This article is based on April Dunford’s talk at the Product Marketing Summit in San Francisco. As a PMA member, you can enjoy the complete recording here. For more exclusive content, head over to your membership dashboard.

Selling is hard, right? 

It seems like everyone believes selling is a challenge; even the founders I work with are terrified of it. That sucks because if we don't figure out how to sell our products, we go out of business. 

In short, knowing how to sell is vital. 

However, that’s not what I’m going to talk about today. Instead, I want to flip the script and look at it from the customer's perspective. 

Why? 

Because buying is hard too. 

Now, I know what you're thinking – "Buying isn’t hard, April! It’s called shopping, and it's easy! I wish I was shopping right now. Get on with your article." That's because when we think about buying, we picture ourselves buying fun things like shoes, t-shirts, or drinks at a bar. 

However, there are definitely some not-so-fun purchases. Have you ever enjoyed buying insurance? No. Have you ever had fun buying a house? Of course not! It's awful! Similarly, when it comes to B2B software, most of what we sell is incredibly hard to buy. 

Let me give you an example. It’s not related to tech, but trust me, it'll make sense soon. This story is called "April Buys a Toilet." Work with me here.

April buys a toilet

Let me set the scene. I live in Toronto, famous for having old, terrible houses. I bought one of these houses and inside was a terrible bathroom, so I hired a guy to renovate it. On day two, he told me, "You gotta go and buy a toilet."

"Alright," I thought, having never bought a toilet before. At the toilet store, a sales rep asked what kind I wanted. I was like, "I don’t know – one that flushes?" He said, "Look, there's all kinds of toilets back there. Check out the prices and features, then let me know which one you want."

I looked around the showroom and there were hundreds of toilets that all looked the same! Some cost $100, others $1,000 – no idea why. Each had a sticker listing baffling features: "gravity flush," "trapway," "flapper"... what's a flapper?! I didn't know enough to make a decision.

So, I did what anyone would do – went home and researched toilets online. Turns out, they're full of technology! Water efficiency, seat heights, single or dual flush, visible trapways (whatever those are), and more. 

Want to know the most disgusting thing I learned? Too bad, I’m gonna tell you anyway. There’s a score. It’s called the MaP score. That’s the maximum solid waste a toilet can flush. 18 ounces (500 grams) is good, but some can handle up to 2.2 pounds (a kilogram) – that’s the size of a small dog! 

You’re welcome.

Anyway, my head was swimming with toilet knowledge. However, I didn't want to have to become a toilet expert – I'm busy with kids, my job, and a dog that I don't plan to flush! 

So, I had a genius idea: the old toilet worked fine. I'd keep it until it broke. In the end, I spent three weeks going to showrooms, searching endlessly online… and bought zero toilets.

How hard is it to buy your product?

Now, I'm not saying buying your product is like buying a toilet. Okay, maybe I am. Purchasing B2B software is exactly the same as buying a toilet – perhaps a little worse.

So you can see what I mean, let's look at a typical B2B enterprise purchase process. I want you to imagine your company sells accounting software. One day, the VP of Finance for an eCommerce wakes up and thinks, "Our accounting software sucks. We've outgrown it. I’m trying to do an audit, and this software just doesn't do what I need it to do." 

As the VP of Finance, what’s her next move? Does she start researching options online? No way! She goes into the office, finds an underling – let’s call him Joey – and says, "Hey Joey! We need new accounting software. Go make a shortlist. You vet the vendors and I'll write the check." 

How's Joey feeling? Joey’s pissed. He might use accounting software in his job, but he’s by no means an expert on all the possibilities out there. Still, he has no choice but to get on with it. 

So, Joey hits Google. Before long, he’s totally overwhelmed by endless quadrants with 50-plus vendors listed in them. Eventually, he finds his way to your company’s website and requests a demo. 

Demo day rolls around and your eager sales rep bombards him with 59 drop-down menus, clicking through every single feature. Meanwhile, poor Joey is sitting there, hair blowing back in this wind tunnel of tech speak, understanding absolutely nothing. 

Sales puts customers in the windtunnel of features

And Joey’s freaking out. If he makes the wrong choice, bad things will happen. His boss will think he's a dummy, the accounting team will hate him, and the company will fail next year's audit. Joey could miss out on a promotion or even get fired.

What's the easiest, lowest-risk thing for Joey to do right now? Nothing. He’s gonna go tell his boss, "Now's not a good time. We're swamped with audits. I looked, but all the options are complicated and expensive. The software we have is working okay..."

The stats on this are terrifying. Research shows that 40–60% of B2B purchase processes result in no decision being made. And it's not that they evaluated everything and decided the status quo was best – no, they simply couldn't figure out how to make a decision, so they kicked the can down the road and decided to do nothing.