7 arguments to stop your org from gateslapping buyers
A cheat sheet to convince anyone in your org to fix your broken buyer experience.
“Bullshit!”
That was the Chief Revenue Officer’s words directed at me during a leadership meeting.
Three weeks into my new job as CMO.
I had run analysis on our demo leads and showed a graph of how many hours we spent on badly qualified leads.
For me it was low hanging fruit. A quick win to make serious impact in the first month on the job.
For him it was a personal attack.
Like I aimed it at him and his responsibilities.
I failed hard that day.
My objective was to optimize the business, not single anyone out. But I forgot something darn important.
I see the world outside-in. Buyers first. Most don’t.
So what I see as a slam-dunk business case, others see as a surprise attack on their way of work.
I should have warmed up the room to what they were about to see.
Buyer behaviour in our context. But they felt I put a microscope to their job.
Lesson learned.
Since then I built myself a cheat sheet.
Rational, research-backed, arguments to build a GTM that adapts to how buyers actually wanna buy today.
That fight holds enough energy to light a small Danish west coast town in the dead of winter.
Sales leaders protect their pipeline. Marketing don’t wanna lose leads. Leadership worries about “giving away” information.
The evidence supports the case. You subscribe to my newsletter, so you already know.
But you need more than suggestions when you start challenging “the-way-we’ve-always-done-it-mentality”.
You need them to see the world as you see it.
So here is your cheatsheet.
7 objections with data-backed arguments. Use them.
“But we’ll lose leads if we show pricing.”
You’ll lose submissions. You’ll gain pipeline.
HockeyStack found transparent pricing generates 39% fewer form fills. But 1.7x more pipeline. The leads you “lose” were never going to buy. They were just curious about cost. Now they self-qualify out before wasting your AE’s time.
Read this article here or watch the 6-min video
“Enterprise is different. You can’t self-serve a €500K deal.”
You’re not removing the demo. You’re removing the demo as the only path to information.
Even enterprise buyers want to self-educate before the call. Gartner says 83% of the buying journey happens before talking to sales. That includes enterprise. The question isn’t “should we have demos?” It’s “should demos be the only way to learn about our product?”
You should read Stop sending buyers to “Book demo” (do this instead)
“Competitors will see our pricing and undercut us.”
They already know your pricing. G2. Reddit. Existing customers. LinkedIn posts. AI search. Don’t believe me? Just ask ChatGPT.
64% of C-suite executives say they are less likely to purchase software if a vendor gates pricing. They’re not comparing you to competitors on price. They’re crossing you of the short-list for hiding it.
If gated pricing is your only moat, you have a positioning problem. Not a pricing problem.
“Our pricing is too complex to show.”
You don’t need a checkout page. You need a signal.
Show ranges: “Companies like you typically pay €15K-40K/year.”
Show starting points: “Plans start at €500/month.”
Show context: “We work with teams of 50-500. If that’s you, let’s talk.”
The goal is to help buyers self-qualify. Not to close the deal on the website.
Good thing I created 7 ways to have a pricing page without pricing →
“Creating all this self-serving content costs money.”
Yes. But content scales. Demos don’t.
A great video demo costs €3K once and serves 10,000 visitors.
A live demo costs €50 every single time in sales salary.
After 60 demos, the video has paid for itself. Everything after that is margin.
When you build self-serving content you are not only improving your unit economics, you are also investing in more potential buyers. 61% of B2B buyers prefer a sales-rep free path to buying.
And AI makes it way cheaper to create.
“Our demo IS the differentiation.”
Great. Then why are you limiting it to 30 people a week?
Buyers agree with you: 71% rate demos as the most influential resource in their journey. But here’s the gap: vendors produce demos averaging 15+ minutes. Buyers watch 5 minutes and 44 seconds on average.
Record the best version. Cut it by use case. Keep each under 6 minutes. Your buyers will show up educated and your AEs can get into selling instead of teaching on the sales call.
“If buyers self-educate, we’ll loose control of the narrative.”
They’re already self-educating. They’re reading G2 reviews. Asking peers on Slack. Watching competitor videos. You’ve lost control of the narrative whether you like it or not.
In fact, giving them a better way to consume a demo will recreate that control for you. Use the 60-6-60 framework you can find in this article here.
The choice isn’t “control vs. no control.”
It’s “answer your buyers’ questions vs. let the internet answer for you.”
In fact, answering your buyers on your website will help you attract more.
The death on top of the high friction hill
These arguments will feel like trying to steer a parked car sometimes. You will meet someone who is not willing to change. They would rather die on their high friction hill.
But most will listen to reason if you package it for their context.
When someone cares about margins and efficiency, lead with the demo cost math. 42% less sales time per deal, 18% more revenue from the same traffic, 30% shorter cycles. This is a cost conversation. When they push back on switching costs, remember them about how this scales better than what you do today.
When someone cares about pipeline and quota, lead with time savings. 40% fewer demos, but the ones that remain are higher intent. Calendars gets lighter and numbers get better. When they worry about pipeline shrinking, show the 1.7x pipeline research.
When someone cares about lead volume, lead with conversion quality. Fewer form fills, but 1.7x more actual pipeline. The metrics that matter go up. The vanity metrics go down. When they flag top-of-funnel risk, point to the pipeline multiplier.
See this 6 min video for full context to why this discussion matters. And then share it with your team to build understanding.