Most  distributors buy a major piece of software once or twice in a career. The vendors they talk to sell it hundreds of times a year. That imbalance is the reason so many evaluations end in a generic demo, a stalled decision, or a rollout that never quite lands.

I hosted Inside the Sales Process to close some of that gap. I sat down with two of our Enterprise Account Executives, Karl Heiman and Alex Stephens, and asked them talk through the technology sales process actually works from the vendor side. 

Here's what came out of the conversation:

The Prepared Buyer and the Unprepared Buyer

An unprepared buyer is not one who lacks technical knowledge, it is one who is unclear on three things: 

1. What their pains are
2. What their priorities are, and 
3. What a quantifiable outcome looks like.

When those three things are undefined, you get the generic demo, the generic product fit, and an outcome you didn't determine. A prepared buyer, by contrast, comes in clear on the problem, has an internal champion committed to running the evaluation, and has leadership bought in from the start. This ties directly to what happens after the contract: better product fit, faster adoption, and faster time to value.

What Happens Before You Ever See a Demo

Buyers rarely see the qualification that happens on our side before the first call. Alex and Karl walked us through the due diligence they do ahead of a demo: extensive research on the buyer, their vertical, and what pains are likely to come up.

The reason for that diligence is simple - we would rather lose a deal than sell into one that is going to churn. The qualification runs both directions, and a vendor who tells you the fit isn't there is giving you useful information rather than losing your business.

Getting Buy In for Efficient Deployment

Karl and Alex described a non-negotiable they added to their own process over time: not having the right people in the room. A conversation with just the CEO and no sales or finance isn't going to cut it. The payoff is in the change management, and therefore, adoption. When department leaders participate in the evaluation, the launch stops sounding like an instruction and starts sounding like a decision the organization made. Even when leadership overrules the input, the fact that a department had a voice pays off during implementation.

The stakeholders bought in during the process are the ones bought in at rollout, and anyone brought in afterward has to be retrofitted into a change they had no part in. When the change management conversations happened during the evaluation, implementation moves. When they don't, you get end up with no rollout or adoption strategy.

Tips for Buying Enterprise Distribution Software

If you are heading into an evaluation this year, here is the short version of what Karl and Alex would have you do before the first call:

• Define the pain before you look at product. Write down the specific problems you are trying to solve, in your own words, before a vendor frames them for you.
• Attach a number to success. Decide what quantifiable outcome would make this investment worth it, and share it with the vendor.
• Name your champion. Someone internal has to own the evaluation and keep it moving. This is not the same person as the final decision maker.
• Confirm leadership is bought in at the outset. Not at signature. At the start.
• Answer the MEDDIC questions for yourself. Metrics, budget holder, decision criteria, internal process, contract review path, and who else you are evaluating.
• Ask for a mutual action plan. And expect the seller to maintain it.
• Put the affected teams in the room. DSRs, accounting, operations. Anyone whose day changes should get a voice during the evaluation.
• Ask where the gaps are. A vendor who can name what their product does not solve is telling you the truth about the rest of it.
• Use the evaluation as a sandbox. Reference calls, hands-on access, real workflows. This is your last chance to test before you are live.
• Hold your seller to a candid process. Rigorous, responsive, and honest about fit. That is the job.

The Closing Takeaways

Alex: Get clear on your outcome and work backwards from it. Don't let a vendor walk you through every capability in the platform. Ask them to map your pains to their product, and ask them to be specific about the gaps. One solution rarely covers everything.

Karl: The buying process is your team's chance to see the solution in the real world before committing to it. Once the ink is dry, you are in implementation and the experimental phase is over. Use the evaluation as the sandbox, let every affected voice be heard, and the transition will be smoother for it.