What To Do When Sales Are Slow: Overcoming Contract Bottlenecks

When Sales Are Slow, What To Do?

Every sales leader knows the sinking feeling: the pipeline looks strong, conversations are happening, but deals just aren’t closing. In B2B, slow sales are inevitable at times, but they’re not always caused by prospecting or poor messaging.

More often than not, the slowdown happens at the very end of the journey: contracts.

Sales teams move fast, but once agreements hit legal review, momentum stalls. That stall translates into lost deals, frustrated customers, and missed revenue targets.

So, when sales are slow what to do? The answer lies in identifying and fixing the contract-driven bottlenecks that stand between handshake and signature.

Why Sales Slowdowns Happen in B2B

There are many reasons sales slowdowns occur, but contract friction is one of the most overlooked. The most common culprits include:

• Contract complexity: Lengthy, one-sided agreements create unnecessary tension.
• Uncertainty about fairness: Buyers hesitate when terms feel opaque or unfavorable.
• Legal bottlenecks: Lawyers on both sides drag timelines into weeks—or months.
• Lack of market benchmarks: Without knowing how terms compare to industry standards, both sides hesitate to sign.

Each of these challenges adds friction, eroding trust and momentum at the most critical stage of the sales cycle.

Overcoming Slow Sales in B2B: Contract Intelligence as the Fix

Sales teams can’t afford to let contracts stall deals. That’s where contract intelligence comes in.

Unlike traditional CLM platforms that focus on redlines and workflows, TermScout delivers data-driven insights, certification, and predictive scoring that empower Sales teams to move faster.

• Certify™: Provides independent certification that your contracts meet market standards, eliminating unnecessary back-and-forth.
• Predict™: Uses AI-powered scoring to show how favorable and market-ready a contract is, giving both sides deal confidence.
• Contract Benchmarking: Compares your terms against thousands of real-world contracts, positioning agreements as fair and standard.

With these tools, sales teams can turn contracts from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage.

5 Sales Slow Down Strategies That Eliminate Contract Friction

1. Pre-Certify Your Contracts

Don’t wait for a prospect’s legal team to flag issues. By using Certify™, you can send out contracts that already carry an independent trust badge. This signals fairness and transparency upfront, eliminating a major source of hesitation.

Example: A SaaS company using TermScout cut contract turnaround time from 21 days to just 6 days after adopting certified templates.

2. Use Market Benchmarks to Build Trust

Buyers want to know if your terms are competitive. With benchmarking data, you can show prospects how your contracts compare to industry norms.

This transparency accelerates buyer trust and removes the “what if?” questions that stall deals.

Want to learn more? Read our blog on Contract Benchmarking.

3. Shorten Legal Review with Data-Backed Insights

Traditional legal reviews can feel like a black hole. With deviation analysis, sellers and buyers see exactly where terms differ from the market standard.

That precision reduces legal back-and-forth and accelerates approvals.

4. Align Sales and Legal Around Risk Insights

Sales wants speed. Legal wants risk control. Often these goals clash. With shared contract intelligence dashboards, both teams see the same risk indicators, favorability scores, and deal confidence metrics.

This alignment keeps revenue on track while satisfying compliance needs.

Learn how RevOps teams use Predict™ to forecast cycle delays.

5. Turn Contracts into a Sales Asset

Contracts don’t have to be deal-killers. When you show prospects that your terms are certified, benchmarked, and market-ready, contracts become a sales enablement tool instead of a blocker.

• Showcase fairness as a differentiator
• Win trust in competitive deals
• Close standardized agreements faster

Real-World Use Cases

Across industries, TermScout customers have transformed contracts from a liability into an asset:

• Global SaaS Enterprise: Reduced contract cycle times by 60% using Certify™ badges to remove legal delays.
• Procurement Organization: Benchmarked vendor agreements and recovered $1.2M in contract value by renegotiating unfair terms.
• Sales & RevOps Team: Used Predict™ to flag which contracts were most likely to stall, increasing forecasting accuracy by 30%.

The Business Impact: Faster Cycles, More Revenue

When companies apply contract intelligence, the impact is measurable:

• Sales cycles shrink from weeks to days
• Deal confidence increases, reducing last-minute churn
• Revenue velocity improves without adding headcount
• Buyer trust deepens, paving the way for long-term relationships

For Sales leaders, this means fewer stalled deals, more accurate forecasts, and faster revenue acceleration.

A Smarter Way Forward

Sales slowdowns don’t just happen in the pipeline—they happen at the contract stage. By adopting contract intelligence, B2B companies can remove friction, accelerate cycles, and close more deals with confidence.

So next time you’re wondering, “When sales are slow, what to do?”, remember: sometimes the best sales strategy isn’t more calls or campaigns; it’s smarter contracts.

Final Thoughts

Contract-driven bottlenecks are one of the biggest hidden causes of slow sales in B2B. But with TermScout’s Certify™ and Predict™, Sales teams can certify fairness, benchmark against the market, and predict deal outcomes, all before the first signature.