2025: The Year to Master the Buyer Experience and Win Big

In over 20 years navigating GTM roles and buying software and tools for various companies, I've learned one fundamental truth: the buying experience can make or break your deal. Yet, most salespeople blame their product or price for losses. Here's the harsh reality—buyers rarely tell you the full truth. The root cause? Silent deal killers embedded in your selling approach.

As we gear up for 2025, let’s address these pitfalls. Here are nine ways to fix your buying experience and drive consistent wins:

1. Being Slow

Buyers don’t forgive slowness. Whether it's a delayed response to an email or missing a follow-up call, being slow signals disinterest or inefficiency. Speed conveys competence—don’t underestimate how heavily this weighs on decision-making.

Action Tip: Respond within 24 hours—even if just to acknowledge the query.

2. Being Disengaged

Sales is not dating; playing "hard to get" doesn’t work. Buyers want to feel valued. If you’re too aloof, they’ll disengage and move on.

Action Tip: Stay proactive with updates, but strike a balance—don’t flood their inbox.

3. Being Over-Engaged

Your buyer has a day job. They don’t want weekly check-ins or extensive homework assignments. Overloading them only breeds resentment.

Action Tip: Focus on strategic, high-impact engagements that respect their time.

4. Making Discovery About You

Discovery isn’t just qualification—it’s education. Buyers need to understand their problems better, and why your solution matters. Make it about them, and the value exchange becomes reciprocal.

Action Tip: Frame questions to uncover buyer pain points while subtly aligning them with your solution’s strengths.

5. Following Up Without Value

Your follow-ups shouldn’t feel like nagging. Serve the buyer's journey with every interaction—whether through a pain-point summary or curated stakeholder resources.

Action Tip: Always add value and tie follow-ups to their next decision milestone.

6. Overvaluing Demos

A demo is not the goal—it’s merely a tool. Buyers often request demos because they’re frustrated with endless qualification. Instead, focus on uncovering value and aligning features with pain points.

Action Tip: Tailor demos to illustrate problem-solving rather than feature showcasing.

7. Ignoring the Buyer’s World

If your expertise doesn’t connect to the buyer’s environment, you’re a commodity. You must understand their challenges and decision-making processes better than they do.

Action Tip: Research the buyer’s industry, competitive pressures, and key challenges.

8. Creating Email Hell

Sending scattered links and documents makes the buying process harder. Streamline communication by organising resources in a single accessible space.

Action Tip: Use collaborative tools like Notion or dedicated buyer portals for transparency and accessibility.

9. Overlooking Stakeholder Diversity

Different stakeholders have different priorities. Your pitch to the CFO should look nothing like your pitch to the head of IT. Tailor your approach to address specific concerns.

Action Tip: Build persona-based playbooks for each stakeholder type.

Conclusion

The way you sell is as critical as your product. Creating an exceptional buying experience isn’t a "nice-to-have"—it’s what separates winners from ghosted prospects.

By eliminating these silent deal killers, you’ll position yourself to exceed quotas and dominate in 2025.

That’s all for now, folks! If you found this valuable, please like and share. Don’t forget to subscribe to the EdTech Growth Newsletter for more actionable insights to help you scale and succeed in 2025.