Why 75% of Buyers Don’t Want Reps and How Framemaking Helps Them Decide with Brent Adamson

About this episode

Most B2B buyers say they would rather buy without talking to a sales rep.

That sounds like a sales problem. Brent Adamson says it is deeper than that. Buyers are not just avoiding sellers. They are struggling to make confident decisions.

Brent is one of the clearest voices in modern B2B sales. He is co-author of The Challenger Sale, the book that changed how many sales and marketing teams think about commercial conversations. In this episode, we talk about his new book, The Framemaking Sale, and why the next era of sales depends less on persuasion and more on helping buyers make sense of complexity.

The short version: buyers do not need more information. They already have too much. They need help knowing what matters, what to ignore, who to involve, what questions to ask, and how to move forward with confidence.

We get into why 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience, why customer confidence matters more than supplier confidence, how framemaking differs from Challenger, why thought leadership can make buying harder, and what AI changes about the role of the human seller.

If your sales or marketing team is still trying to prove value by adding more content, more insight, or more follow-up, this conversation will make you rethink the job.

About Brent Adamson

Brent Adamson is a researcher, speaker, and author best known for co-authoring The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer. He spent years leading research at CEB, later Gartner, on B2B buying, sales effectiveness, and commercial transformation.

His latest book, The Framemaking Sale, focuses on how sales professionals can help buyers make confident decisions in a world of complexity, information overload, misalignment, and uncertainty.

Connect with Brent on LinkedIn

Get the book: The Framemaking Sale

Chapters

00:00 Why buyers prefer rep-free buying
04:12 Becoming the seller buyers want
09:40 What buyers need from salespeople
11:35 Why decision confidence matters
16:05 What framemaking means
21:26 Framemaking and The Challenger Sale
25:39 Buyers need sensemaking
28:18 Helping teams become framemakers
35:01 Marketing’s role in framemaking
39:34 AI and the future of human selling

A few things worth taking away

• B2B buyers are not always trying to avoid humans. They are trying to avoid sales interactions that make buying harder.
• The 75% rep-free statistic measures buyer preference, not buyer reality. Many buyers still have to talk to sellers, but that does not mean they want to.
• Decision confidence is one of the strongest drivers of high-quality, low-regret deals.
• The confidence that matters most is not the buyer’s confidence in your company. It is the buyer’s confidence in themselves and their own decision.
• Most sales and marketing teams are still trying to build supplier confidence. Framemaking shifts the goal toward customer self-confidence.
• Buyers are overwhelmed by complexity, information overload, internal misalignment, and uncertainty about outcomes.
• The Challenger Sale helped sellers reframe the customer’s thinking. The Framemaking Sale helps customers make sense of competing ideas so they can decide.
• Thought leadership created a new problem. Everyone sounds smart, so buyers are left with more content, more claims, and less clarity.
• Marketing can support framemaking by interviewing customers about the buying journey, not just the product outcome.
• The best question from Brent: “If you had to do it all over again, what might you do differently just to make your lives a little bit easier?”
• AI may answer questions, summarize options, and produce tables. But buyers may still want to talk to someone they trust before making a hard decision.

A few lines that stuck with me

“The data does not say 75% of B2B buyers would prefer a human-free experience.” — Brent Adamson

“What would it take to be the one seller, the one sales team, that your customers actually do want to talk to?” — Brent Adamson

“It’s not customers’ confidence in us that matters. It’s customers’ confidence in themselves.” — Brent Adamson

“While we’re all in sales and marketing solving for getting customers to know something, the single biggest secret passage to growth is getting customers to feel something.” — Brent Adamson

“What if your value as a seller isn’t your expertise, but your access to the experience of other companies like them?” — Brent Adamson

Resources mentioned

• The Framemaking Sale by Brent Adamson
• The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson
• The Challenger Customer by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, Pat Spenner, and Nick Toman
• Gartner research on rep-free buying experiences
• Robert Cialdini, Influence, and the idea of social proof
• CEB / Gartner research on decision confidence
• Ecosystems and value management maturity models

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Full transcript

Brian Carroll:
Welcome to the B2B Roundtable Podcast, where we bring together ideas, people, and strategies shaping the future of sales and marketing.

Today, I’m joined by my friend Brent Adamson, one of the most influential voices in sales. You may know Brent from his book The Challenger Sale, which reshaped how we think about commercial conversations.

I’m excited because we’re talking about his new book, The Framemaking Sale. And it couldn’t come at a more urgent time. In a recent survey, 75% of B2B buyers said they’d prefer to purchase without ever talking to a sales rep. Is this the end of sales as we know it, or could it be the start of something better?

We’re going to talk about why buyers have lost confidence in sales, what’s driving this shift, what it really means to be a framemaker, how leaders like CMOs and VPs of Sales can build teams customers actually want to talk to, and what the future of selling looks like in an AI-driven world. Brent, you open your book with that stat — 75% of B2B buyers would prefer a rep-free buying experience. That’s wild.

Brent Adamson:
First of all, it’s great to see you, Brian. Thanks for the invite. That statistic comes from Gartner research, one of the last pieces I worked on before leaving in 2022. We asked thousands of B2B buyers: “If you could buy a large complex solution without ever talking to a sales rep, would you prefer that?” Seventy-five percent said yes.

Now, that doesn’t mean they actually buy without sellers. It means they’d prefer not to. The data shows a big and growing gap between customer preference and customer reality. That gap represents risk for sellers.

Brian Carroll:
So it’s not the end of sales. It’s the end of salespeople not adding value.

Brent Adamson:
Exactly. The question at the heart of this book is simple: What would it take to be the one seller — or the one team — that customers actually do want to talk to? If you can be that person, showing up less like a seller and more like a human, you can differentiate not only from competitors but also from the overwhelming flood of information customers already face.

Buyers don’t want more information. They want confidence.

Brian Carroll:
What are the ways sellers unintentionally undermine buyer confidence?

Brent Adamson:
One of the biggest findings is around decision confidence. When customers feel highly confident in their decisions, they are up to 10 times more likely to make a high-quality, low-regret purchase.

But most sales and marketing teams focus on building confidence in the supplier — “trust us, our brand, our product.” What actually matters more is the buyer’s confidence in themselves.

The real opportunity is helping customers feel confident in the questions they’re asking, the research they’ve done, their alignment as a team, and their ability to execute. That’s what framemaking is all about.

Brian Carroll:
Can you define framemaking? How is it different from Challenger Selling?

Brent Adamson:
Framemaking is about creating the context — or frame — that helps customers make sense of complexity and move forward with confidence.

It’s built around two key moves: prompting and bounding.

• Prompting means introducing ideas or perspectives they may not have considered.
• Bounding means narrowing focus so they can prioritize what matters most.

Together, those moves create a frame that gives customers both ease and agency. The decision feels simpler, and they feel like they made it.

Challenger is part of this lineage. It’s about teaching and reframing. But in today’s world of overwhelming content, simply adding more insights isn’t enough. Customers don’t need another smart idea. They need help making sense of all the smart ideas already on the table.

Four forces undermining buyer confidence

Brent Adamson:
In the book, we unpack four big challenges that undermine buyer confidence:

1. Decision complexity — too many people, too many steps.
2. Information overload — endless content, conflicting advice, and AI adding even more noise.
3. Objective misalignment — different stakeholders with competing priorities.
4. Outcome uncertainty — even if they believe the solution works, buyers fear their team won’t implement it well.

The job of a framemaker is to help buyers navigate these challenges by simplifying, prioritizing, and guiding them without taking away their sense of ownership.

From Challenger to Framemaker

Brian Carroll:
If I’m a VP of Sales or Marketing, how do I coach my team differently? How do I stop undermining confidence?

Brent Adamson:
Challenger was about showing up with powerful insights. That still matters, but in today’s content-saturated world, simply adding more insights can overwhelm customers further.

What buyers need now isn’t just more ideas. They need help making sense of all the ideas. That’s where framemaking comes in. It’s not about proving how smart you are. It’s about helping customers feel smart and confident in themselves.

Brian Carroll:
That word, sensemaking, is powerful. Buyers are overwhelmed. They don’t want another rep adding noise. They want someone to help them make sense of it all.

Brent Adamson:
Exactly. And that’s the opportunity. Show up as the one person who helps buyers cut through complexity and feel good about moving forward. That’s how you become the rep they actually want to talk to.

A story of framemaking in action

Brent Adamson:
One of my favorite examples is from a sales rep we call “Tara.” She sold human capital management solutions. In a discovery meeting with the head of HR, she suggested bringing procurement into the conversation early.

Most reps would avoid procurement until late in the process. But Tara said: “In working with other customers like you, we’ve found that when procurement gets involved earlier, things go much smoother. You might consider inviting them now.”

That simple nudge reframed the process, avoided future roadblocks, and built customer confidence. That’s framemaking in action. It doesn’t have to be grand. Sometimes it’s just a well-placed phrase that frames the decision differently.

Marketing’s role in framemaking

Brian Carroll:
What role does marketing play in this shift?

Brent Adamson:
A huge one. Marketing can gather stories, lessons, and pitfalls from customers and feed them back into sales plays and content. Instead of just creating thought leadership about the supplier, marketing can create confidence content: tools, checklists, benchmarks, and diagnostics that help buyers feel more confident in themselves.

Imagine win-loss analysis focused not on why customers chose you, but on what they wish they’d done differently in their buying journey. That insight is gold. It can shape sales plays, create useful collateral, and make your content strategy far more valuable.

AI and the future of selling

Brian Carroll:
With AI moving so fast, what does the future of sales look like?

Brent Adamson:
AI can surface options, compare vendors, and even create frameworks. But at the end of the day, customers are still human. After all the data, many will say, “I just wish I could talk to someone.”

The sellers who thrive will be the ones who become that someone. The person who helps customers feel clarity, confidence, and connection. That’s the future of sales.

Closing thoughts

Brian Carroll:
Brent, you landed it. At the core, this is about empathy and human connection.

Brent Adamson:
Yes. There’s never been a better connection between doing what’s right for sales and doing what’s right for humanity. If you want to hit quota, win big deals, and earn that President’s Club trophy, the way to do it is by helping customers feel confident in themselves.

Brian Carroll:
And that’s what The Framemaking Sale is all about. If you want to dive deeper, get a copy. It’s packed with strategies, stories, and tactics that will change the way you sell.

Brent, thanks as always for joining me.

Brent Adamson:
I appreciate you, man.