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

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