The Three Reasons People Don’t Buy

How to remove the obstacles between you and your next 100 customers

There’s one big question that every investor-backed executive should spend more time thinking about:

“Why aren’t we growing faster?”

Growing faster makes everything easier.

When you’re growing faster, you can make more mistakes. When you’re growing faster, you can invest more in what’s working. When you’re growing faster, you can convince that game-changing executive to join your team or that on-the-fence investor to come along for the ride.

And most importantly, when you’re growing faster, your company is just worth more.

So, you tell me.

Why aren’t you growing faster?

…Do you even know?

There are really only three answers to this question. Three obstacles keeping you from breaking out. Three reasons people don’t buy from you.

Here they are.

1) They can’t find you. 
2) They don’t trust you.
3) They’re not ready yet.

That’s it.

Whatever the business, whatever the stage, whatever the product… at least one of those three is holding you back. And every best-selling growth book, every marketing guru, every agency and consultant and been-there-done-that board advisor… they’re all using different words to describe those same three reasons.

If prospects can’t find you, you never get your chance.

If buyers don’t trust you, the deal never goes anywhere.

And if they aren’t ready yet, you need a way to hang around the hoop until they are.

Obstacles and Opportunities

There’s a famous passage from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations:

"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."

There’s so much to take from that line.

It’s about your mindset. Controlling how you react to things  is one of the central themes of Meditations. But that quote is also a powerful reminder to keep your approach simple, and of the importance of working on one thing at a time. It’s about looking for the opportunity inside the biggest problem in your way right now and focusing there.

This is counter-intuitive to how most businesses diagnose and work on growth problems. CEOs, CMOs, and CROs all seem to have this built-in additive bias. When growth slows down, we immediately think about what else we can do to fix the problem. What new campaign should we launch? Who else do we need to hire? Should we be thinking about adding BDRs or retargeting or partners or that next AI-powered growth tactic we just saw on LinkedIn?

This is a natural instinct. But adding more tactics and pushing harder before you've diagnosed what’s in your way doesn't typically fix anything. It just gives you a more complex business to manage while the real problem continues to weigh you down.

Chances are, your team doesn’t have an effort problem. You have a focus problem. You’re doing twelve things at a low level instead of putting your shoulder behind the one thing that would actually move the needle.

So before you get into the weeds on what’s missing, try stepping back and identifying the obvious bottleneck in what you’re already doing.

What’s in your way?

Where’s the blockage?

Rather than build a faster car… how can you clear the road?

You’ll find similar principles everywhere you look. Another favorite is an old mafia saying which translates to:

“Before you begin your journey, take the rock out of your shoe.”

So… which rock is still rattling around in your shoe?

Why aren’t people buying from you today?

Which of those three reasons (can’t find you / don’t trust you / not ready yet) is it?

Spend time with your team, and talk about about which obstacle is most in your way. Bring a little data and agree on what’s holding you back.

Then go spend a month working together on removing it. Agree on how you’ll measure your progress and how you’ll keep score. Talk about it every week.

Pick one obstacle.

Get it out of the way.

Watch things improve.