What the EB actually evaluates
The economic buyer (EB) is the person with the authority to release the budget. In B2B SaaS this is typically a VP or C-level. Their evaluation criteria are different from the technical buyer's or the champion's.
They care about three things, in this order:
1. The metric they're accountable for. Every EB has a number they're judged on at their next board meeting or QBR. Pipeline coverage, NRR, gross margin, time-to-deploy, security incidents — whatever it is, your purchase has to credibly move that number. Not 'increase efficiency.' Move the number.
2. Risk. EBs at their altitude have careers built on the ability to make good vendor calls. They're not optimizing for the best product; they're optimizing against picking a bad vendor that blows up. Reference customers, financial stability, security posture, references inside their peer network — these reduce risk.
3. The story. When they go to their CEO or board with 'we're buying X,' what's the one-sentence story? 'We're buying [Tool] to [achieve outcome] because [credibility reason].' If the EB can't tell that story confidently, they won't approve. If they can, the deal advances.
What EBs don't care about
Product features. Integration matrices. Pricing tier differentiation. Detailed roadmap. All of these belong in the champion's hands — they sell those internally. The EB's conversation is about metric impact, risk, and story.
The mistake reps make
Sending the EB the same materials they sent the champion. The champion needs product depth to sell internally. The EB needs business case depth to defend the purchase. Two different artifacts.
How to find the real EB
The EB is often not who the org chart suggests. The CFO might be listed as the EB for spend over $100k, but the actual decision-maker is the COO who runs the operational function the tool serves. The fastest way to find the real EB: ask the champion 'who will personally have to defend this purchase to the board?'
Common follow-ups
Boomerang is the operational warm-intro orchestration layer for B2B sales teams. Learn more or book a demo.
