Your closer knows who signs. Your solver knows who decides.

Many B2B SaaS companies lose deals because they talk to the person who signs and never reach the person who decides: the engineer the executive consults, the partner the rest of the channel watches, the user who chooses whether the product gets opened. Sales owns the deal in front of it, so finding that weak link falls to marketing, the function paid to map who buys, who influences, who blocks and who gets listened to. Start with your last lost deals: who decided against you, and did anyone on your team ever speak to them?

This week I read a post arguing that problem-solving is the skill you need to work well with AI. I like the theme. I disagree with the conclusion.

AI needs a method, and anyone can learn one in an afternoon. Your business needs something harder to find: someone who looks at a stuck situation and spots the weak link nobody else is looking at. A solver.

Most scale-ups I meet have a closer. Far fewer have a solver.

The door that wouldn't open

At IBM, we brought QRadar into a cybersecurity market that had already picked its winners. The large integrators had built their practices around our competitors, and their executives were committed.

We asked for meetings. We didn't get them. From where those executives sat, there was nothing to discuss.

A closer would have kept pushing on that door with sharper slides and a better price. We went around it.

Before a boss commits to anything technical, they ask their technicians. Those engineers knew every product on the market, ours included. They had no loyalty to a slide deck. They trusted what they could test.

So we ran hands-on sessions. A lab, a direct comparison, and no pitch.

One integrator came on board. Together we won the next three deals head-to-head. Then the other integrators started calling us.

The second move

This is where closer and solver part ways again.

Faced with a queue of partners asking to sell your product, a closer says yes to everyone. We said yes to a few. Our existing partners had backed us when the big names wouldn't, and flooding the channel would have turned them against us. Winning the integrators was worth nothing if it cost us the people already carrying our deals.

The same weak link, every time

Years later, at another cybersecurity company, I faced a different problem. A distribution model was ending and the partner channel was nervous. Reassuring every partner equally would have spread us thin and convinced nobody. We picked the handful the rest of the channel watched, told them plainly how much we valued the relationship, and let their confidence travel.

Different market, different crisis, same weak link: the company was talking to the person who signs, when it needed the person who decides.

You see it outside B2B too. A parent pays for their teenager's app. The teenager and their friends decide whether anyone opens it. Market to the parent alone and you sell once.

Why this lands in marketing

Sales owns the deal in front of it. Product owns what gets built. Marketing is the function paid to understand the whole market: who buys, who influences, who blocks, and who gets listened to.

When marketing does that job, it finds the weak link before it costs you a quarter. When it doesn't, you get a beautiful campaign aimed at the wrong person.

Questions for your next leadership meeting

• On your last lost deals, who decided against you? Did anyone on your team ever speak to them?
• Who do your buyers ask before they sign?
• Which of your partners do the others watch?

If your closer left tomorrow, you'd know exactly what to hire. If you've never had a solver, would you even notice the gap?

Alex