposals fail because they're written for the wrong pyramid level. You craft a detailed solution for someone who hasn't fully bought into having a problem.
Top 10% prospects are ready for direct, solution-focused proposals. They want features, pricing, and implementation timelines.
Middle tiers need more education. They need to understand the cost of their current approach before they'll care about your solution.
Lower tiers probably aren't worth a proposal at all. If they just invested in a similar solution or seem very happy with their status quo, don't waste your time.
One of the core rules in my book on proposals is this: "Don't include anything in your proposal you haven't heard the customer say or confirmed separately."
This means if they haven't told you they have a problem with lead follow-up, don't build your proposal around solving lead follow-up problems. You're making assumptions about needs they do not recognize.
A prospect in the top 10% might say: "We need to automate our lead nurturing because we're losing too many qualified prospects."
The same company in the middle 30% might say: "Our current process works fine, but we're always open to improvements."
Same company, same actual need, but completely different readiness levels. The first wants a solution proposal. The second needs education about what "fine" is actually costing them.
From order-taker to problem-solver
Understanding the Buyer's Pyramid should change how you approach sales.
With the 3% who are actively shopping, you focus on demonstrating unique value instead of competing on features.
With the middle 30%, you help them recognize opportunities they didn't know existed.
This means creating different content and approaches for different pyramid levels:
- Educational content for the middle tier
- Solution- and value-focused content for the top 10%
- Qualifying questions to identify pyramid level before investing time in proposals
A good salesperson can typically move a prospect one level upward with solid sales technique. So someone in the middle 30% might move to the "open but not searching" 7%. But you can't jump someone from the bottom 30% to being an active buyer, because they have probably recently invested in solving the same problem.
This is why qualifying matters. If someone just invested in a competitive solution or seems genuinely content with their current approach, they're probably too low on the pyramid. Don't spend weeks crafting a proposal - they're not ready.
The strategic shift
The Buyer's Pyramid isn't just a nice framework. It's a shift in how you can think about prospects and proposals.
Most salespeople treat every interested prospect the same way. They gather requirements, write detailed proposals, and wonder why so many deals stall out.
Smart salespeople use discovery to identify where prospects really stand, then match their approach accordingly. They ask better questions, qualify harder, and only write proposals for people who've explicitly articulated both problems and desired outcomes.
The result is fewer proposals, but much higher win rates. Less time chasing prospects who were never going to buy, more time developing relationships with buyers who are genuinely ready to change.
Your next conversation with a prospect should start with this question: Where are they really on the pyramid? Are they actively looking for solutions, or are they just being polite?
The answer determines everything about how you should proceed. And more importantly, whether you should proceed at all.
Understanding where your prospects really stand is just the beginning. There's a whole framework for turning these buyer insights into proposals that speak directly to each stakeholder's motivations and concerns. Want to learn the complete system for crafting proposals that actually get accepted? Join our newsletter for advanced strategies that turn buyer psychology into winning proposals.