I recently bought a car without ever stepping foot in a dealership. I chose the model and trim, applied for financing, signed all the paperwork, and scheduled delivery—all online. No test drive. No sales rep. No awkward upsell on leather interiors or undercoating.
If you had told me five years ago I’d drop $60K on a car without speaking to a human, I’d have laughed you out of the room. But here we are.
And it’s not just me. It’s your buyers.
Whether it’s cars, software, or anything in between, today’s buyers want to be in control. They want to self-educate, explore on their own terms, and make decisions without being funneled through a traditional sales process.
This shift isn’t subtle—it’s seismic. According to Gartner, buyers now spend only 17% of their time meeting with vendors. That’s across all vendors. If you’re lucky, you’re getting 5% of that time. For presales? Maybe even less.
Buyers aren’t anti-sales. They’re just anti-friction. They don’t want more meetings, more slides, or more pitches. They want access. To answers. To product. To proof.
We call this the rise of the anti-social buyer. And the anti-social buyer has changed the game.
In B2B, presales is now the bridge. The human connector between complex products and independent buyers. Presales teams are uniquely positioned to meet these new expectations, bringing technical clarity, personalized insight, and product truth to every touchpoint. But it’s not scalable through traditional means.
That’s why elite sales and presales teams are evolving. They’re not chasing buyers—they’re coaching them. They’re not just pitching—they’re guiding. And most importantly, they’re scaling their impact without scaling their headcount.
How? With the power of product experiences.
Meet the Anti-Social Buyer (and Why They’re Not the Problem)
This isn’t some fringe Gen Z trend. I’m talking about professionals across every industry and age group. Boomers. Gen X. Millennials. You and me.
We’re all screening calls. Deleting marketing emails. Doing our own research. Showing up to the first call 80% educated—or expecting to be.
Why?
Because time is our most valuable asset. And we don’t want to waste it being sold to.
Here’s the kicker: buyers still want to buy. But they want to do it on their own terms:
- They want answers, not access.
- They don’t want to hear your pitch.
- They want to see how your product solves their problem.
- They don’t want to schedule a demo.
- They want the demo now.
They’re not anti-sales. They’re just anti-friction.
And this shift didn’t come out of nowhere. Buying was already on the path for a major transformation with the rise of smartphones. We started using those devices not just for communication, but for research, comparison shopping, and instant gratification. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit—and it was like someone pressed fast-forward on digital transformation.
One of my favorite futurists, Brian Solis, cited research showing that the U.S. e-commerce sector experienced 10 years of growth in just the first three months of the pandemic. Let that sink in.
People who had never shopped online before—including your parents and grandparents—suddenly had to. And they liked it. They got used to browsing, evaluating, and making major purchases without ever speaking to a person. That muscle memory carried over—into every buying decision, including B2B software.
This is the world we’re selling into now. A world where independence is the default. Where control is the expectation. And where “talking to sales” is often seen as a last resort, not a first step.
The anti-social buyer is not the problem. They’re the reality.
And modern sales and presales teams aren’t fighting that reality—they’re building around it.
So, how are presales answering the call around this? Two ways:
- Embracing the role of “coach vs. closer”
- Leaning into new ways to leverage the product as
A New Era of Selling
A few months ago, I had the chance to witness one of the most masterful sales processes I’ve seen in years. But what stood out wasn’t some flashy pitch or high-pressure closing technique. In fact, it was almost the opposite. The seller didn’t “close” the deal in the traditional sense—they coached the buyer through it.
Rather than trying to control the conversation or steer it toward a pre-planned outcome, the seller focused on enabling the buyer. He asked thoughtful, open-ended questions that helped the buyer articulate their challenges more clearly.
Instead of holding back key content to be unveiled only in meetings, he proactively shared assets that helped his champion gain internal alignment and build consensus. And when it came time to move forward, there was no aggressive follow-up cadence or forced urgency—just the right tools, delivered at the right time, so the buyer could drive the process on their own terms.
Watching it unfold reminded me of a line I’ve found myself repeating more and more often:
“Sellers don’t need to be closers anymore. They need to be coaches.”
If you think about the best coach you’ve ever had—whether in sports, business, or life—they didn’t just bark instructions or obsess over the scoreboard. They guided you to your own breakthroughs. They helped you understand the game, sharpen your thinking, and navigate pressure with confidence. They didn’t make it about their performance—they made it about yours.
That’s what elite sellers do now. They recognize that modern B2B buying is a high-stakes, high-risk endeavor, often involving 5 to 15 decision-makers, each with their own goals, fears, and expectations. The role of the seller is no longer to push toward the close, but to create clarity in the chaos. To give the buyer not only the information they need, but the confidence to act on it.
And the only way to do that is by genuinely understanding the buyer—what they care about, what they’re up against, and what will ultimately give them the conviction to say yes.
Dale Carnegie once said,
“The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.”
But the truth is, most buyers don’t walk into a sales cycle knowing exactly what they want. They’re often uncertain, overwhelmed, or misaligned internally. So the real challenge—and opportunity—for modern sellers is to anticipate what the buyer will need before they even realize it.
This is where I always return to a framework from our founder, Garin Hess, in his book Selling Is Hard. Buying Is Harder. In Chapter 3, Garin outlines exactly what the modern buyer is looking for—not just from the solution, but from the seller guiding them through the journey:
- To feel heard. Buyers don’t want to be pitched at; they want sellers who listen actively and respond meaningfully. Brevity matters, but not at the expense of empathy and understanding.
- Authenticity. Buyers can spot a performance a mile away. What builds trust is honesty, humility, and a willingness to admit when you don’t know something—and the follow-through to go find the answer.
- To learn, not to be sold to. The best sales experiences feel educational, not transactional. Buyers are trying to solve real problems. If you focus on solving with them, you’re already halfway there.
- Self-directed digital access. In a world where buying cycles are largely asynchronous, sellers need to meet buyers where they are—guiding them to the right resources, at the right time, in a format that fits their pace.
- A personalized experience. Responsiveness, relevance, and the ability to anticipate concerns or next steps create a sense of partnership—not persuasion.
- Proof. No amount of charisma replaces real-world validation. ROI tools, case studies, customer quotes, third-party reviews—all help the buyer tell a compelling internal story.
When you add all that up, it’s clear that traditional selling tactics aren’t just outdated—they’re actively counterproductive. Today, you don’t earn a buyer’s trust by being the most persuasive person in the room. You earn it by being the most helpful.
Which brings us back to the coaching analogy.
Selling in this environment requires a shift in identity. It’s no longer about being the dealmaker who swoops in to close. It’s about being the guide who helps the buyer do something meaningful—and do it well.
Great coaches don’t just offer advice—they design environments where their players can practice, learn, and build confidence through experience. And the same goes for modern sellers.
It’s not enough to tell buyers about value. You have to let them feel it.
That’s where product experiences come in. Because in today’s world, the most effective way to build trust and momentum isn’t through more meetings or more decks—it’s through hands-on, self-guided exploration.
Let’s look at how the best sellers are using product experiences to coach buyers through complex decisions and create moments of clarity when it matters most.
The Product Experience Platform: Presales Secret Weapon
Here’s where the shift becomes powerful—when presales steps into the spotlight.
In the old model, presales was reactive. Wait for a buyer to request a demo. Tailor it. Deliver it. Repeat.
But that doesn’t work anymore. Buyers aren’t waiting around. They want to explore your product now. And they want proof it will work in their environment—before they ever talk to anyone.
Presales pros are some of the smartest people in your org. They’re engineers, consultants, strategists. They don’t just show features—they translate value.
But we’ve asked them to do it one Zoom call at a time. That doesn’t scale.
That’s why we built the Product Experience Platform (PxP) —to give presales teams the power to scale their genius.
PxP turns your top performers into force multipliers. It gives them tools to create and distribute content that educates, qualifies, and validates buyers before they ever hit the pipeline.
Interactive Demos
Want to show the right feature to the right persona at the right moment? That’s no longer a manual task—it’s the heartbeat of a product experience platform like Consensus.
With interactive demos, presales can deliver tailored product experiences that adjust to a buyer’s role, industry, pain points, and stage in the journey. No need to schedule another call. No need to repeat the same overview deck. Your best presales insights become available 24/7, packaged in a way that buyers can watch, explore, and share—on their terms.
One of our customers recently built a guided demo experience using Consensus that mirrors their MEDDIC qualification framework. As buyers interact with the demo, they self-select based on key criteria—pain, authority, budget, and more. The result? By the time those buyers reach a rep, they’re already 90% qualified and far more likely to convert. It’s not just demo automation—it’s buyer enablement at scale.
Product Tours
Let buyers guide themselves through a structured, immersive product experience—like a choose-your-own-adventure for complex enterprise software.
Presales teams are stretched thin (70% of sales cycles require presales support according to our 2025 SE Compensation & Workload Report). Buyers are overwhelmed. And internal committees are demanding more proof, earlier. They don’t just want to see your product—they want to explore it, share it, and align around it.
Product tours give presales teams a way to scale expertise without adding headcount. Deliver personalized, role-based tours that speak directly to buyer pain points—before you ever hop on a call.
And because these tours can live in your campaigns, on your website, and inside your sales workflows, you become the first to demo every time, all while gathering rich behavioral data that helps presales prioritize where to engage more deeply.
Simulations (a.k.a. One-Click Sandboxes)
Simulate the full product experience—without needing engineering support, custom environments, or access to sensitive data.
It’s not just a flashy feature—it’s how modern presales teams scale high-touch experiences across every deal.
Buyers can “try” before they buy—without long provisioning cycles or risk—getting instant access to a working simulation with no need for custom sandbox setups. They get a fully interactive experience, quickly and effortlessly. Plus, presales saves hours—no more spinning up environments for early-stage interest:
- No Sandbox Maintenance: Create scalable, reusable simulations that require no manual setup or maintenance, freeing up valuable engineering resources.
- Secure Viewing Experiences: Allow buyers to share demos confidently, knowing that user overlap, irrelevant data, and privacy concerns are all managed.
- Quickly Edit Sandbox Data to Fit Any Story: Using the AI-powered Data Editor, presales teams can adjust field data, text, and images to match each prospect’s story—without engineering help.
- Demolytics: Track every interaction with the simulations, providing valuable insights into prospect behavior and intent, syncing the data back to your CRM.
One customer called it “our presales team’s cheat code.” Why? Because it lets them deliver real product experiences instantly—at scale—without sacrificing quality, control, or narrative.
What It Boils Down To: Content Creation at Scale
Presales teams are often building content behind the scenes—slide decks, demo flows, custom videos. PxP lets them templatize, control, and scale this content across the entire sales org.
And here’s the kicker: it’s not just about content creation. It’s about effectiveness.
Now you can see:
- Who’s engaging with your content
- How long they watched a tour
- What they clicked in a simulation
- Where they dropped off
With simulations, you’re not just guessing what works—you’re proving it, and that proof lies in the data.
As you move from hands-on product experiences to buyer insights, it’s clear that the data you gather is more than just numbers—it’s a blueprint for understanding what drives success.
This is where the evolution of selling comes in. It isn’t enough to have all the fancy new tools, you need a shift in HOW you sell.
What the Modern Seller Looks Like
Modern buyers don’t want to be sold to—they want to buy. This shift calls for a new kind of seller, one who adapts to these changes and leverages data to deliver personalized, impactful experiences.
I collaborated with our CRO to build a framework that outlines the biggest gaps between traditional and modern selling. These gaps aren’t just preferences; they’re dealbreakers. The habits that used to work are now holding teams back.
Here’s how the best sellers are evolving to meet buyers where they are—and how you can do the same:
| TRADITIONAL SELLER | MODERN SELLER | NOTES | |
| BANT / MEDDIC | → | Automated Discovery | Automated demos surface persona and intent before you even meet. You earn small discovery points earlier and more naturally. |
| 7–10 Day Demo Lag | → | Demo Instantly | Traditional sellers gate the demo. Modern sellers deliver value upfront—no delays. Todd tells the story of one buyer who said, “I just wanted to see it—and nobody would show me.” |
| Late-Stage Proof of Concept | → | Early-Stage Proof of Concept | POCs used to be a late-game grind. Modern sellers validate early, often with lightweight versions that accelerate deal confidence. |
| Long, One-Size-Fits-All Demos | → | Bite-Sized, Role-Based Demos | 1-hour demos don’t work. Most people forget 80% of what they see. Modern sellers deliver tailored 2–4 minute experiences on demand. |
| Sell Live | → | Sell 24/7 | Sales doesn’t stop at 5PM. Modern sellers let buyers explore value at any time—even while they sleep. |
| Inconsistent | → | Consistent | What if your best rep or SE could demo for every buyer, every time? Modern sellers clone their A-game. |
| Email, Phone, Live Meetings | → | Text, Slack, Async, Digital Senses | Buyers want to watch, click, listen, and explore—on their terms, not yours. |
| Live Demos Only | → | On-Demand + Live Options | Live-only demos bottleneck pipeline. Modern sellers remove friction by enabling both options. |
| Qualify Live | → | Automate Qualification | With tools like DQL (Demo Qualified Lead), wasted demos drop from 50% to under 10% (Trintech). That’s massive. |
| Gut Feel | → | Data-Driven | Traditional reps “had a feeling.” Modern sellers use quantifiable signals: who watched what, for how long, and who they shared it with. |
| Pre-Sale ROI Only | → | Full-Lifecycle Value Building | It’s not just about closing. Modern sellers create value collaboratively—before and after the sale. |
| Afraid of AI | → | Embraces AI | Modern sellers use AI to research deeply, draft hyper-personalized emails, transcribe calls, analyze engagement, and build demos. |
| “Hope They Read My Email” | → | “I Know What They Engaged With” | Modern sellers don’t wonder. They know exactly which demos were watched, by who, and for how long—so every follow-up hits home. |
This Is the Way
The days of “just get ‘em on a call” are fading fast, and the old-school, hero-closer approach is on its way out.
But here’s the good news: there’s a better path.
Empower your buyers to take control of their journey. Equip your sellers with the tools and data to guide them. Equip your presales team to seamlessly engage at every stage, scaling personalized experiences and proving value without delay.
Make the shift from closer to coach. From bottleneck to builder. From guesswork to guidance.
Ready to check out Consensus for yourself?
