All business relationships used to start with a call. Every serious lead, every deal, every bit of progress began with someone picking up the phone. That was how business moved forward. A prospect filled out a form, a rep followed up, and soon something was on the calendar. For years, this was how business worked. Nobody questioned it because it felt normal. It was the pulse of B2B life, steady and predictable.

But the way people communicate has changed. Buyers today live in async tools like Slack, WhatsApp, iMessage, and email. They spend their days on these platforms, asking short questions and getting instant answers. They no longer think in blocks of time but in threads, pings, and notifications.

So when someone asks them to join a call, it feels like a burden. It requires planning, coordination, and undivided attention. What once signified progress now feels like an additional task to manage, adding to their already busy schedule.

When a potential buyer lands on your website, they've already done most of the work independently. They've read reviews, compared you with competitors, and probably watched a few videos. They're not curious; they're close to a decision.

They want to confirm a few minor details — the questions that decide whether they'll move forward. Does your product integrate with something they already use? Can they start small before committing? But instead of a straight answer, they're told to book a demo.

Then, the waiting begins. That small request to "book a quick call" starts a slow, invisible countdown. Time zones don't align, and calendars clash. That quick fifteen-minute chat turns into a week of back-and-forth emails and reschedules. This is what we call the 'scheduling tax '- the hidden cost of time and effort that buyers have to pay to have a conversation.

Sometimes, the buyer forgets; sometimes they lose interest. Momentum drains away quietly. The energy that brought them to your site fades. By the time the call finally happens, their attention has already moved on.

Even when the call goes through, it rarely delivers what the buyer came for. They sit through scripted discovery questions and a polished pitch before anyone answers the thing they actually wanted to know.

The answers arrive at the end, when the curiosity is already gone. The sequence feels backward.

Most marketers don't see how much demand leaks out long before this stage. A lot of it never even reaches the funnel. Visitors see the "book a call" wall and leave. Some schedule but never show.

To a marketer looking at reports, these people are invisible. They don't appear as lost deals because they never became deals in the first place. They looked like nothing, but they were genuine buyers — and they're gone.

So what do buyers do instead? They figure things out independently and look for information they can trust, not just from you but also from others.

They read documentation, watch short videos, or check what people say about your product on Reddit, G2, or Twitter. They research quietly and continuously in the background.

They'd rather piece things together at their own pace than schedule a meeting to confirm what they already suspect. If a few questions remain, they send a short message or email and expect a direct, honest reply.

The problem isn't your product, nor is it your sales team. It's the format. The sales call itself has become the bottleneck. It costs buyers time and control. That's what they're avoiding — not your pitch, not your value, just the structure that slows them down.

For marketers, the takeaway is simple. Stop assuming a call is the natural next step. Marketing's job is no longer to hand people to sales; it's to help them buy however they prefer.

It's about meeting buyers where they already are — and increasingly, that's outside the calendar.

Make calls available for those who want them, but don't make them mandatory for everyone else. When buyers are ready to talk, they'll ask. Until then, help them move forward on their own.

The goal remains unchanged: to help people understand, trust, and choose your product. The only thing that's changed is how they want to get there.