One of the more confusing moments in a service business is realising that a good conversation can still end without a decision.
The work makes sense, the client is engaged, there’s no obvious pushback, and yet, instead of a clear yes or no, things slow down into a polite, open-ended “let me think about it”.
I’ve seen this with consultants who are very good at what they do and who aren’t struggling to get into the room. The conversations happen and the interest is there. What’s missing is not quality, but momentum.
I was reminded of this recently while sitting in on a discussion between a strategy consultant and a managing director of a growing software company. They had spent most of the meeting talking through the consultant’s approach, past projects, and areas of expertise. The client was nodding along, asking smart questions, clearly following.
Right at the end, the managing director leaned back and said: “I can see how this would be useful. I’m just not sure what changes first if we go ahead.”
Nothing in that sentence questioned the service. It questioned the impact.
When “good” isn’t enough to decide
Most clients don’t struggle to recognise competence. They can usually tell when someone knows their field, has done similar work before and understands their world.
What they often struggle with is placing your work inside their own priorities.
A service can be strong in theory, but still feel heavy to commit to if the client can’t quite see how it fits into what they already have on their plate.
Not in a broad, strategic sense, but in a practical, lived one. What this means for their next quarter, for their team, for the problems that are currently keeping them awake.
When that connection stays vague, the decision stays vague too.
The quiet uncertainty behind polite interest
From your side of the table, this usually shows up as reasonable-sounding hesitation.
“We just need to align internally.”
“Let me look at timing and budgets.”
“We’re interested, but not sure when we’d start.”
Those can all be genuine. They can also be a sign that the client hasn’t yet worked out what saying yes would actually do to their business.
Not in terms of deliverables, but in terms of consequence: what will change, what will get attention, what might stop being ignored.
In the software conversation, the consultant had explained their methodology clearly. What they hadn’t yet done was anchor it to the client’s immediate reality. The managing director didn’t leave thinking, this is a good service. He left thinking, I’m not sure what this rearranges for me.
That’s a harder gap to close than a missing feature or an unclear price.
Where framing makes the difference
Instead of talking about the service in isolation, I’ve seen decisions move when the conversation shifts to what changes in the business itself.
Not in a dramatic, far-off future sense, but in a practical one.
What this does to revenue predictability.
What it changes in how the business runs day to day.
What pressure it takes off the owner’s time, attention, or decision-making.
When clients can place your work inside those kinds of outcomes, the decision stops feeling like a purchase and starts feeling like a business move.
Without them, even a strong service can sit in a kind of conceptual space. Interesting, sensible, but not quite real enough to commit to.
Reading the “maybe” more carefully
This is where interpretation matters.
A slow decision is often read as a lack of conviction about you. In practice, it’s more often a lack of clarity about themselves.
Can they make room for this?
Will they actually act on it?
Does this solve the right problem, or just another problem?
Those are internal questions and most clients won’t voice them directly. They’ll talk about timing, alignment, or needing to think.
Once you start listening for that layer, the conversation changes. You stop trying to reinforce the strength of your service and start helping them locate its place in their own business.
Making the impact easier to step into
One of the most useful shifts I’ve seen service providers make is becoming more precise about the kind of business outcomes their work leads to.
Not the full transformation story. Not vague promises. Just a clear sense of what this changes in the economics, the operations, or the weight the business carries for the decision maker.
When that’s clear, the decision often feels lighter, because it no longer sits in the space of a big, undefined improvement. It becomes a deliberate business move.
And people are generally much more comfortable making a move they can place inside their own reality.
When you think about your own client conversations, where do you tend to spend more time: describing what you do, or helping them picture what starts to move once you’re involved?