Influence Unreceptive Buyers: The Surprising Sales Research

How To Influence Unreceptive Buyers: The 3 R’s for a More Effective Sales Call
During a recent sales call, a sales rep presented what should have been a strong, value-driven message. The solution was solid. The logic was sound. Yet the buyer wasn’t fully with them.

You’ve likely seen this before. The signals are subtle but unmistakable:

• The buyer is polite, yet emotionally detached.
• Questions are asked, but they feel transactional rather than curious.
• Key points land… and then quietly disappear.

On the surface, the call appears to be going fine. In reality, it’s drifting off course.

Why Buyers Are Unreceptive
In order to understand how to best influence unreceptive buyers, let’s start with why buyers can be closed off in the first place.  While many sales reps think that buyers are stubborn or oppositional, buyers increase resistance during sales calls because of a few common reasons shared in our business sales training workshops:

• Information Overload
  By the time an initial  sales meeting starts, most buyers already have a lot of information about you and your competitors. Reps who repeat generic market data or run through the same sales playbook add to the overwhelm and lack of differentiation, not the value being sought by buyers.
• Risk Mitigation
  Market volatility and expanding decision-making committees make many buyers ultra-careful. One misstep or purchase that doesn’t immediately align to top strategic priorities can mean budget cuts or missed targets.  Buyers guard their time and avoid non value-add conversations.
• Expectation Disconnect
  After years of “customer-centric” claims and templated sales pitches, buyers are wary of anything that smells like a canned script. Cold outreach, calls, and emails that could’ve been sent to any other company are seen as pure noise. If your message doesn’t clearly address their actual reality, it gets tuned out, fast.
• Bandwidth Squeeze
  Buyers do not have the bandwidth for another “just checking in” email. The bar has never been higher for what stands out. If you’re not cutting through the chaos with relevance, urgency, and specificity, you are destined to get lost in the shuffle.

This Mistake Most Sales Reps Make with Unreceptive Buyers
When customers seem emotionally closed, we know from sales rep assessment simulation data that most sellers do one of two things:

1. Advocate More
   Push harder with more information and logic.
2. Give Up Too Soon
   Back off and move on to the next opportunity.

We know from solution selling training that neither works particularly well.

So, What is the Best Way To Influence Unreceptive Buyers?

The sellers who win aren’t the ones with the slickest sales pitch. High performing sales teams reset their motive, release pressure, and reframe from the customer’s perspective.  That’s how you earn trust. That’s how you influence the unreceptive.

The best sales leaders ensure that their teams focus on The 3 R’s to a Better Sales Call to shift how sellers connect when someone seems closed off.

1. Reset Your Motive
   Someone’s always the priority in any sales conversation, and most buyers assume it’s you. After all, you’ve got a number to hit and a solution to pitch. If you don’t pause and check your motive, you’ll slip straight into self-focus: prepping what you need to say, what you want to ask, how to move your agenda forward.

   Buyers notice this instantly. They sense if you’re there for them or for yourself.  To change the entire tone of the conversation, you need to reset your internal compass. Before every interaction, take an intentional pause. Ask yourself:

   • • What’s really on their plate today?
     • Where does your solution (really) fit in their world?
     • What matters most to their customers?

   When you focus on their reality first and foremost, everything shifts. They become the main character. Engagement builds because you’ve proven to them that you’re there to serve, not just to sell.

   You will know you are on the right path when sales meetings feel less scripted, customers share honestly, and you walk away with new details about what actually matters to them.

2. Release the Pressure
   Pressuring buyers does not work. No one likes to feel pressured.  A recent study found that when people are forced to make a decision immediately, they’re more likely to stick with the status quo. But when people have time to think it over, the odds shift in favor of change.The feeling of being pressured by sellers is not just about hard closes or aggressive pitches, either; even subtle cues, like steering too forcefully or framing with “should” and “must,” could signal that their freedom is at risk.

   In plenty of cases, buyers aren’t resisting your message, but rather the feeling of being cornered. If your prospect senses any attempt to control, their defenses go up.   The harder you pull, the harder they’ll pull back. Arguments or strong-arming break trust and shrink influence.

   The best sales conversations aren’t push and pull — they’re two people problem-solving together. That happens only when you let customers choose their own path forward.  Whenever possible:

   Notice Moments of Tension
   If the sales conversation gets prickly or stalls, make sure that you are not pressing your own agenda instead of inviting theirs.

   Audit Your Language in Real Time
   Swap directive words (e.g., “must,” “need to,” “required”) for language that opens doors (e.g., “might consider,” “could be an option,” “if it’s valuable to you…”)

   Use Permission Statements
   Even a simple, “Would it make sense to talk about …?” shows you respect their autonomy.

   You will know you are on the right path when buyers, share more openly, and the conversation feels like true collaboration, not a test of wills.

3. Reframe Your Point of View
   A customer-centric point of view separates high and low sales performers. High performing sales reps put the customer first, research what matters most to them, anticipate their needs, and ask informed questions to understand what matters most to them and their customers.That is how you earn Trusted Advisor status. Success isn’t generic needs; it’s about showing understand what success (or failure) looks like from their side of the desk, right now.

   If you start the sales meeting by laying out your own plan or recommendation first, you fall right into the pattern buyers expect: another seller focused on their own pitch and priorities. That’s when buyers put up walls.

   If you can instead state their challenge, using their strategy success metrics, their language, and their context, you can change the power dynamic for the better. You don’t just sound empathetic; you sound qualified to help.  Top solution sellers start every major conversation by summarizing what actually matters most to their customers.

   You will know your point of view is landing when buyers clarify, correct, or expand on your summary, instead of drifting off or pushing back. Now the conversation is rooted in their reality, not your assumptions or script.

The Bottom Line
The challenge is not to break through buyer resistance by pushing harder or advocating more; it’s to earn enough trust to break through the natural resistance to have an honest and open conversation about how to best help your ideal target clients to succeed.  Sales influence and sales success starts with buyer receptivity.

To learn more about how to better influence unreceptive buyers, download The 30 Sales Questions that Matter Most

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.