Technical buyers are slow to buy—here’s how to speed it up
If you’ve ever tried selling to technical buyers, you know it can feel like watching paint dry. Months of proof-of-concepts (PoCs), endless security reviews, and a constant internal debate about whether they even need to buy software at all.
But here’s the thing—technical buyers aren’t dragging their feet just to mess with you. They’re making high-stakes decisions that can impact architecture, workflows, and even company culture. And unless you know how to align with their evaluation process, your deal is going to take forever (if it closes at all).
I know this because I’ve been on the buying side of these deals—both in large enterprises signing seven-figure contracts with companies like Akamai, Oracle, and VMware, and in startups where agility mattered just as much as price. Here’s what slows down the process—and what you can do to move it forward.
How to Speed Up the Evaluation Process
1. Target Technical Buyers with Performance Marketing
If you know exactly who your buyers are, you can stay top of mind with ads, downloadable assets, email campaigns, and other targeted content. The goal isn’t just visibility—it’s about constantly addressing the pain points they experience every day. Be relevant, be present, and you’ll build trust long before they’re ready to evaluate solutions.
2. Provide Deep, Transparent Documentation
Technical buyers hate vague marketing fluff. What we need are clear, technical answers upfront—API documentation, architecture diagrams, integration guides, and real-world case studies. If I have to book a demo just to get basic technical details, I’m already moving on.
3. Give Buyers a No-Friction Proof-of-Concept (PoC)
Buyers don’t want endless sales calls—we want to get our hands on the product ASAP. Make it easy for us to test with sandbox environments, free trials, and well-documented PoC guides. If I have to talk to sales before I can even try the product, that’s already slowing things down.
4. Help Buyers Make the Internal Business Case
Even if I’m sold on your product, I still have to convince my team, security, procurement, and leadership. And one of the biggest things they want to see? Case studies from companies like ours that have successfully adopted your product. Make that easier with ROI calculators, security compliance reports, executive-friendly summaries, and real-world case studies that help me push the deal forward internally.
5. Offer Flexible, Responsive Support
For business-critical systems, fast, 24/7 support is non-negotiable. If your product supports customer-facing or revenue-generating functions, buyers will prioritize vendors who can guarantee uptime and provide immediate assistance when things go wrong.
Why Technical Buyers Move So Slowly
1. Software Purchases Are Risky
A salesperson wants to close the deal yesterday, but the buyer is juggling too many projects, competing solutions, and organizational priorities. Unless there’s a hard deadline or a major business initiative, software purchases often get pushed to the bottom of the list. The bigger the deal, the slower the evaluation—because switching software isn’t just about using a new tool. A major software change often means a shift in architecture, hiring priorities, workflows, and even company culture. Software teams think in systems, so replacing or adding key components changes how people approach problem-solving on a daily basis.
And in many cases, the biggest competitor isn’t another vendor—it’s DIY. There’s almost always someone internally saying, "We could just build this ourselves. We don’t need vendor lock-in, long-term contracts, or dependency on an external team for fixes." In an era of AI-generated code and rapid prototyping, you’re not just competing with other vendors—you’re competing with smart teams who believe they can move faster by keeping everything in-house.
2. Large Companies Require Months-Long PoCs
When I was running enterprise teams, we spent months testing software in proof-of-concept (PoC) environmentsbefore committing to a purchase. But we weren’t just evaluating one vendor—we were often running parallel PoCs with two or more competitors. Everything had to be vetted for compliance, security, extensibility, and integration with existing systems. And evaluation wasn’t just about using the software—security teams had their own assessments, procurement needed to ensure compliance, and leadership had to weigh the long-term fit. The bigger the deal, the more time we needed to ensure it wouldn’t create future headaches. And because every deployment was customized, we didn’t want much hand-holding from sales—we needed raw access to documentation, test environments, and real-world performance data.
3. Startups and Mid-Sized Companies Move Faster—But Still Need Help
In smaller companies, I still relied heavily on PoCs—but they were shorter and required more direct support. If the product was easy to integrate, had clear documentation, and plugged into common software stacks, the evaluation process moved fast. But if the product required extensive effort to test, didn’t have great onboarding materials, or lacked flexibility, the deal stalled.
Make It Easier for Technical Buyers to Say Yes
The best way to speed up technical sales is to align with how technical buyers actually evaluate products. That means:
✔ Providing immediate, frictionless access to PoCs
✔ Offering clear, in-depth documentation without needing a sales call
✔ Helping buyers sell the solution internally
✔ Ensuring fast, reliable support for critical systems
✔ Using performance marketing to stay top of mind
If you can meet technical buyers where they are, answer their questions before they have to ask, and provide a smooth evaluation process, you’ll turn a slow, painful sales cycle into one that actually moves.
