B2B sellers today typically sell to a buying group, not an individual—and buying groups are getting bigger.
You know a single prospect can make decisions much more easily than a large crowd. When diverse stakeholders with different priorities are making the purchase, you need a new approach.
When working with multiple roles, the seller’s biggest responsibility is driving consensus within the buying committee. You want to address each member’s specific concerns while simultaneously building agreement around value to the organization.
In a recent webinar, CSOs: How to Effectively Adapt Your B2B Sales Strategies, research firm Gartner shared four main reasons working with buying groups is difficult:
- There are multiple points in the process where progress is delayed.
- Members have conflicting goals.
- Senior stakeholders create bottlenecks.
- Non-buying group members can overrule recommendations.
This post expands on these issues and shares advice for sales leaders to help their teams overcome these hurdles.
4 Challenges When Selling to a B2B Buying Group
These challenges make B2B buying processes lengthy, unpredictable, and difficult to navigate for both sellers and the buying organizations themselves.
1. There Are Multiple Delays in the Process
B2B buyer journeys involve numerous checkpoints and approval stages that can significantly slow progress. Each stakeholder may need to review materials independently before group discussions can occur, creating natural pauses in the process.
Coordinating meetings with multiple busy executives across different departments often leads to scheduling delays that can extend sales cycles by weeks or months.
2. Buying Group Members Have Conflicting Goals
Buyers typically represent different departments with distinct priorities and success metrics. For example, finance focuses on cost reduction and ROI, while IT prioritizes implementation feasibility and security requirements.
These competing interests create tension within the group and make consensus difficult to achieve, often resulting in compromised solutions that don’t fully satisfy anyone’s needs.
3. Senior Stakeholders Create Bottlenecks
High-level executives with final approval authority are frequently the most time-constrained individuals in the organization. Their limited availability for meetings, review sessions, and buying decision discussions creates critical bottlenecks.
These senior stakeholders often have broader considerations that may override the specific benefits identified by the buying group.
4. Non-Buying Group Members Can Overrule Recommendations
Even after a buying group reaches consensus, their decision can be vetoed by executives or stakeholders who weren’t involved in the evaluation process. These external parties often have different concerns or information than the buying group and may reject recommendations based on factors the group had never considered.
This dynamic creates uncertainty throughout the sales process and can force sellers to restart their efforts with new stakeholders.
Tips for Buying Groups
Work Toward Creating Consensus
Despite these challenges, sellers who persevere to build consensus within the group are more likely to close the opportunity and achieve what Gartner refers to as a “high-quality deal.” This is a sale in which buyers report they had bought what they were hoping to and the purchase had lived up to their expectations.
Buying groups that have consensus are 2.3 times more likely to achieve a “high-quality deal.”
— Gartner Research
Focus on the Group as a Whole
Many sellers try to build consensus by focusing on the needs and objectives of each individual, to the detriment of overall group consensus. Overfocusing on individuals has a negative impact. Sellers need to provide information, content, and assistance that’s relevant to the group as a whole.
Share Content to Add Value
Skillful sellers who keep the whole group in mind can help all members understand the perspectives of other group members. The best tactic is sharing information that’s tailored for the customer’s industry, business challenge, or objective and clarifies how the product would work for the buyer’s organization.
When sellers don’t “overindex on personalization,” it helps the group reach an agreement on the purchase decision and validate they’re making the right decision.
How Sales Leaders Can Help Sellers Navigate B2B Buying Groups
Here are recommendations for sales leaders to help their teams overcome the challenges of working with B2B buying groups.
Map the Entire Decision-Making Ecosystem
Train sellers to identify all potential stakeholders early, including those who might appear later in the process. Create buying group maps that outline not just group members but also potential veto players and executive influencers. Develop relationship plans for each key person, focusing especially on those in senior roles who could become bottlenecks.
Develop Multiple Relationships
Encourage sellers to establish connections with all stakeholders across different departments and levels. This creates multiple paths to progress when one becomes blocked. Each team member should own specific relationships within the prospect organization, creating a web of connections rather than a single point of contact.
Focus on Shared Value and Consensus-Building
Help sellers articulate how your solution addresses the specific goals of each group member while also advancing organizational priorities. Train them to facilitate discussions that acknowledge conflicting objectives but that guide the group toward areas of agreement. Position your sellers as neutral facilitators who can help the buying group reach internal consensus.
Create Executive Engagement Strategies
Develop specific approaches for engaging senior decision-makers efficiently. This includes creating executive-focused content that addresses their strategic priorities, preparing concise value summaries for time-constrained reviews, and training sellers on executive communication. Consider using your own executives for peer-to-peer engagement with customer executives.
Prepare for Disruptions and Resets
Coach sellers to expect and plan for disruptions such as stakeholder changes, shifting priorities, or external business challenges. Create playbooks for “resetting” the sales process when necessary, including how to efficiently bring new stakeholders up to speed without starting over completely.
The most successful sales organizations acknowledge the complexity of B2B buying groups and develop systematic approaches to navigate them rather than hoping for simpler processes.
Find out how The Brooks Group can help prepare your sellers for success with buying groups.
