"We're waiting to see": the 2026 objection

When this was written, in September 2026, the numbers were on your side, which is worth knowing before you dial; always check the latest month at source. The barometer indicator from Sweden's National Institute of Economic Research (KI) stood at 105.1 in August 2026, its fourth rise in a row and a stronger mood than normal; retail was at 114.2 and services at 104.2, while construction sat at 98.0, a normal level. Creditsafe counted 413 limited-company bankruptcies in August, 12 percent fewer than a year earlier and the lowest August figure in four years. And yet 86.1 percent of the sales leaders in RAIN Group's June 2026 study say selling in an uncertain economy is a challenge, and 79.0 percent say the same about buyers' budget constraints. The economy and the mood about the economy are two different things, and the objection comes from the second.

A freeze, a worry or a polite no

The first is a real freeze: the company has decided not to invest until something specific happens, such as the Riksbank's rate decision, a quarterly close or an order that will make or break next year. That version has a date on it, and it can be worked with. The second is vague unease: nobody has decided anything, but nobody wants to be the person who bought just before things went south. Kahneman and Tversky described the mechanism in their 1979 prospect theory: losses weigh heavier than equal gains, so the risk of having bought wrongly feels larger than the risk of having lost out by waiting. We go deeper into that mechanism in the article on the cost of doing nothing. The third version is a polite no, where the economy is simply the answer that ends the call without bruising anyone.

The diagnosis: two questions

The first question is 'What exactly are you waiting for?' A buyer with a real freeze answers with an event and, often, a date. A buyer with vague unease answers with a feeling: 'for things to settle down'. A buyer with a polite no keeps it short. The second question is for the first two only: 'If that news comes out the way you expect, what changes at your end?' If the answer is 'not much', the wait has nothing to do with the decision, and that is the realisation you help the buyer reach, rather than offering a forecast of your own.

Answer one: swap the feeling for three dated numbers

Anyone selling into uncertainty should carry three current numbers and state them with dates, not as arguments but as a shared picture: This is how it sounded when the article was written in September 2026: 'KI's barometer stood at 105.1 in August after four rises in a row, bankruptcies fell 12 percent in August, and the Riksbank held the policy rate at 1.75 percent in August.' Swap in the latest month's figures before you call. Then comes the question: 'How does it look in your industry right now?' The numbers change every month, so check them before you call; the barometer lands at the end of each month, Creditsafe's statistics at the start, and the Riksbank's calendar is on its website. The aim is not to persuade the buyer that the economy is fine. The aim is to move the conversation from a feeling to an event that can be given a date.

Answer two: put a price on the wait

Postponing a decision is a decision too, and it carries a price the buyer has rarely worked out. Ask what the problem you have been discussing costs per month, then multiply by the months left until the date the buyer is waiting for. 'If you wait until February, that is four more months, and you said yourselves it costs you about 8,000 a month. Is it worth 32,000 to wait for the news?' Always calculate with the buyer's numbers, never your own. We have written elsewhere about how the cost of doing nothing gets established in discovery; what matters here is applying it to a date.

Answer three: make the decision smaller

Deloitte's CFO survey for the second quarter of 2026 shows a useful pattern: only 37 percent of the North American CFOs rated the economy as good, yet 90 percent were upbeat about their own company's prospects over the next twelve months and 59 percent thought it was a good time to be taking risks. Decision makers are more optimistic about themselves than about the economy. Use that by shrinking the decision to something that is about them: a pilot rather than a rollout, six months rather than three years, one department rather than the whole company. A small decision needs no economic forecast. All it needs is a buyer who believes in their own business, and nine in ten do.

When to accept the wait

A real freeze deserves respect, but it also deserves a date. 'You're waiting for the Riksbank's decision on 16 December; shall we book twenty minutes on the 17th, so we both know where we stand?' Put the date in the CRM, tied to the event, and call that day whatever the news turned out to be. A buyer who asked for time and then gets a call the moment the wait is over finds it hard to ask for more. A buyer who hears 'I'll be in touch some time over the winter' will happily wait until spring.

Practise the objection with current numbers

The line depends on knowing three numbers by heart and saying them calmly, which is harder than it sounds when the buyer has just said no. In Salesprep you meet AI customers who want to wait: in the Follow-up module, available on Pro and up, the customer has talked it over internally and is hesitating, and in the Negotiation module, available on Team Pro, you can practise shrinking the deal to a pilot without giving the price away. The Cold call module, with three free calls, is included in every plan.