Buyer Truths

Libsyn description

When Coro moved from direct sales to a channel model, Heather Harlows and Stuart Letzteneiser inherited a tech stack built for a business that no longer existed. The quoting, subscription management, and invoicing in the CRM were no longer needed, and the previous team had been liberal about buying tools.

Most of the stack got cut. The vendor that kept building stayed.

Heather and Stuart mapped Coro's entire tech ecosystem in about two months. They cut the duplicate tools first, then the underutilized ones, including one they were paying for to cover only its third use case. As they consolidated onto HubSpot, they kept MindMatrix as their PRM, because it turns their custom requests into a proposal and timeline within a couple of weeks. Then the conversation turns to the sellers pitching them, and Stuart estimates that about a third of those reps don't listen.

In this episode:

• How the switch from direct to channel sales made big parts of the CRM unnecessary
• The order they cut in: duplicates first, underutilized tools second, then consolidation
• Why a purpose-built PRM beat a "PRM light," and Stuart's case for buying over building: you get the knowledge of all your vendor's customers
• What the best sales calls do: skip the brag slide, tailor the call within ten minutes, and ask before the call what the buyer wants to cover

If you sell software to companies that are trimming their stack, or you're a rep about to open with the brag slide, this episode shows what makes a tool survive the cut.

Guests: Heather Harlows, Global VP of Marketing Programs & Enablement at Coro, and Stuart Letzteneiser, Global Revenue & Business Operations at Coro

Host: Drew Giovannoli (buriedwins.com)

Bryn Adler, Senior Director of Marketing at Emburse, set out to replace Demandbase over one problem she couldn't get past: she no longer trusted the data. The account signals her team passed to sales had become a black box, and she couldn't open the tool up to her SDRs in good faith.

The data problem started the search. One sales rep decided the outcome.

She assumed 6Sense was the only real alternative, a straight swap of one legacy ABM tool for another. Then, in a routine check-in, UserGems showed her contact-level orchestration she didn't know existed, and the whole search cracked open to include Clay too.

In this episode:

• Why data integrity, not price, was the straw that broke the camel's back with Demandbase
• The one UserGems rep who insisted on showing what was possible and changed the trajectory of the deal
• Clay vs. UserGems: web scraping and volume against accuracy and who actually has to run the tool
• Why 6Sense's relationship-building approach worked against them with a buyer who needed to move fast

If you sell ABM, signal, or enrichment tools, or you're the marketer weighing this exact decision, this one shows how a six-figure choice actually gets made.

Guest: Bryn Adler, Senior Director of Marketing at Emburse

Hosted by Drew Giovannoli (buriedwins.com)

Michael Scholz, VP of Product & Customer Marketing at commercetools, came into an analyst relations renewal as the named budget holder. His CEO and chief strategy officer had both pointed the rep his way. He wasn't a gatekeeper, and he was genuinely open to buying more across the multiple brands and products he owned.

The hustle lost the deal. The listening won the expansion.

One account manager went around him anyway, forwarding emails past the budget holder to product managers who couldn't sign anything. The firms that won more from Michael did the opposite: they listened, and sent the occasional well-timed ping.

In this episode:

• Why the trust eroded from day one, even after Michael made it clear he was the decision maker
• The upsell conversation the rep never had, across quadrants, voice-of-customer reports, and thought leadership
• Why Michael bought MORE from the tier-two and tier-three firms that simply listened
• How the analyst model itself may be facing a reckoning in the age of AI and answer engines

If you sell into executive buyers or manage six-figure renewals, this one shows what going around the budget holder actually costs you.

Guest: Michael Scholz, VP of Product & Customer Marketing at commercetools

More buyer research at buyertruths.com

Hosted by Jen Allen-Knuth (demandjen.com) & Drew Giovannoli (buriedwins.com)

Jaleh Rezaei, CEO and co-founder of Mutiny, went in ready to buy an AI-native CRM. She had budget, authority, and a three-week timeline. The vendor she wanted to pick kept replying three days late, and somewhere in the delay her read flipped from "this rep is slow" to "this company is a mess we can't trust with our data." She bought HubSpot instead.

In this episode, Jaleh walks us through:

• Why she leads with a Loom request and a red/green/yellow self-critique instead of a demo
• How "sincere apologies for the delay" quietly lost the deal
• The moment a slow rep became a slow product, then a risky company
• Why the safe incumbent won without doing anything exceptional

If you sell CRM, AI-native tools, or anything against an entrenched incumbent, this one's for you.

Guest: Jaleh Rezaei, CEO & Co-founder of Mutiny Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli

Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com

Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

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Becky Abraham is the Global Director of Sales Enablement at Safeguard Global. Within the same renewal cycle, she cut one six-figure tool and expanded another. One vendor panicked and offered a 40% discount nobody asked for. The other showed up three months early, listened to her internal conversations, and painted a vision of what her team could do differently.

The discount lost the deal. The vision won the expansion.

In this episode, Becky walks us through:

• Why a 40% unprompted discount devalued the tool instead of saving the renewal
• How a narrow point solution lost to a broader platform that solved the same problem plus more
• What the AM who won the expansion did three months before renewal that made all the difference
• Why she stopped believing ROI numbers and what vendors should show her instead

If you sell into sales enablement or manage six-figure renewals, this one's for you.

Guest: Becky Abraham, Global Director of Sales Enablement at Safeguard Global Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli

More research at buyertruths.com

We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them.

Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com

Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

Accord vs Aligned vs DIY: Why the Vendor Who Did More Lost at WordPress VIP

Josh Fosberg leads the media and publishing segment at WordPress VIP, managing a sales org that was drowning in PDFs, scattered emails, and deals happening in rooms they couldn't see. They needed deal room software. They had three options: Accord, Aligned, or build it themselves on WordPress.

Accord's seller was excellent. He multi-threaded well, built relationships outside the core buying committee, and made a strong case. He still lost. Because when the feature set didn't match what WordPress VIP actually needed, more became a liability.

In this episode, Josh walks us through:

• Why Accord's broader feature set worked against them -- even when the sales process was excellent
• What Aligned did that kept them perfectly inside the box WordPress VIP needed to stay in
• How the DIY option gets evaluated at a company that can actually build anything on WordPress
• What selling to salespeople looks like from the buyer's side of the table

If you sell deal room software, sales enablement tools, or anything where a competitor might say "we do more," this one's for you.

Guest: Josh Fosberg, Head of Media & Publishing at WordPress VIP Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli

More research at buyertruths.com

We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them.

Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com

Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

Alicia is the VP of everything post-sale at Daxko's boutique division. She inherited a 234-step manual onboarding process and an average of 17 emails per customer deal. After a 90-day internal sprint with her CTO cut the problem by only 30%, a company acquisition finally unlocked the budget to look outside.

A teammate surfaced Onramp. The demo went well. Then pricing hit the table -- and it cost more than Daxko's entire Salesforce contract.

In this episode, Alicia walks us through:

• Why she pumped the brakes on the AE's attempts to reach her boss -- and what it would have taken to actually get there
• The moment a pricing comparison to Salesforce stopped the deal in its tracks mid-call
• How the AE responded to losing momentum without trying to objection handle -- and why that kept him in the game
• What it looks like when a seller earns a seat on the buyer's side of the table

If you sell into customer success, post-sale tech, or anything with a complex onboarding story, this one's for you.

Guest: Alicia, VP of Post-Sale at Daxko Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli

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Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com

Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

Rob runs marketing at LockThreat, an early-stage GRC startup he joined with no MarTech stack and one strong conviction: they needed HubSpot. First he had to survive two failed Zoho consultants and months of internal politics just to get approval to switch.

The HubSpot sales rep was excellent. The implementation partner was a disaster. And now the guy who fought hardest to bring HubSpot in can't bring himself to recommend it.

In this episode, Rob walks us through:

• Why two Zoho consultants failed and what finally got him approval to switch
• What the HubSpot sales rep did that made the buying process easy
• How a cookie-cutter implementation partner broke his data, ghosted him, and then got aggressive
• Why a great sales process could not protect his reputation when the partner fell apart

If you sell CRM, MarTech, or implementation services, this one's for you.

Guest: Rob, Head of Marketing at LockThreat Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli

More research at buyertruths.com

We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them.

Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. buriedwins.com

Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. demandjen.com

div]:bg-bg-000/50 [&_pre>div]:border-0.5 [&_pre>div]:border-border-400 [&_.ignore-pre-bg>div]:bg-transparent [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8"> _*]:min-w-0 gap-3 standard-markdown">

How a $500M SaaS RVP Bought an AI Writing Tool to Close a Sales Skill Gap

Keith is an RVP at Bullhorn, a $500M CRM and ATS platform for recruiting and staffing firms. When he noticed a communication skill gap across his 35-person mid-market sales team, he didn't go looking for a vendor. He already knew one. He had been following Nate, the founder of Fluint, on LinkedIn for years and had even bought his sales course before the software existed.

No RFP. No competitive evaluation. A paid pilot, a 45-day window, and a budget freed up by cutting licenses from a tool nobody was using.

In this episode, Keith walks us through:

• How years of following a founder on LinkedIn became the entire buying process
• The pilot criteria he used and why qualitative signals mattered more than metrics
• How he freed up budget by auditing existing tools before adding a new one
• Why the vendor that lost found out they were losing only when Keith told them

If you sell AI tools, sales enablement, or anything where adoption is the real risk, this one's for you.

Guest: Keith Weightman, RVP at Bullhorn Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli

More research at buyertruths.com

We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them.

Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com

Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

Kathleen is a CMO who was first introduced to One Mind through a trusted VC referral, not a cold pitch. What started as a novelty demo featuring digital Deepak Chopra took two years to become a signed contract, as the tech matured, use cases sharpened, and the One Mind team methodically built trust across her entire buying committee. The deal was tens of thousands of dollars, and she signed before her team was even ready to implement.

In this episode, Kathleen walks us through:

• The exact demo moment that shifted "this is cool" to "this is a real business case"
• What One Mind did to multithread around her as a champion and why she had to step back to let it work
• How a glitchy live demo at their annual conference delayed the deal by four to five months
• Why she signed a contract with a five-month delayed start date and what built enough trust to make that feel safe

If you sell early-stage AI tools or anything that requires a long internal buy-in process, this one's for you.

Guest: Kathleen, CMO Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli

More research at buyertruths.com

We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them.

Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com

Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com