How to handle difficult B2B buyers

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Facing a difficult B2B buyer can remind one of the infamous scene from “The Devil Wears Prada” where Miranda Priestly, the fashion magazine editor played by Meryl Streep, coldly critiques everything and everyone around her?  To many salespeople, difficult B2B buyers can feel like dealing with their own Miranda Priestly—unpredictable, dismissive, and always on the verge of saying, “That’s all.”

Such a buyer is demanding, impossible to please, and exudes an air of superiority.  The behavior you may have experienced as a sales professional is not just about being harsh or unkind. It’s a defense mechanism and a demonstration of power. Difficult buyers, often have deeper motivations and fears driving their actions.  

These meetings can be immensely harmful to a novice or inexperienced sales professionals as it is a form of emotional trauma that can hamper the Sales rep’s future performance by making them fearful of all meetings. As the VP of Sales, Sales Director, or Sales Manager, it is imperative to ensure your team is prepared for a range of scenarios, seek feedback, and ensure they are equipped.

This blog explores why B2B buyers can be so challenging and how understanding their personalities can help navigate these complex dynamics.

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Why are some B2B buyers difficult?

According to Dr. Albert J. Bernstein, a clinical psychologist and author “Demanding, arrogant, irrational, rude, manipulative, obnoxious, explosive people are about 3 percent of the population.”

Buyers can be difficult for various reasons—pressure to perform, fear of making a wrong decision, budget constraints, or just personal traits that manifest under stress. At the core of many challenging buyer interactions is the concept of Negative Emotionality, a term from psychology that describes the tendency to experience emotions like anger, anxiety, and frustration more frequently and intensely than others.

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Pressure and Fear of Failure

In a corporate setting, B2B buyers often operate under enormous pressure. They are responsible for making decisions that can significantly impact their company’s bottom line. The fear of making the wrong decision looms large, and this anxiety often manifests as indecisiveness, constant changes in requirements, or a harsh attitude towards salespeople. This behavior is not personal but rather a reflection of their internal and external pressures.

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Negative Emotionality: A Psychological Insight

Negative Emotionality [part of the BIG5 model] plays a significant role in why some buyers behave the way they do. This has an aspect called Volatility. Individuals with high volatility are unpredictable.

This trait also makes individuals more prone to stress, pessimism, and defensive behavior. When under pressure, such buyers are more likely to respond negatively to minor issues, turning them into major points of contention. They may come across as unreasonably demanding or critical, not because they want to be difficult, but because their emotional state dictates their behavior. Recognizing Negative Emotionality in buyers can help salespeople prepare mentally and emotionally, allowing them to respond with empathy rather than frustration.

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The Power Dynamics

In the B2B world, buyers often wield significant power in the decision-making process. This power can lead to behaviors that might seem uncooperative or hostile. Buyers know they hold the keys to a potential deal, and some use this as leverage to negotiate better terms or simply to assert control over the process. It’s essential to remember that this is often a tactic, not a personal affront.

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Personality and Behavioral Traits

Beyond environmental factors, individual personalities significantly influence how buyers behave. Some people are naturally more skeptical, critical, or detail-oriented. Understanding these traits is crucial to navigating the complexities of B2B sales.

“I once had a buyer walk in with defensive body language, trying to dominate the meeting from the get-go.  No introductions, no background, and he declined my offer to introduce the company. Instead, he asked me to pitch to him in 30 secs. Before I could finish, I was interrupted and was told my pitch was too complex.  

The buyer then proceeded to start a rapid-fire round of questions, how is it done, and another 20 odd questions in a span of 5 minutes. Neither did he have the patience to listen to the answers, nor did he want to know what it was that I was offering as a product. If only he had the patience to listen to my planned introduction, about 5 minutes long, all of these would have been answered. Instead, I spent the better part of 30 minutes in a boxing match, where I kept ducking the blows that were intended to knock me out.”   Anoop George, CEO and Co-Founder Skwill

How can Sales Reps handle difficult B2B Buyers?

The keyword is unpredictability. Individuals who behave in a volatile, outrageous, and unpredictable way push all our buttons. Our default response is to pull in the opposite direction (freeze, fear, or flight).  

To handle difficult buyers effectively, one must go beyond surface-level interactions and delve into the underlying behavioral science. By understanding the personality and emotional triggers of buyers, salespeople can better tailor their approach.

Here are two process recommendations and three behavioral tips that can be used to handle such buyers.    

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The Process

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1. Personality Research:

A high-performance salesperson does personality research before they meet a buyer.   Tools like Skwill’s Ask Willy uses DISC personality model to understand personality and behavior.  To Check your Buyer’s personality type, paste your buyer’s LinkedIn URL or if you are meeting a group of people, Copy their LinkedIn URLs in Skwill.AI’s AI Sales Coach AskWilly for a detailed report on Buyer Intelligence and Insights.  

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There are 16 Buyer Persona Archetypes that you would be pitching to, and having the superpower of how to custom your Sales Pitch is GOLD!  

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You can also use BIG5 analysis of their LinkedIn profile, articles, and their emails, to create a ‘mock’ personality prior to meetings.  

In the case above, prior to the meeting, if the assessment pegged the buyer to be dominant with high need to be in control, and little tolerance for dissent, Ask Willy’s advice will be to further cede control when meeting the buyer, let the person drive till they ran out of questions, at which point the sales rep could reassert and take control.

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2. Role play

Role play with yourself ‘what-if scenarios’ of possible questions you may get. It’s best not to rely on a traditional sales playbook and objection-handling questions that are unpredictable.  

Visualizing and rehearsing these scenarios allows you to train and be prepared with responses to the situation should it arise.

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‍Behavioral Coaching Tips to Handle Difficult B2B Buyers

‍1. Don’t react

 Do not try and answer every question. Allow the individual to keep talking till they either tire out or give you a chance to reply. When they do, look them straight in the eye without blinking and ask them if they have any additional questions. Only when they do, start framing your reply.

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2. Take pauses ‍

 While we are thrown an arsenal of questions, our brain triggers a fear or fight response which shuts down our non-vital functions including cognitive processing. Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and author best known for popularizing the concept of Emotional Intelligence, coined the term “Amygdala Hijack”.

He introduced the term in his 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Goleman used the term to describe the sudden and overwhelming emotional response triggered by the amygdala (an almond shaped mass in the brain), which can lead to irrational and impulsive behavior, often bypassing logical reasoning (shutting down the brain’s pre-frontal cortex). This concept helps explain why people, including buyers in high-stakes situations, can react emotionally rather than rationally.

It takes about 250 milliseconds to process a word, and that when coupled with a barrage of words coming at us results in two outcomes.  

(1) We lose track of what is being said, and (2) we respond with inadequate or inaccurate information to avoid more questions (to alleviate the pain) which only leads to more questions. The cycle will repeat and make the situation worse. In such cases, a physical action such as writing down the question forces our brain to slow down and become deliberate. It gives us pause to put our cognitive processing back on track.

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3. Don’t try to fix the buyer‍

 Accept that they are who they are. Their need for superiority is structural to their personality and can stem from low self-esteem, a pathological thirst for praise, to a complete lack of empathy. Trying to change the individual in a meeting is impossible. Instead, stick to what you came to do, the introduction of your product or service.

Difficult buyers, like Miranda Priestly, are not inherently unreasonable; they are simply operating within their pressures, fears, and personality traits. By understanding these underlying drivers through behavioral science, salespeople can better navigate the complexities of B2B sales. The next time you encounter difficult B2B buyers, remember it’s not about you—it’s about them. And the more you understand them, the more successful you’ll be.  

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About the Author:

‍Anoop George is the CEO and Founder of Skwill.AI. His sales experience spans 30 years, and he is committed to making coaching accessible to all, by combining behavioral science, human expertise, and the power of AI.  Anoop is an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University, a fitness enthusiast, and loves cooking on Wednesdays.