Buyer Truths

Drew Giovannoli & Jen Allen-Knuth

5.0 (1)
Business
Updated Weekly

Real buyers. Real deals. Real decisions. Each episode, we sit down with a tech buyer to hear the unfiltered story of how they actually chose a vendor - what worked, what didn't, and what sellers got wrong. Hosted by Jen Allen-Knuth (DemandJen) and Drew Giovannoli (Buried Wins). buyertruths.com

2d ago

Accord vs Aligned vs DIY: Why the Vendor Who Did More Lost at WordPress VIP

Accord vs Aligned vs DIY: Why the Vendor Who Did More Lost at WordPress VIP Josh Fosberg leads the media and publishing segment at WordPress VIP, managing a sales org that was drowning in PDFs, scattered emails, and deals happening in rooms they couldn't see. They needed deal room software. They had three options: Accord, Aligned, or build it themselves on WordPress. Accord's seller was excellent. He multi-threaded well, built relationships outside the core buying committee, and made a strong case. He still lost. Because when the feature set didn't match what WordPress VIP actually needed, more became a liability. In this episode, Josh walks us through: Why Accord's broader feature set worked against them -- even when the sales process was excellent What Aligned did that kept them perfectly inside the box WordPress VIP needed to stay in How the DIY option gets evaluated at a company that can actually build anything on WordPress What selling to salespeople looks like from the buyer's side of the table If you sell deal room software, sales enablement tools, or anything where a competitor might say "we do more," this one's for you. Guest: Josh Fosberg, Head of Media & Publishing at WordPress VIP Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli More research at buyertruths.com We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them. Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

11 min
May 28

How a VP of Post-Sale Navigated 8 Stakeholders to Buy Onboarding Software

Alicia is the VP of everything post-sale at Daxko's boutique division. She inherited a 234-step manual onboarding process and an average of 17 emails per customer deal. After a 90-day internal sprint with her CTO cut the problem by only 30%, a company acquisition finally unlocked the budget to look outside. A teammate surfaced Onramp. The demo went well. Then pricing hit the table -- and it cost more than Daxko's entire Salesforce contract. In this episode, Alicia walks us through: Why she pumped the brakes on the AE's attempts to reach her boss -- and what it would have taken to actually get there The moment a pricing comparison to Salesforce stopped the deal in its tracks mid-call How the AE responded to losing momentum without trying to objection handle -- and why that kept him in the game What it looks like when a seller earns a seat on the buyer's side of the table If you sell into customer success, post-sale tech, or anything with a complex onboarding story, this one's for you. Guest: Alicia, VP of Post-Sale at Daxko Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli -------- Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

30 min
Apr 11

The HubSpot Sales Rep Was Great. The Implementation Partner Almost Ruined It.

Rob runs marketing at LockThreat, an early-stage GRC startup he joined with no MarTech stack and one strong conviction: they needed HubSpot. First he had to survive two failed Zoho consultants and months of internal politics just to get approval to switch. The HubSpot sales rep was excellent. The implementation partner was a disaster. And now the guy who fought hardest to bring HubSpot in can't bring himself to recommend it. In this episode, Rob walks us through: Why two Zoho consultants failed and what finally got him approval to switch What the HubSpot sales rep did that made the buying process easy How a cookie-cutter implementation partner broke his data, ghosted him, and then got aggressive Why a great sales process could not protect his reputation when the partner fell apart If you sell CRM, MarTech, or implementation services, this one's for you. Guest: Rob, Head of Marketing at LockThreat Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli More research at buyertruths.com We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them. Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. buriedwins.com Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. demandjen.com

18 min
Mar 18

How a $500M SaaS RVP Bought an AI Writing Tool to Close a Sales Skill Gap

div]:bg-bg-000/50 [&_pre>div]:border-0.5 [&_pre>div]:border-border-400 [&_.ignore-pre-bg>div]:bg-transparent [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8"> _*]:min-w-0 gap-3 standard-markdown"> How a $500M SaaS RVP Bought an AI Writing Tool to Close a Sales Skill Gap Keith is an RVP at Bullhorn, a $500M CRM and ATS platform for recruiting and staffing firms. When he noticed a communication skill gap across his 35-person mid-market sales team, he didn't go looking for a vendor. He already knew one. He had been following Nate, the founder of Fluint, on LinkedIn for years and had even bought his sales course before the software existed. No RFP. No competitive evaluation. A paid pilot, a 45-day window, and a budget freed up by cutting licenses from a tool nobody was using. In this episode, Keith walks us through: How years of following a founder on LinkedIn became the entire buying process The pilot criteria he used and why qualitative signals mattered more than metrics How he freed up budget by auditing existing tools before adding a new one Why the vendor that lost found out they were losing only when Keith told them If you sell AI tools, sales enablement, or anything where adoption is the real risk, this one's for you. Guest: Keith Weightman, RVP at Bullhorn Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli More research at buyertruths.com We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them. Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

28 min
Mar 9

Skeptic to Signed: How an AI Sales Tool Finally Won Over a CMO

Kathleen is a CMO who was first introduced to One Mind through a trusted VC referral, not a cold pitch. What started as a novelty demo featuring digital Deepak Chopra took two years to become a signed contract, as the tech matured, use cases sharpened, and the One Mind team methodically built trust across her entire buying committee. The deal was tens of thousands of dollars, and she signed before her team was even ready to implement. In this episode, Kathleen walks us through: The exact demo moment that shifted "this is cool" to "this is a real business case" What One Mind did to multithread around her as a champion and why she had to step back to let it work How a glitchy live demo at their annual conference delayed the deal by four to five months Why she signed a contract with a five-month delayed start date and what built enough trust to make that feel safe If you sell early-stage AI tools or anything that requires a long internal buy-in process, this one's for you. Guest: Kathleen, CMO Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli More research at buyertruths.com We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them. Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

22 min
Feb 22

How a CMO Evaluated 3 Headless CMS Platforms (Then Built His Own)

Pete Vomocil 💛 is a CMO overseeing marketing for a 1,800-person company while running new ventures on the side. When his team needed a headless CMS that could serve both heavy-duty engineering and self-serve marketing, his engineering team screened 20 vendors down to 6. Three made it to finalist calls. The vendor with the best sales orchestration won. A year later, Pete ripped it out and rebuilt the entire platform himself in 4 weeks. In this episode, Pete walks us through: Why he'll instantly disqualify vendors for "woo-woo" What separated good sales orchestration from great across the 3 finalist calls The onboarding gaps that killed the deal despite a well-run sales process Why delayed vendor follow-up led a non-technical CMO to build a full-stack platform himself If you sell CMS, martech platforms, or anything with complex onboarding, this one's for you. Guest: Pete, CMO Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli More research at buyertruths.com We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them. Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

29 min
Feb 19

How a $10M SaaS Evaluated 6 LLM Visibility Tools

Madhav runs marketing at Storylane, an 11-person team at an angel-strapped $10M ARR company. When 1 in 5 demo requests started citing ChatGPT and Perplexity as their source, he knew he needed an LLM visibility tool - but the category barely existed. He evaluated 6 vendors. He chose Profound. And he did the whole thing without ever talking to a salesperson. In this episode, Madhav walks us through: - Why he went to someone he knew instead of requesting a demo - How he and his SEO lead evaluated vendors separately (and disagreed) - The exact 4 data points that determined the winner - What the losing vendors did - and didn't do - after they lost If you sell into marketing, this one's for you. Guest: Madhav, Head of Marketing at Storylane Hosts: Jen Allen-Knuth & Drew Giovannoli More research at buyertruths.com --------- We Surveyed 172 Buyers. Now Let Us Help You Win Yours. Research to understand them. Training to close them. Drew Giovannoli | Buried Wins 1:1 buyer interviews that learn from recent wins, lost prospects, and your competitors' customers who never considered you. → buriedwins.com Jen Allen-Knuth | DemandJen Train your sales team to sell the way buyers buy. Workshops and coaching grounded in data. → demandjen.com

29 min

7 Episodes

Real buyers. Real deals. Real decisions. Each episode, we sit down with a tech buyer to hear the unfiltered story of how they actually chose a vendor - what worked, what didn't, and what sellers got wrong. Hosted by Jen Allen-Knuth (DemandJen) and Drew Giovannoli (Buried Wins). buyertruths.com

Creator

Drew Giovannoli & Jen Allen-Knuth
Years Active

2K
Episodes

7
Rating

Clean
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Buyer Truths