“Wait and See” Is a Signal. Find Out Why.
A proven diagnostic method for the moments that make or break a client relationship.
A prospect meeting goes well, then: “let’s wait and see how the quarter shakes out.” A client under stress wants to make a major, hard-to-reverse account decision on the spot. Referrals dry up when the market gets choppy, right when clients need you most.
That’s not a rapport problem. It’s a diagnosis problem — and it has a name.
Sound Familiar?
- A strong first meeting ends with “let me think about it” — and you never hear the real reason why.
- A prospect says your fee is high without ever naming what they’re comparing it to.
- A client wants to pull everything out during a correction, driven by fear rather than their actual plan.
- A competing advisor’s offhand comment stalls a conversation that was going well minutes earlier.
Every one of these gets treated the same way by most advisors: as a pricing conversation or a relationship problem. It usually isn’t.
The Two NOs That Decide Whether a Client Stays
Every advisory relationship eventually hits one of two moments: the stall before the sale, and the panic after a client is already on the books. Here’s how to diagnose both.
1. The Soft NO
“Let’s wait and see how the quarter shakes out.”
The Hidden Driver — Find Out First: The client may be concerned about risk, timing, a past advisor experience, or something else. Ask what is behind “wait and see” before deciding what it means.
The Invisible COI — The Wait-and-See Tax: Does waiting actually have a cost for this client’s specific plan — a rebalancing opportunity, a tax-loss window, an allocation that has drifted from target? Or is waiting the right call right now? Ask before assuming the clock is costing them anything.
The Golden Egg — Test with Commitment Currency.
“Would you spend 20 minutes with me looking at what waiting means for your plan? If waiting is the right move, I’ll be the first to say so.”
The Lock-On Question —
“What specifically would need to change — in the market or in what I’ve shown you — for you to feel confident moving forward?”
2. The Integrity NO
“A client wants to make a major, hard-to-reverse account decision in a moment of fear — before slowing down to think it through.”
The Hidden Driver — Emotional Decision-Making: The client is making a fear decision and asking you to make it permanent. Your obligation is to protect the outcome they hired you to deliver.
The Invisible COI — A Decision Made Without the Full Picture: A choice made in a single stressed phone call, without the same review process the two of you used to build the plan, is a different decision than the one they’d make with time and the full picture in front of them.
The Golden Egg — Slow the moment down. Don’t block the decision.
“Before we do anything, I want you deciding this with the same care we used to build the plan together. Can we get 30 minutes on the calendar so you have the full picture in front of you?” The client who takes that meeting almost always trusts you more for asking — whatever they decide.
The Lock-On Question —
“If you still want to move forward after that conversation, I’ll support you completely. I just don’t want you deciding this on a hard day without the full picture in front of you.”
These two show up hardest in wealth management. The other five — Explicit, Silent, Internal, False YES, and Economic — complete a system for naming and moving past any stall, in any client relationship.
Amateurs Wing It. Professionals Operate a System.
Selling Against NO! grew out of Jon Webb’s nearly 40 years selling and leading through complex, high-consequence deals in industrial B2B sales. The same pattern showed up in wealth management: advisors who could explain a strategy beautifully but had no system for catching a client’s quiet drift toward a fear-driven decision before it happened. This page adapts that system to the two moments that put an account at risk.
“Wait and see” tells you the client has paused. It does not tell you why. Find that out before you recommend a move.
Where to Start
1. Get the Playbook — Selling Against NO! contains the complete diagnostic system for all seven NOs. This page is a preview of two of them.
2. Talk It Through With Jon — Work through your own stalled prospects or at-risk clients directly — name the NO, find the Invisible COI, run the Golden Egg — with Jon, live.
3. Bring a Stalled Deal — Have a deal your team cannot get moving? Bring it to a Pipeline Autopsy. We will name the NO, find out what is holding the decision up, and decide what question to ask next.
Adapted from the Seven NOs diagnostic framework in Selling Against NO! by Jon Webb.
Bring Selling Against NO! to Your Team
Jon speaks at national sales meetings, sales kickoffs and industry events.