The same dynamic plays out in B2B sales every day. Well-intentioned sellers unknowingly engage in behaviors that send buyers running for the hills. Unlike romantic comedies, there's no happy ending when deals die from preventable mistakes.
We gathered feedback from experienced sellers in our network to identify the most common relationship killers in B2B sales. Here are the top 15 behaviors that make buyers lose interest faster than you can say "let’s circle back."
Are Buyers Playing Harder to Get?
Before diving into the specific behaviors, it's worth understanding why buyer experience matters more than ever. Research shows that 63% of business buyers say most customer experiences fall short of expectations, primarily because they feel fragmented and disconnected. When buyers feel like they're communicating with separate departments rather than one cohesive company, competitors are eager to capitalize on that friction.
The stakes are high: deals that stall in the mid-funnel don't just represent lost revenue; they tie up resources, distort forecasting models, and create dependency on end-of-quarter heroics. For sales leaders, improving buyer experience isn't just about customer satisfaction; it's about predictable revenue growth.
15 Surefire Buyer-Repelling Behaviors
1. The Narcissistic Narrator
- What you're doing: Talking endlessly about yourself, your company, your product, your achievements without asking meaningful questions about their world.
- Like a bad date: You spend the entire dinner talking about your CrossFit routine, your fantasy football draft, and your crazy ex while never asking what they do for fun.
- Why it kills deals: Makes buyers feel like they're attending your personal TED talk instead of exploring a business partnership. They want to feel understood, not impressed.
2. The Love-Bomber
- What you're doing: Going from zero to sixty with excessive attention: constant calls, over-the-top promises, immediate "partnership" language, and treating them like your most important client before you've even qualified the opportunity.
- Like a bad date: Texting "good morning beautiful" after one coffee date, talking about meeting their parents, and showing up at their work with flowers when you barely know each other.
- Why it kills deals: Love-bombing feels manipulative and desperate. Experienced buyers recognize fake intimacy and wonder what you're trying to hide or rush past.
3. The Premature Demo-er
- What you're doing: Roping in an SE for a product demonstration before proper discovery has occurred, forcing a level of business connection that doesn't exist yet.
- Like a bad date: Proposing marriage on the first date.
- Why it kills deals: You're pushing for commitment, and activating scarce internal resources, before establishing mutual understanding and trust.
4. The Unprepared Professional
- What you're doing: Showing up to calls without researching their company, recent news, or context from previous conversations.
- Like a bad date: Asking "So, what's your name again?" when you matched on a dating app three weeks ago.
- Why it kills deals: Signals you don't prioritize them enough to invest basic preparation time. If you can't be bothered to care now, what happens after they buy?
5. The Executive Suck-Up
- What you're doing: Being charming and attentive only to the C-suite while treating other stakeholders as afterthoughts.
- Like a bad date: Being super charming to their attractive friend while barely acknowledging the person you're supposed to be on a date with.
- Why it kills deals: The "lower-level" people you ignore often have veto power and long memories. Plus, executives notice when you're being disingenuous.
6. The Poor Communicator
- What you're doing: Sending generic follow-ups ("Hope you're well! Just circling back...") or disappearing entirely after calls.
- Like a bad date: Sending "hey" texts at 11 PM three weeks later with zero reference to your actual conversation.
- Why it kills deals: Shows you weren't listening and don't understand their unique situation. Generic = forgettable = replaceable.
7. The Exaggerator
- What you're doing: Overpromising product capabilities or custom solutions when you're unsure about feasibility, timeline, or roadmap priorities.
- Like a bad date: Claiming you're "fluent in French" because you plan on downloading Duolingo.
- Why it kills deals: Creates expectations you can't meet, destroys credibility, and sets up post-sale disappointment. Trust, once broken, rarely recovers.
8. The Pressure Pusher
- What you're doing: Manufacturing false urgency ("This price expires Friday!") or pushing for decisions when buyers clearly need more time.
- Like a bad date: Pressuring them to "make this official" because "someone else is interested" when you've known each other for 45 minutes.
- Why it kills deals: Feels manipulative and creates resentment. Rushed buyers often become regretful buyers who look for exit ramps.
9. The Technical "Expert"
- What you're doing: Drowning them in features, integrations, and technical specifications without connecting to business outcomes.
- Like a bad date: Launching into a 20-minute explanation of your car's horsepower, torque specs, and custom exhaust system when they simply asked how you got there.
- Why it kills deals: They don't buy technology; they buy solutions to problems. Feature dumps confuse rather than clarify value.
10. The Single-Threaded Seller
- What you're doing: Only building relationships with one contact and failing to understand the broader stakeholder ecosystem.
- Like a bad date: Not making any effort to get to know their best friend, even though they're standing in the room with you.
- Why it kills deals: When your champion leaves, changes roles, or loses influence, your deal dies with the relationship. Complex B2B decisions require coalition-building.
11. The Dismisser
- What you're doing: Brushing off their concerns or preferences with quick reassurances ("That's not a problem!" or "Don't worry about that") instead of working through challenges together.
- Like a bad date: When they mention they don't like seafood, responding "Oh, you just haven't tried it the right way" instead of finding a restaurant with options both of you will enjoy.
- Why it kills deals: When buyers share concerns, they're testing whether you'll be a collaborative partner. Dismissing objections feels like you're minimizing their expertise and judgment.
12. The Reality Rewriter
- What you're doing: When things go wrong, rewriting history to make it seem like it was their idea, their fault, or never happened ("Actually, you said you wanted it delivered in Q2" when your notes clearly show Q1).
- Like a bad date: Insisting they said they wanted to split the check when they clearly offered to pay, then acting confused about why they seem upset.
- Why it kills deals: Gaslighting destroys trust faster than almost anything else. Buyers start questioning their own judgment and documenting every interaction to protect themselves—a sure sign the relationship is toxic.
13. The Obnoxious Name-Dropper
- What you're doing: Constantly name-dropping other customers and sharing endless success stories from your previous deals ("Well, when I was working with Microsoft..." "At Google, they told me...").
- Like a bad date: Bringing up your ex every five minutes—"Sarah used to love this restaurant," "My ex was really into wine," "Sarah and I came here all the time."
- Why it kills deals: While customer stories provide valuable social proof, overdoing it makes you seem obsessed with past relationships instead of focused on building a new one. Buyers feel like they're competing for your attention.
14. The Pick-Me
- What you're doing: Constantly positioning yourself as "different" by dismissing all competitors as illegitimate ("We're not like those other vendors," "Everyone else in this space is just smoke and mirrors").
- Like a bad date: Insisting "I'm not like others" while putting down everyone else: "Most girls are so fake, but I'm authentic," "Other girls just want drama, but I'm different."
- Why it kills deals: Buyers see through the desperate "pick-me" energy immediately. If your only selling point is that everyone else sucks, it suggests you don't have real differentiators. Mature buyers want you to acknowledge competitive strengths and articulate genuine advantages.
15. The Player
- What you're doing: Acting distracted, sighing at their questions, constantly mentioning how busy you are with other deals, or seeming inconvenienced by their need for information ("I'm slammed with three other closings this week").
- Like a bad date: Constantly checking your phone, mentioning other dates you have lined up, or acting like spending time with them is doing them a huge favor.
- Why it kills deals: Buyers can sense when they're not your priority. If you seem overwhelmed by basic sales activities, they'll assume the post-sale experience will be even worse.
The Path Forward: Building Better Buyer Relationships
The good news? These behaviors are all preventable with a little self-awareness and the right systems and technology in place to support you. The challenge is that 70% of a seller's time is spent on non-selling activities, making it difficult to focus on relationship-building when you're drowning in administrative tasks.
This is where having an AI sales teammate becomes transformative, not just for completing sales tasks, but for genuinely improving how you show up in every buyer interaction. Unlike basic AI agents that simply execute predefined workflows, an AI teammate collaborates with you throughout the entire sales process, offering coaching and advice as you go.
An AI teammate, like Vivun's AI Sales Agent, Ava, helps you avoid these relationship killers by ensuring you're always prepared, always following up meaningfully, and always focused on the buyer's unique context. Ava handles the meeting prep so every buyer feels like your priority. She crafts personalized follow-ups, so you never send generic messages, so you can just focus on the conversation. Ava tracks stakeholder dynamics so you never miss opportunities for additional connection. She can join calls with you, do sales coaching a-sync, or help you review your performance on your last call to identify areas for improvement. Most importantly, Ava frees you to focus on building genuine partnerships with buyers rather than juggling administrative chaos.
Ready to Level Up Your Sales Game?
In B2B sales, just like in other relationships, the little things matter. Add AI to allow you to focus on building genuine relationships, and watch your win rates, and buyer satisfaction, improve dramatically.
If you're looking to avoid mistakes like these and accelerate your sales performance with AI, The Powerline Community provides a supportive peer group for GTM professionals looking to improve their skills. Join other sellers sharing strategies, best practices, and lessons learned from the field.
