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You sell security software, or you run the function inside a software company that has to answer for it. Almost everything written about security buying is written for the buyer, which leaves the other half of the transaction reading between the lines of advice aimed at someone else.
Deepak founded LoginRadius in 2013 and scaled it to over a billion user identities, which meant several hundred enterprise security evaluations answered from the seller's chair. The pieces below are the parts of that experience that generalize: what the committee is actually doing while you wait, why the objection that kills a deal never reaches you, and what a questionnaire programme really costs.
Vendors treat questionnaires as overhead. Buyers treat them as diligence. Both readings are wrong: a questionnaire is the cheapest way one side of a deal shifts work onto the other.
For most B2B software companies SOC 2 is a sales requirement wearing compliance clothing. Reading it correctly changes three decisions: scope, timing against pipeline, and which exceptions you can live with.
The most consequential opinion in a security evaluation is usually formed in a private message by someone the vendor never met. Both sides of the deal should understand how that works.
