Wispr Flow had hundreds of Fortune 500 companies ready to buy.

The AI voice dictation app was getting traction. Internal champions at major enterprises were excited. The product was clearly solving a real problem. Demos were going great. Everyone was nodding and smiling.

But every single deal hit the same wall: "Can you send us your SOC 2 report?"

Spoiler alert: They didn't have one. And procurement shut them down cold.

Wispr Flow had 12 customers in eight months. Then they got SOC 2 certified and closed 400 customers in 60 days. Same product. Same price. Same team. The only difference was one piece of paper.

Welcome to enterprise sales, where your awesome product and warm relationships mean absolutely nothing if you don't have the right paperwork. Let's break down why your deals keep dying and what you can do about it.

Why Your "Warm" Deals Keep Going Silent

Your deals are dying for three reasons (and none of them are about your product):

1. You think excitement means they're ready to buy
2. You don't have the compliance stuff procurement actually needs
3. You're talking to someone who can't actually approve anything

Plot Twist: "Warm" Doesn't Mean "Ready to Buy"

That person who said "this is exactly what we need!" in your demo meant it. But they were talking about solving their problem, not buying your product. There's a huge difference.

Enterprise buyers think about risk first, cool features second. So while your champion is getting excited about your UI, procurement is having a totally different conversation: "If we buy this and it blows up, who's getting fired?"

What feels like sales momentum to you is often just someone collecting info before the real buying process even starts. You're in the "hmm, interesting" phase, not the "let's buy this" phase. And the gap between those two is months you didn't plan for.

The Test of a Warm Deal

Your deal isn't actually warm unless you can answer YES to one of these:

• Will this save them $100K+ per year?
• Will this fix a legal problem that's keeping their lawyers up at night?
• Will this prevent something that could blow up in the news?

If you can't check one of those boxes, you're still in discovery mode. So please, budget accordingly.

The Compliance Gap

When deals die from missing compliance stuff, you won't hear "no." You'll just hear... nothing. For months. And then the deal quietly disappears.

SOC 2 is basically your security report card. Without it, procurement won't even start the conversation, no matter how much everyone else loves your product.

No SOC 2 means you get slammed with a 900-question security questionnaire and months of legal review. Nobody wants to be the person who approved the "sketchy vendor" that didn't have basic security certifications.

With SOC 2, all that mess shrinks from months to weeks. The report proves you're secure AND that someone else (an auditor) verified it. That's the magic ingredient that lets procurement say yes without risking their job.

Platforms like Delve can help companies get SOC 2 certified faster and more affordably by automating the painful parts and providing clear guidance on what needs to get done.

Wispr Flow closed deals with 400 enterprise customers in 60 days after getting certified with help from Delve versus 12 total customers in the eight months before they were compliant. Nothing else changed. Not the product. Not the price. Just one piece of paper that said "this vendor won't get you fired."

SOC 2 costs $15K-50K and takes 3-6 months. Sounds expensive until you realize it unlocks millions in deals that were just sitting there, stuck.

The Compliance Checklist

Bare minimum you need:

• SOC 2 Type II report
• Standard security questionnaire responses
• Privacy policy (GDPR/CCPA compliant)
• Cyber liability insurance ($1M+ coverage)
• Enterprise contract template with standard terms
• Customer references in similar industries

Nice to have (gives you extra credibility):

• ISO 27001 certification
• HIPAA compliance (if relevant)
• Penetration test results
• Bug bounty program
• Uptime SLA with penalties

Your Champion Can't Actually Save You

The person who loves your product has zero power in procurement. If they're your only relationship, your deal is already toast. You just don't know it yet.

Let's map out who's in the room:

Your Champion - They love your product and text you back immediately. They're fighting for you internally. But they can't sign contracts, they can't override compliance requirements, and they can't make procurement move faster. They're cheerleaders, not decision-makers.

The Economic Buyer - This is who controls the money. They don't care about your features. They care about two things: What happens if we do nothing? What happens if this vendor screws up? You might not meet them until way late in the game (if at all).

The Technical Evaluator - Their job is to test whether your stuff works in production. They can kill your deal with one sentence: "Not ready for production." They don't care that marketing loves your design. They care if your API will break their system.

Procurement - These folks own vendor compliance and contracts. And they don't want you to win. They want to NOT get blamed if you mess up. Their entire job is finding reasons to say no, not reasons to say yes.

Your champion might be able to approve stuff under $50K. But if your contract is $200K then welcome to enterprise procurement review, where SOC 2 suddenly becomes non-negotiable.

The Pre-Sale Audit You Need to Run

Before you spend months chasing an enterprise deal, ask yourself these five questions:

1. Have you talked directly to procurement? (Not through your champion)
2. Do you know their specific compliance requirements?
3. Does your deal size trigger enterprise review? (Usually kicks in at $50K+ annual)
4. Who's the economic buyer and have you actually met them?
5. What are the technical requirements and have you validated them?

If you answered "no" to more than two of these, your deal is already at risk. Fix it now.

What You Should Do

Warm deals don't die because your product sucks. They die because you misread the room, showed up without the right paperwork, or built all your relationships with people who couldn't help you when it mattered.

Before your next enterprise push:

1. Map the actual decision-makers. Can you name all four stakeholders? Have you talked to procurement directly? Do you know what compliance docs they need? 
2. Get compliant BEFORE you start selling. SOC 2 costs $15-50K and takes 3-6 months. That's way cheaper than watching 6 months of pipeline die because you can't answer basic security questions. Start the compliance process the day you decide to go after enterprise customers, not the day someone asks for your SOC 2 report.

The Deal Health Diagnostic Checklist

Run this on every enterprise deal in your pipeline. It'll tell you which deals are moving and which ones are slowly dying.

Your deal is healthy if:

• You can answer one of the three warmth questions (saves $100K+, fixes regulatory exposure, or reduces operational risk)
• You've talked directly to procurement, not just your champion
• You have SOC 2 and other compliance docs ready to go
• You know who the economic buyer is and what their budget authority is
• The technical evaluator has signed off on production readiness
• Your contract value fits within their normal approval process

Your deal is at risk if:

• All your warmth is with one person who can't sign contracts
• You have no idea what procurement needs
• You're planning to get SOC 2 "when someone asks for it"
• You haven't met the economic buyer after 2+ months
• Your deal size triggers review processes you didn't know existed
• It's been 4+ weeks since the last real conversation with a decision-maker

Back to Wispr Flow one more time: After getting SOC 2, same product, same price, same team. The only thing that changed was a piece of paper and suddenly 400 customers showed up.

Don't wait for your deals to die. Get the paperwork sorted now.

PS: this article is written in partnership with Delve - a platform that solves compliance in days… not months. Delve's team knows everything there is to know about compliance.

Yes, this is sponsored. But also Delve is awesome.