Buying Groups: The new north star for B2B sales and marketing

Why the lead-centric model is broken

For decades, B2B sales and marketing have revolved around one unit of measurement: the lead. Marketing chased form fills and MQLs; sales pushed for opportunities and bookings. But reality tells a different story: no one person ever buys in complex B2B. Insights shared on the OnBase podcast make this reality impossible to ignore.

Nick Webb’s research at CloudPay revealed the stark truth:

“We found out there were 17 different roles involved in the actual process from the customer side… so there’s no way we can have this concept of a single lead because that’s just not how B2B buying works.”

If as many as 17 people are influencing the deal, why are GTM teams still building strategies around the behavior of one? The age of the lead is over. The Buying Group has emerged as the real center of gravity.

This blog distills insights from some of the sharpest voices in B2B marketing, sales, and strategy. Each speaker shed light on the challenges and opportunities of Buying Groups, and together, they form a roadmap for how modern GTM teams must evolve.

1. The invisible stakeholder problem

Key Insight: The people you don’t see often matter more than the ones you do.

Robert Norum highlighted the silent threat lurking in every enterprise deal: the invisible buyer.

“These passive or inactive buyers… they might not say yes… but they’re the people that say no. And they typically say no because they’re not familiar with a brand.”

The challenge is that sales reps typically engage only 2–3 contacts. Meanwhile, unseen stakeholders, procurement, finance, security, often have the final say. They don’t raise objections in meetings; they quietly reject your vendor because it feels safer.

Implications for GTM:

• Marketing must go beyond lead gen and provide “air cover” for the whole committee.
• Consistency of brand across digital channels becomes risk mitigation, not just awareness.
• Campaign success should be measured by coverage: did more roles in the account engage?

Lesson: Deals are lost not because your champion didn’t fight hard enough, but because someone you never met didn’t trust you.

2. Rethinking measurement: from leads to group momentum

Key Insight: Revenue is a lagging indicator. Engagement is the leading one.

Angela Bruns-Herlihy reframes how we measure ABM success:

“We focus on leading indicators, Buying Group engagement, moving through deal stages, meetings created… even if the deal isn’t closed, we can see if we’re deepening relationships.”

Her dashboards track not just how much one person engages, but who across the account is engaging. A signal of progress is not when one contact downloads three assets, but when three different roles show interest in three different ways.

Davis Potter builds on this with his approach to group progression scoring:

• Tier 1 accounts → require engagement from 5–10 personas.
• Trigger metric → 4+ engaged personas signals SDR outreach.

Implications for GTM:

• Engagement dashboards should show group activity over time.
• Success means deeper penetration: IT, Finance, Procurement all touching content.
• Reports should move from “who clicked this” to “how many committee members are active.”

Lesson: The new GTM scoreboard is Buying Group activation, not individual conversion.

3. Marketing as orchestrator of trust

Key Insight: Marketing’s real job is shaping perception across the unseen committee.

Bee Patel captures this shift with brutal clarity:

“Salespeople don’t ever get to speak to everyone on the buyer committee… It’s down to marketing to build that trust across the entire committee, whether you know them or not.”

This requires a brand that resonates consistently across multiple roles. Storytelling becomes a strategic weapon, not just to attract buyers, but to equip internal champions with a compelling narrative they can carry into closed-door conversations.

Nick Webb echoed the same when he observed how anonymous stakeholders can sink deals if they feel left out:

“Make sure [anonymous stakeholders] are getting the same message as the people sales are speaking to… it makes it much more likely that you’re going to get those deals over the line.”

Implications for GTM:

• Content must be crafted for multiple stakeholders simultaneously: execs want strategic insight, IT wants technical validation, procurement wants risk mitigation.
• Storytelling should be portable, arming your champions with the language to persuade peers internally.
• Messaging alignment across marketing, sales, and even customer success is non-negotiable.

Lesson: Marketing is no longer just about generating leads, it is about creating the conditions for consensus.

4. Aligning sales and marketing to mirror the Buying Group

Key Insight: If your GTM teams are siloed, you’re just as misaligned as your buyers.

Jacek Materna drew the parallel perfectly:

“Sales and marketing need to be in the same spreadsheet, otherwise you’ll have two versions of the truth, just like your Buying Group does internally.”

Buying Groups are inherently political, fractured, and slow to align. If sales and marketing approach them with siloed strategies, they reinforce that friction instead of resolving it.

Demandbase CEO Gabe Rogol went further, calling traditional attribution models “obsolete”:

“The shared pipeline becomes the central goal, replacing siloed KPIs like MQLs or bookings alone.”

Implications for GTM:

• Teams must reorient around shared KPIs: pipeline growth and group penetration.
• Joint planning and ABM standups should replace finger-pointing over attribution.
• Internal collaboration should mirror the external consensus-building you’re trying to drive.

Lesson: You cannot influence a group externally if you remain fragmented internally.

5. The rise of AI and Buying Group intelligence

Key Insight: AI will not replace sellers, but it will reveal the unseen dynamics of Buying Groups.

Brandon Ratliff explained how AI can help map committees that no one has manually identified:

“AI really helps… formulating Buying Groups based on behavior, starting to fill names in automagically.”

Chad Holdorf, meanwhile, envisions AI agents that act as filters:

“From like 20,000 contacts to the 422 that have the most intent and fit the criteria you’re looking for.”

And Maximus Greenwald connected AI to predictive buying behavior:

“Three months beforehand, at least three people in the buying committee came by the website… then one month beforehand they were on G2 Crowd…”

Implications for GTM:

• AI can detect Buying Groups before sales ever meets them, by spotting patterns of multi-role engagement.
• AI agents can prioritize accounts based on group-level intent signals.
• Data orchestration across CRM, ABM platforms, and CDPs must be designed around group dynamics, not just individuals.

Lesson: AI should be the microscope for uncovering Buying Group activity, but humans remain the trust-builders who move committees to a decision.

6. Buying Groups beyond the close: retention and growth

Key Insight: Buying Groups don’t dissolve after the contract, they reform at renewal.

Ingrid Archer warned against viewing ABM as only for acquisition:

“ABM isn’t just about winning new logos. It’s a really important way to protect your customer base and upsell them.”

Trent Talbert expanded on this:

“Organizations haven’t taken a good ABM approach down to those final mile, renewal, and onboarding cycles.”

Renewals bring in new executives, new procurement officers, or even new blockers. If your marketing strategy doesn’t re-engage these post-sale stakeholders, you risk churn.

Implications for GTM:

• Customer ABM programs should map renewal stakeholders the same way as net-new.
• Success must include expansion and churn prevention as Buying Group outcomes.
• Sales enablement should extend into post-sale conversations with finance, ops, and compliance.

Lesson: Long-term growth is powered not by initial wins, but by the ability to re-influence committees every renewal cycle.

7. Content and storytelling as consensus builders

Key Insight: Content is not just for lead capture, it’s for committee persuasion.

Becky Lawlor shared data showing research-driven content outperforms generic by 3–5x. Why? Because different stakeholders see themselves reflected in it.

• Executives use benchmarks in board conversations.
• Procurement relies on data to de-risk decisions.
• Technical leads look for case studies and proof points.

Bee Patel added the importance of storytelling:

“We use storytelling not just for customers, but to equip sales and HR to articulate our value, even if the buyer isn’t in the room.”

Implications for GTM:

• Content should be built to travel internally across the account.
• Research-backed, insight-driven content earns trust across roles.
• Storytelling equips champions to carry your narrative into unseen rooms.

Lesson: Content’s highest value is not generating clicks, but arming advocates inside Buying Groups to win debates you never attend.

The Buying Group as the true customer

Every expert, whether focused on AI, content, brand, or pipeline, arrived at the same conclusion: the Buying Group is the real customer in B2B.

What this means for GTM teams:

1. Map the group. Identify all stakeholders, visible and invisible.
2. Measure the group. Track engagement breadth, not just depth.
3. Influence the group. Build role-specific narratives, not generic pitches.
4. Align internally. Sales and marketing must operate as one Buying Group engine.
5. Support beyond close. Renewals and expansions require fresh influence.
6. Equip champions. Give insiders the tools to advocate for you.

Robert Norum left us with the line that best captures this shift:

“In a deal with 10–20 stakeholders, if you’re only engaging 2 or 3, you haven’t earned the right to win.”

The future of B2B is not about generating leads. It is about influencing the complex, dynamic, and often invisible Buying Group. Those who master this shift will win, not just the deal, but the customer’s long-term trust.

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