The Learn-It-All Podcast 156: The Buyer Confidence Gap That’s Costing You Millions | Brent Adamson
Business-to-business commerce is broken. Today’s customers find themselves overwhelmed by too many options, too much information, and too many obstacles. The result is often an inability to execute any but the safest of purchase decisions, frequently resulting in no decision at all.
Today’s guest is Brent Adamson, he’s a world-renowned researcher, author, presenter, trainer, and advisor to B2B commercial executives around the world.
He’s here to argue that the real key to B2B sales success is to focus on boosting customers’ confidence in themselves and their ability to make large-scale, collective decisions on behalf of their company rather than sticking with how traditional sales have worked.
In this episode, you will learn:
- Why sales success hinges on buyer self-confidence, not seller expertise
- How “frame making” helps reduce decision friction in complex buying groups
- What to do when content marketing becomes part of the customer’s confusion
- How emotional calibration can humanize your pitch and build trust faster
- How to coach customers through their own internal process using a simple audit
Timestamps:
00:16 – The surprising origins of The Challenger Sale
01:30 – Why segmentation research gave way to selling insights
02:51 – The seller crushing quota in the middle of a recession
05:07 – How Neil Rackham predicted Challenger’s longevity
06:21 – Pushback: “Relationships still matter!”
08:12 – From product to solution to insight as the competitive edge
10:18 – Why leading with “you’re selling wrong” fails
11:20 – Framing the shift: Selling must evolve because buying has
12:46 – The rise of buyer indecision in a world drowning in content
15:06 – “Smartness arms race” and the downfall of content overload
16:05 – 20-person buying groups that don’t know how to decide
17:38 – Why decision fatigue is killing commerce
20:30 – The real opportunity: Making buyers confident in themselves
21:55 – Coach vs. expert: The power of preserving buyer agency
24:35 – How younger or newer sellers can still bring massive value
25:58 – Use this phrase to add instant credibility as a new seller
26:09 – Playing the role of connector, not expert
29:08 – Personalizing outreach through social proof and curation
30:05 – Adding subtle emotional language to increase engagement
33:41 – The Frame Making model: Establish, Engage, Execute
36:11 – “It turns out that…” audit: Avoiding surprise buyer stalls
38:26 – Build a customer-facing “sequence of events” map
40:15 – Expedient’s frame making mindset: Win by helping customers decide faster
42:26 – “If we’re going to lose, let’s lose early”
44:00 – The most powerful thing a customer can feel after a sales call
45:56 – Teaching empathy through language and emotional calibration
49:45 – Hypothesis-led empathy: How to learn what customers feel
51:18 – The overlooked ROI of solving for what customers feel
Resources Mentioned:
Buy The Frame Making Sale: https://www.amazon.com/Framemaking-Sale-Boosting-Customer-Confidence/dp/1541705823/
HBR article on the Sense Making for Sales: https://hbr.org/2022/01/sensemaking-for-sales
Follow Brent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentadamson/
Watch Brent’s Frame Making Sale YouTube series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HKcZiOSrso
Connect with Us:
- Uplevel yourself and your team with our trainings: www.learnit.com
- Email us: podcast@learnit.com
- Follow Damon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damonlembi/
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