8 B2B Software Buyer Mistakes During a Sales Process

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Over the past 15+ years I’ve either led or participated in thousands of different business to business software sales cycles. Most of my customers have been FP&A Directors, CFOs, Controllers, Finance Managers and so on. In my experience, these can be the most analytical and strategic buyers in existence – they’re in G&A after all. They can’t go buying software on a whim like the sales team. That said, they still make plenty of mistakes.

The list below focuses on what I consider a modern buying process – not the old school, grizzled procurement guy process that so many people have been raised on.

1. Not telling the vendor who they are competing against

This happens in about 25% of sales cycles when led by the Finance team. If led by procurement or IT, bump that up to 75% or more. Buyers hide their candidates for a few reasons:

• Concern about a detrimental affect on the quotes they’ll receive in the future
• Wanting to avoid vendor mud-slinging
• Not confident that they’re looking at like-products
•  It’s what they’ve always done

It is critically important that you share this information with the vendors early and often. This gives the vendor the opportunity to differentiate against other vendors, to your exclusive benefit. Don’t you want to know why their product is superior to the other product? Take note of all the mud that’s been slung and present it to the other vendor. Get a response. Maybe the vendors have a difference in philosophy which will impact your decision.

Worried about pricing? If so, maybe you’re looking at the wrong vendors. Why is one so cheap and the other so expensive? Probably because they’re in radically different market segments. It would be nice to know that.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to beg the customer to tell me who they’re looking at only to find that they’re either way upmarket from my product or way below. In some cases, I’ve told them I’m not in the right place and have walked from the evaluation. In all cases the buyer has benefitted from being transparent and hearing the differentiators from my point of view. This gives them something to chew on, and while those differentiators were totally biased in my favor, the other vendor can do the same.

2. Playing “hide the budget”

One of the most common challenges for everyone in a sales process.

Sales Rep: “What is your budget for the first year including setup?”

Buyer: “I’d prefer not to say.”

That’s sure helpful. Now the salesperson doesn’t know if you can afford it and has little incentive to continue working with you – unless of course they’re desperate, which is very bad for you. You’ll spend 2 months with the desperate salesperson only to be quoted 10x of what you have budgeted. Certainly not a great use of anyone’s time.

Sharing budget information can serve to guide the vendor to sending you a quote for exactly that, which is the downside to sharing it and the reason why buyers are terrified of doing so. I understand this concern, but consider the fact that you’re holding all the cards in a negotiation. Let’s say you mention an annual license budget of $45k for the new Financial Planning platform. You go through the process and voila, the quote for users, modules and so on is magically $44.9k.

Just because you stated that was your budget, you will always negotiate. This is software after all, you’re not buying physical goods. Demand more users for the same price. Tell them the implementation was more expensive than you had planned. There are plenty of ways to maneuver.

3. Falling in love with a product too early

This is the quintessential emotional mistake buyers get hit with early on, sometimes only after reviewing the website.

“The UI looks clean!”

“They list everything I’ve always wanted!”

“OMG OMG OMG look at all those references!”

And boom, that buyer is sold before they even set foot in the Zoom. Now the other vendors, who might have a better fit solution, are working from behind.

How do you avoid that emotional connection before the demo? First, don’t spend too much time on any vendor’s website. You’ll want to see their pitch, sure. But let’s be honest – every vendor claims they’re the best on their website. Those UI shots you saw – that was the dashboard which always looks cool. They claim to do everything you want? Maybe… except that one thing that you’re going to now convince yourself to overlook because love is in the air.

Second, disconnect yourself from the color palette and the UI. In time, they mean absolutely nothing. What matters is the functionality – who gets you the closest to where you want to be, today?

And last, try not to put too much credence on your relationship with the sales team. You might love the rep. The service is great, they’re friendly, and they sent an Edible Arrangement to your office. It even had chocolate covered pineapple ones in it, which you totally love. So what? Don’t let that cause you to be biased in the evaluation. Once the deal is closed, the sales team will disappear.

...you will always negotiate. This is software after all, you’re not buying physical goods. Demand more users for the same price. Tell them the implementation was more expensive than you had planned. There are plenty of ways to maneuver.

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4. Not being able to let go of their Ex

A common one with relationships – with a human and with a familiar product. If you’ve used a product before, despite it having flaws, sometimes you go back to it because you feel the hassle of trying something new is a burden. When doing so, you tie yourself to the past and in some cases a legacy product that has seen its day.

About four years ago I watched one of these play out in real time. This was a five-person evaluation team with one participant who was pining for an old love. It was enterprise software, and they were a $50m startup. Didn’t matter, this person couldn’t let it go and did what he could to poison the evaluation for everyone. As the buyer, who do you believe? The vendor who you don’t know, or the person who sits next to you each day? It’s a tough spot to be in.

In summary, familiarity is not an indicator of fit. Requirements change. New products debut all the time. Be open-minded to the new.

5. Blocking access to the economic buyer

Sometimes software buyers embark on an evaluation without the express written permission of the economic buyer. They do this because they know a solution is needed and will benefit the organization, but the economic buyer (maybe the CEO, CFO) hasn’t been very open to buying software for anyone in G&A. So, the project champion gets the ball rolling and tries to drag the economic buyer along kicking and screaming, hoping they can eventually build a case.

This works – once in a while. Usually though, you get to the end of the process and now the economic buyer wants to see a “high-level demo” for 30 minutes (after you’ve been working on this for 50 hours) only to say no with little thought.

If your executives are serious about transformational software, which Corporate Performance Management absolutely is, they’ll invest the time to look at the solution early and often. If they’re unwilling, you should question if it is worth your time to evaluate new products.

6. Paying a consultant to make the decision

This one is a doozy and merits its own dedicated article. Since you don’t have all day, let’s start with a few common reasons why buyers hire selection consultants:

• They’re terrified of getting fired for buying the wrong product
• After some Google searches for “financial planning software for business” they realized that the market is overflowing with products, and quickly become overwhelmed
• Someone convinced them that they’d get a better deal by hiring a pro

There are some BIG negatives when hiring this out, the biggest being how frustratingly long it tends to take. Did you really need an RFI and RFP? There goes 3 months. How many flowcharts about your own business processes do you really need to look at? And why is this taking so long?

Well of course it’s dragging – you’re paying the consultant by the hour. They have to give you the appearance of being thorough. And oh boy, that change management plan they presented sure changed the game. We can’t fail now!

And after all that, you still must sit through demos, reference calls, and meet as a team to decide the winner. So… what did the selection consultant accomplish, exactly?

This is why ShortlistMatch focuses on reducing your evaluation to 3 vendors immediately and provides pre-written scorecards for the demos. Our process, which is free, takes an hour at most. Since you’re going to make the choice on which vendor you want anyway, why waste time with an over the top consulting process?

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7. Forcing an RFI and/or an RFP

Sometimes procurement requires this, especially in non-profits, education and government. I can see this making sense if you’re building a bridge or buying an F-35. But for business software, I’ve yet to see a buyer have a more positive outcome because they spent the time releasing RFIs and RFPs to vendors in the space.

When an RFP is received, the first question a sales team will ask is “Are the buyers sending this to us because they have to?” In other words, is this some sort of organizational mandate? If it is, and they’re being blocked from the buyers, forget it. There is usually no reason to reply to these as the decision is almost always already made. The RFP is a formality disguised as a business opportunity so the procurement guy can check a box and get a paycheck.

Now let’s pretend the RFP is legitimate. Any smart vendor knows that to sell you, they need to speak with you and demo their product. What ends up on an RFP response doesn’t matter that much. So, you end up receiving a collection of CTRL-C CTRL-V responses and some very non-committal pricing. Who benefits from this? Nobody, and you just watched 2-3 months go by.

8. Going solo to key vendor meetings

Failing to garner sufficient interest from your stakeholders to attend these meetings is an indicator that the project has not been properly sold internally. Expect to tread water until you get better buy-in.

What are those key meetings?

Discovery Call with Subject Matter Expert

ShortlistMatch handles this once in our consultation, saving you from doing it multiple times with different vendors. Either way, you need to bring the team to these. I’ve run plenty of discovery calls where just one person showed up, and inevitably when the time comes for the demo with the broader team, we’re still missing half of the critical requirements. The demo never goes well.

Consider the decision process when deciding who to bring. Let’s say you’re looking specifically at a Financial Reporting solution. Who will influence that buying decision? Certainly, the people who produce the reports – but what about the people who receive the output? Shouldn’t they have a say? If you want to avoid a million people on the call, pick one or two from a specific group.

Demonstration

Heading into the demo solo almost always results in the demo happening again. I counsel against this, as the demo is one of the most collaborative events in a software evaluation and is usually the deciding factor. This is why we created the Demonstration Scorecard, to make sure our buyers get the most out of this critical event.

Asking for a recording for the people who didn’t attend is not recommended. Evidence has shown that these recordings are almost never watched, as they are terribly dull and not interactive.

Implementation Scoping

This is where the team you’ll be working closest with will interview you to determine the labor involved in setting up the solutions. You’ll interview them too. Many buyers approach this casually, thinking that the initial Discovery call captured everything, which is never the case.

It is here where the entire project can fall apart if not taken seriously. Is 30 minutes enough? No way. Make sure you’re thorough here and bring in all the right stakeholders. Discuss timelines. Confirm that the implementation provider has seen a copy of the license order so that they can provide an all-inclusive setup quote. Make sure they see examples of what you’re doing today that must be included in the setup. Don’t make any assumptions.

Proposal Presentation

Most vendors will wrap up their sales process with a PowerPoint showing pricing, timelines, and so on. Vendors that simply send you a pricing sheet either aren’t taking you seriously or are lazy, which is a red flag.

This is your opportunity to see what the vendor thinks you need based on the conversations. Were they listening? Is the quote missing anything you discussed?

To be clear, you’re not agreeing to buy in this meeting. I recommend that you do not, no matter what pressure you get from the sales team. Vet all proposals together, review the Demonstration Scorecard results, then decide as a team.

In Summary

Modern buyers of financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, consolidation and close software have more options than ever. These options have made the decision process much more challenging. If you’re struggling, please reach out to us and complete the questionnaire. Our AI-assisted shortlisting tool and your Shortlist Match Category Advisor will counsel you on the rest.

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