Evaluating B2B software means filling out a lengthy form and sitting through multiple sales calls before seeing anything
You want to see if a piece of software does what you need it to do. The company wants to qualify you as a lead before showing you anything. This misalignment costs buyers weeks of their time, kills evaluation momentum, and has become so standard in B2B software sales that most buyers have simply accepted it as the way things are.
Who has this problem
Technical evaluators at mid-market companies doing self-serve research
Buyers who arrive at the first sales call already 60-80% decided and want a trial before ever talking to a rep.
Small-business owners buying software without a procurement team
People who want to see the product working before booking sales calls.
Founders of early-stage software companies
Sellers who lose deals when buyers won't sit through a gated demo, in a market where 86% of B2B purchases stall.
Sales and marketing leaders redesigning the buying journey
The people choosing between gated demos and free trials, as 60%+ of buyers now use trials.
Signal timeline
Forrester's State of Business Buying finds trials have replaced demos as the primary risk-reduction tool: 60%+ of B2B buyers now use trials, rising to 78% on deals over $10M, marking a real shift away from gated sales-call-first evaluation.
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