For Mimi Turner, Head of Marketplace Innovation at LinkedIn, one burning question has fueled her work: What if B2B sales didn’t have to be so complicated? Could deals close faster, with fewer hurdles, and a higher chance of success? Driven by this quest, she dove deep into the world of B2B sales and marketing, uncovering the hidden forces that stall deals and the untapped strategies that can accelerate them. Her discoveries have shattered traditional views of B2B versus B2C marketing, revealing surprising insights into why so many deals fail to cross the finish line, and what brands can do to change that.
The hidden challenge in B2B: Lack of consensus
One of the most astonishing findings from Turner’s research is that more than 40% of deals get stuck due to a lack of internal agreement within buyer groups. Turner explains that this issue often isn’t because of product complexity or fierce competition, but because “the decision was not better than doing nothing.” In B2B environments, deals stall because buyers can’t agree on whether the solution is worth the change, and when the choice doesn’t seem clearly better than the status quo, the default becomes doing nothing.
Turner sees this as a fundamental difference between B2B and B2C sales. “We’ve got B2C glasses on in a B2B world,” she says. While B2C is all about understanding and manipulating individual emotions to drive purchasing behavior, B2B requires navigating group dynamics, hierarchy, and politics. “It’s not just a longer or more complicated process, it’s a group-based decision-making process, and the rules are completely different.”
Understanding group decision-making in B2B
Drawing on the academic work of Herbert Simon and others, Turner emphasizes how group decisions are often based on what is “just good enough” rather than optimal. The theory of “satisficing,” as Simon calls it, suggests that when faced with complicated information, people stop at the point where the decision is merely satisfactory.
B2B decision-making is often influenced by fear, fear of messing up, fear of loss, and fear of making the wrong choice in front of a larger group. “The pain of loss is much greater than the pain of gain,” Turner notes. This dynamic often leads to defensive decision-making, where groups opt for the least risky choice rather than the best one.
The power of brand familiarity in B2B
Turner’s research also uncovered the critical role of brand familiarity in B2B purchasing decisions. According to her findings, 81% of buyer groups only purchase from brands they already know, and only 4% of buyers end up choosing a product that’s known only to the recommending function within the company.
This is why being a well-known brand is a significant advantage. “If everything else is equal, the less well-known vendor will be rejected,” Turner explains. Buyer groups are more likely to pay a premium for products that their colleagues already know, relying on shared knowledge to de-risk decisions. In fact, one of the most striking insights is that hidden buyers, such as legal or finance departments, play as significant a role in the decision-making process as product users. The hidden buyers reject more than half of shortlisted vendors, not because the product doesn’t work, but because the risk of doing business with that vendor outweighs the potential reward.
Building brand awareness for hidden buyers
In B2B, marketing to hidden buyers, those who are less involved in the technical aspects but have significant decision-making power is crucial. Turner argues that the key to success in B2B sales is understanding that familiarity with a brand matters even more to hidden buyers than to the target users themselves. These hidden buyers are not evaluating products based on features or performance but on brand perception and the risk it presents. “Brand is the summary of what other people think,” Turner notes. It’s the intangible but vital factor that ties the entire decision-making group together.
How consensus drives deal closures
The key to overcoming these challenges lies in helping buyer groups reach a consensus. She stresses that brands need to shift their focus from convincing individual buyers to addressing the concerns and motivations of the entire decision-making group. By facilitating agreement across all stakeholders, from the technical users to the hidden buyers, companies can dramatically increase their chances of closing deals.
This consensus-building approach requires a nuanced understanding of the buyer group’s dynamics. Turner advocates for a marketing and sales strategy that emphasizes collective benefits and mitigates risks, ensuring that all stakeholders feel comfortable and confident in the decision to move forward. “It’s about creating alignment,” she explains. “If we get to consensus, we get to close the deal.”
Capitalizing on brand familiarity
Turner sees a massive financial opportunity for companies that can successfully navigate these group dynamics. The B2B marketplace is enormous, valued at approximately $18 trillion globally, and Turner is convinced that companies that excel in building brand familiarity and trust will capture a significant share of this market. She uses the classic adage “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” to illustrate the power of brand familiarity in risk-averse environments.
For B2B marketers, this means shifting their focus from just generating leads to cultivating long-term trust and familiarity with key stakeholders, especially the hidden buyers. Turner emphasizes, “Your goal is to become the brand that everyone in the decision-making process feels confident about, even if they’re not the end user.” This means expanding marketing efforts beyond the primary users and ensuring that hidden buyers are familiar with the brand and perceive it as a low-risk, trustworthy choice.
Branding, once considered a ‘nice-to-have,’ has now become essential, especially when aimed at the right audience. In today’s increasingly complex and competitive market, it’s not just about having a great product; it’s about how your brand resonates with the entire decision-making group. The more familiar and trusted your brand is, the greater your chances of closing deals and building long-term relationships. The path to success lies in becoming the brand that people trust, not just the product they need.
