Article · Friction
Purchase friction: the patterns that stall B2B decisions
Deals rarely die from a missing feature slide. They stall when approvals tangle, champions leave, or finance fears a messy month beside QuickBooks. vanzyn names those patterns so teams can research them deliberately.
Four recurring friction families
Approval lattice
Legal, security, procurement, and finance each reopen the case with different criteria. Interviews should map the lattice, not invent a single “buyer persona.”
Champion attrition
The internal advocate changes jobs mid-pilot. Without a second sponsor, the evaluation resets. Track succession risk in decision-maker research.
Integration anxiety
Finance asks whether data lands cleanly next to QuickBooks, payroll, or bank feeds. Fear of dual entry outweighs feature excitement.
Proof fatigue
Endless POCs without a decision ritual. Teams collect demos instead of committing criteria. Observation at contact points exposes this theater.
How to research friction without promising ROI
Ask for the last stalled evaluation, not the ideal buying process. Reconstruct the calendar: which week legal entered, when finance requested a QuickBooks sample export, who lost interest after a messy demo. vanzyn treats friction as observable history, not as a conversion-rate slogan.
Compare accounts. If three companies pause at the same security questionnaire item, you have a pattern candidate. If only one account mentions a niche objection, keep it labeled as a singleton until pattern analysis says otherwise. Never inflate a singleton into “the market.”
Link friction back to contact points described in market observation and to interview transcripts from customer interviews. Synthesis belongs in a restrained memo — see positioning synthesis — not in a billboard claim about guaranteed savings.
Language to capture verbatim
Write down exact phrases: “We cannot risk close,” “IT is underwater until Q2,” “If it does not sit beside QuickBooks we will not look.” Verbatim friction language becomes the raw material for messaging tests and for glossary definitions your team shares.
Field notes from vanzyn
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Turn friction into positioning
Synthesis converts stalls into honest claims — without representative-statistic theater.