Your prospect should not feel like they are being sold
Your prospect should not feel like they are being sold to in complex B2B deals. They should feel like they are helping shape the solution.
That is what makes deals stronger.
A buyer can agree with your pitch, like the demo, and still feel very little commitment to what you are selling.
Because in most sales processes, you do all the thinking while they sit there and react.
You present. They watch.
You build the case. They nod.
You run the demo. They sit back.
That can still close business. But it does not create ownership.
And without ownership, the deal stays weak. It gets pushed into price comparison.
It gets challenged late. It gets dropped when another option feels easier.
The solution did not change. The buyer’s relationship to it did.
That is the IKEA effect in B2B sales.
People place more value on what they helped shape. The same applies in a buying process.
When buyers help define the rollout, test the business case, map the workflow, and describe success in their own words, the solution stops feeling like something you are pushing.
It starts feeling like something they helped build. That changes the deal.
Because buyers defend what they helped create. They back it internally. They stay with it when scrutiny shows up.
They are much less likely to treat it like a line item to replace later. This is not about adding admin.
No one wants more forms, more handoffs, or more busywork. That creates frustration.
But useful effort does something different. It creates clarity.
It creates involvement. It creates ownership.
Look at your own deals.
Are you selling a pre-assembled answer, or asking the buyer to help build it with you? In complex sales, your job is not to remove every bit of effort from the buyer.
Your job is to remove the pointless effort and keep the moments that make the buyer think, choose, and shape the outcome.
Because the strongest deals are not the ones you sold. They are the ones the buyer helped build.
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