Gong data highlights the impact of silent buyers

Sales calls not going so well? A new report from Gong Labs points out what could be going wrong.

The revenue intelligence platform analyzed over 120 million sales calls to see who is actually participating in the buyer conversation and what it means for success. One main finding is that the more buyers on a call, the higher the chance at least one prospect will be silent. The report shows that four in 10 people in buying groups don’t say anything on a sales call. When there are four to six buyers, Gong found that 38% of calls feature a silent participant. That number goes up to 43% when there are seven or more buyers on a call.

Get to talking: Gong found that deals close at a higher rate when buyers participate in the conversation. When there’s one buyer voice, deals close at 56%. That number goes up to 87% when there are four or more buyers on a call.

A company’s org chart can also indicate where teams will find a silent participant. According to the report, individual contributors have the highest rate of silence at 15%, while vice presidents have the lowest at 5%. C-suite executives are the second most likely to be quiet at 11%.

The report suggests C-suite silence isn’t always a negative and recommends having targeted questions for them to get them talking.

While every person on a buyer call might not speak, they are still integral to closing the deal. Gong recommends sales teams should always come prepared to a call knowing who each member of the buying team is and engaging them in ways to understand how they feel about the deal.