Economic Buyer vs End User: Why One Pitch Won't Sell Both
We sold the executive, but the team never really used it. How do we reach both the person who buys and the people who use?
Bessemer Venture Partners and B2B International · Allyson Letteri, Jennifer Strange, and Conor Wilcock
Published Updated
The economic buyer and the end user judge the same product on different terms. A message built for the executive, such as one centered on productivity, can alarm the people expected to adopt the product, and adoption shapes retention. Keep one value proposition, write a separate story for each role, and map each role's pains, gains, shifts, blockers, and motivators from real conversations.
One deal, two audiences
The executive says yes. The budget is approved. A few months later usage is thin, and the team that was meant to work in the product has gone back to the old way. Nothing was wrong with the product. The people who had to use it were never sold on it.
That gap is common in B2B because the buyer is rarely one person. B2B International, the business research firm, makes the point in its guide to buyer personas by Jennifer Strange and Conor Wilcock. Most buying decisions are not made by one person, so a company needs several personas and an understanding of how those people interact when the decision is made.
The two roles that pull hardest in opposite directions are the economic buyer, who signs, and the end user, who works in the product every day.
Why the executive's message can repel the user
Allyson Letteri, an Operating Advisor at Bessemer Venture Partners, calls this a double-edged sword in Bessemer's guide for B2B founders on generating demand. The message that lands with an executive can be the one that alarms the people who report to them.
Her example is a message built on AI and productivity. It sounds good to the people who set budgets. To the person being asked to do more with less, or watching their team shrink, the same message is intimidating. Letteri notes that this catches some startups off guard, because they assume every company values productivity at any cost.
Her remedy is a second story, written for the user. It explains how the product changes their work. Less time on tedious tasks. More time on the strategic part of the job. The executive hears about outcomes. The user hears about their own day.
The stakes go past the sale. Letteri ties this to retention as well as the purchase, and advises looking downstream. If the message puts off the people who are supposed to adopt the product, they may not adopt it.
Same proposition, different words
This does not mean two products or two value propositions. B2B International is specific here. The value proposition stays the same for every persona. The words and images change so it resonates with each one. A person in a procurement role responds to different messaging than a person in a technical role.
That keeps the work manageable. You are not inventing a second offer. You are translating one offer into the terms each role uses to judge it.
When the user carries the sale
In some markets the order reverses. The Bessemer guide describes product-led growth, where a self-serve version lets day-to-day users try the product before anyone formally buys it. Its examples are platforms built for developers. Developers get easy access, come to rely on the product, and their success is what convinces managers to adopt it officially and pay for more.
In that motion the end user is not a secondary audience. They are the first sale. The economic buyer arrives later, persuaded by what the users have already achieved.
The same guide ties channel choice to seniority. Reaching senior executives usually calls for personalized outbound or account-based work and high-touch experiences. Director-level and mid-level buyers are more often reached through inbound content, such as LinkedIn posts that invite them to a webinar or a buying guide.
How to map the roles
Start with the people in a real deal, not with a template. For each role, Letteri's five factors give a working frame.
- Pains. The pressing problems the product solves for them.
- Gains. The outcomes they are trying to reach.
- Shifts. What is changing at their company that makes them open to something new.
- Blockers. The objections that make them resist.
- Motivators. What moves them to act, such as hard ROI data or results from their peers.
Fill it in separately for the executive and for the user. The answers will differ, and the differences are the point.
B2B International adds two cautions. Persona work usually centers on the key buyer or main decision maker, which is how the user gets left out. And a persona is a best fit characterization, not a portrait of every customer, so waiting for perfect data only delays useful work.
Letteri builds these models from frequent conversations with customers and prospects, and revises them as she learns. Treat the first version as a working model. Talk to the people who sign and the people who use, and compare what each one tells you.