Write for the sceptic.

Meet the sceptic

The sceptic is one of the six buyer types we map in every piece of work, alongside the champion, the money, the user, the boss and the adviser. Their job, formal or not, is to find out what could go wrong. Sometimes they're in finance, sometimes legal, sometimes they're just the colleague who got burned last time.

The sceptic isn't hostile. They're careful. They want to avoid a bad decision more than they want to make a great one. And in many buying groups, one doubtful voice is enough to stall a deal, because nobody wants to be the person who overruled the warning.

The champion wants a reason to say yes. The sceptic only needs one reason to say no.

What the sceptic asks

The champion asks, "What can this do for us?" The sceptic asks different questions, and they ask them in different places. They're less likely to read your home page and more likely to search your name with the word "problems" after it, or ask an AI assistant something blunt.

Their questions tend to sound like this:

• "What are the downsides of working with them?"
• "Is it really worth the money, or is there a cheaper way?"
• "What happens if it doesn't work?"
• "Who else have they done this for, and can I check?"
• "What's the catch in the contract?"

Now look at your own website and ask honestly how many of those questions it answers. Most brands answer none. Not because they're hiding anything, but because nobody ever sat down and wrote for this reader.

Why silence costs you

When the sceptic can't find an answer from you, they don't stop looking. They find one somewhere else: a review from a disappointed customer, a forum thread, a rival's comparison page, or an AI assistant piecing together whatever it can find. You've handed your most important argument to someone who isn't on your side.

There's a second cost. Every unanswered doubt becomes a question in the sales process, and every question adds time. Deals that should take three weeks take three months, and some of them quietly die in a meeting you weren't invited to.

How to write for them

Writing for the sceptic doesn't mean writing nervously. It means writing honestly, in a way that respects someone who's paid to be careful.

Say who it isn't for

Nothing builds trust faster than a brand willing to turn some buyers away. A short, plain list of the situations where you're not the right fit tells the sceptic you understand your own limits, which makes your other claims easier to believe.

Put proof beside every claim

A claim on its own is an opinion. A claim with a named example, a number you can stand behind or a process the reader can check is evidence. If you can't support a claim, soften it or cut it. The sceptic will notice the one you couldn't support.

Name the risk, then the safeguard

Every purchase has risks. Saying so doesn't scare the sceptic, it relaxes them, because it means they don't have to dig. Name the most likely risk, then say exactly what you do about it: a trial, a staged start, a clear exit, a guarantee you can actually honour.

Publish the price, or at least the range

Hidden prices are a gift to the sceptic, and not a nice one. "Price on application" reads as "too expensive to say". A range, with what drives it up or down, answers the money and the sceptic at once.

Where this fits in the stages

The sceptic matters most at Believed, the fourth of the seven stages we set out last week, where the buyer's question is "Can I trust them?" But they show up earlier too. A sceptic at Answered wants the limits as well as the features. A sceptic at Bought wants to know what happens if it all goes wrong.

That's why we treat them as their own buyer type rather than an obstacle for sales to handle. Their moments are real moments, with real questions, and they can be won.