--- title: Understanding your customer's buying decision journey description: Bob Apollo of Inflexion-Point - the Outcome-Centric Selling Experts - reveals the inherent complexities of the typical modern B2B buying decision journey image: https://www.inflexion-point.com/hubfs/Spaghetti%202.png --- This is a search field with an autosuggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. # Understanding your customer's buying decision journey ![Bob Apollo](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/78fa41976d534cacbb0e22e151bc6816) Post by [Bob Apollo](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/author/bob-apollo) February 26, 2025 ![Understanding your customer's buying decision journey](https://www.inflexion-point.com/hubfs/Spaghetti%202.png) ![Spaghetti 2](https://www.inflexion-point.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Spaghetti%202.png?width=329&height=130&name=Spaghetti%202.png)It’s falsely comforting to think of selling as a process in which one step follows logically after another - but this completely **fails to reflect the reality** of any even moderately complicated B2B sales environment. The truth of the matter is that in complex B2B sales your customer’s buying journeys are rarely linear, compounded by the fact that they are sometimes poorly defined or even if they are well defined are often not well understood by many of your customer's decision-making team. This is particularly true if the customer is entering unfamiliar territory, and trying to buy something they have not successfully purchased previously Rather than following a perfectly straight path, these customer decision journeys often zig and zag, go backwards as well as forwards, find themselves way off-piste, struggle to achieve consensus, can be redirected on the whim of a single powerful individual or can be abandoned at any stage along the way. Gartner characterised this "long, hard slog" as looking more like a spaghetti bowl than a conveniently linear process ... There is no magic wand, but there are a few things your sales people can do. The first is to accept that for any significant unfamiliar purchases, your customer’s decision-making journeys are **inherently complex**. The second is to accept that they will probably never achieve anything close to perfect knowledge. And the third is to recognise that very few significant decisions are made by a single individual without reference to or regard for a wider decision group.  The latest research suggests that the average decision group now involves 10-11 active stakeholders in high-value, complex and significant projects - sometimes less, but often more. Despite all these challenges, salespeople can and must do their best to avoid being blind-sided by factors that they ought to be able to predict are likely to come into play. Rather than blindly following a rigid, linear “sales process”, your salespeople need to diagnose where their customer is in their **decision making journey **and adapt their strategies accordingly. As you’ve undoubtedly observed, this can **change at any time** and without notice. Some members of the customer's decision group may be ahead of the curve, and some behind. It’s particularly important that your salespeople aren’t deceived by one over-enthusiastic champion into thinking that the group as a whole are further advanced than they really are. That having been said, at any given point in time the **centre of gravity** of your prospective customer’s decision journey is likely to be in one of the following phases: ### Status Quo - Unconcerned While in this phase the potential customer is - by and large - **currently unconcerned** about any of the issues you might have **chosen to target** and is not yet engaged in any form of active buying decision journey. However, they are still likely to be monitoring key trends that they see as relevant to their industry, organisation or role. This is the state which most of your future customers find themselves in most of the time. Your sales and marketing team's role in this phase of their journey is to **educate and inform** the key influencers in your key target customers by offering genuine thought leadership and insights that serve to shape their perspectives and influence their thinking. ### Concerned Something - usually the result of a powerful **disruptive force** or a significant **trigger event** - now disturbs the status quo and draws your customer’s attention to a potentially significant challenge, opportunity or threat. They are now trying to establish the likely impact of the issue, what remedies might be available, and whether there might be a business reason to act. Your sales, marketing and business development team's role in this phase of their journey is to monitor these disruptive forces and trigger events, to articulate a distinctive point of view, to be seen as a source of accessible and credible expertise, and to **proactively reach out** to the affected people and organisations. ### Exploring Having identified the challenge, and having concluded that the issue is worth investigating in greater detail, your potential customer will typically now engage with other members of their organisation, research **trusted sources of information**, and try and establish what **credible solutions** might be available - drawing up a list of potential options. Your sales, marketing and business development team's role in this phase of their journey is to encourage your prospective customer to consume your thought leadership content, to position your organisation as a credible option, to leave them wanting to know more, and to persuade them to engage with a salesperson **sooner rather than later**. ### Defining Having concluded that credible solutions are available, your prospective customer now turns their attention to shortlisting their most promising options, establishing their **vision of a solution** and defining their decision criteria, decision group and timeframe. It is critically important that your salespeople **actively engage** the customer before or during this phase - prior to their issuing a formal tender or RFP document, after which it is often too late to reshape the customer’s thinking. If they do this effectively, they will dramatically increase their chances of winning the customer's business. ### Selecting The customer's decision group is now evaluating the pros-and-cons of their shortlisted options, further refining the business case and seeking to identify their **preferred option** - which if the business case is not strong enough and if the stakeholders fail to achieve consensus is likely to be a decision to “do nothing”. In addition to promoting the merits of your proposed solution and establishing the business case, your salespeople's role during this pivotal phase is to ensure that all stakeholders see the distinct differences and advantages of **your approach** from their individual perspectives. ### Verifying The customer's decision group is now seeking to verify their choice, to negotiate the best possible terms, to eliminate any remaining reservations and to secure the support of their colleagues for the project. Even though you might have been selected, you are **by no means guaranteed** the customer’s business. This is not just about securing the best deal - it is also about diagnosing and dealing with any and all perceived **risks or concerns** that are associated with either the project itself, the chosen vendor and the chosen solution. ### Confirming The project and its associated business justification is now being submitted to the **ultimate decision authority** for final approval - and often finds itself competing for funding and senior management attention against other investment opportunities. Your salespeople may have eliminated all your other competitors as far as this project is concerned - but they also need to make sure that their project’s business case and executive sponsorship is strong enough for it to emerge at the **top of the customer’s list** of spending priorities. If they fail to pay due attention to this, there's a significant risk that the project will fall at this final hurdle. ### Consensus building and validation Regardless of which phase or phases the customer's decision group are currently in, there are two connected parallel processes that are essential foundations for making tangible progress, and they are consensus building and validation. If there is no consensus across the decision group about whether the problem is real, what needs to be done about it and what the best option is, they are likely to stick with the status quo and do nothing. And the same outcome is likely until and unless the vendor's claims have been validated. This crucial need for consensus building and validation is why successful projects tend to have strong internal leaders - the "Challenger Customer" book referred to these people as Mobilisers® - who are capable of leading their colleagues on the decision group towards a common consensus. ### After the "sale" is complete You might think that your "sales process" is over when you book your customer's order. But of course their buying decision journey isn't over until they have successfully implemented the solution you have sold them, and they agree that they have achieved the business outcomes that they sought. If - like a growing number of "as-a-service" business transactions - you expect to renew or expand your presence in the customer over time, you need to ensure that every significant stakeholder within your customer believes and acknowledges that these business outcomes have been fully achieved and preferably exceeded.  ### In Conclusion The above buying journey phase descriptions are inevitably somewhat idealised. It is entirely possible that some projects rush through or skip some of these phases altogether. As we’ve already identified, the customer's decision journey can stall, go into reverse or go forwards. But when key phases are not **completed** to at least a minimum level - for example, clearly defining their requirements, decision criteria and process - it is far more likely that the journey will **subsequently fail**. Your sales people can’t hope to know where their customer is on their journey unless they observe their behaviour closely for the relevant indicators. And they can’t assume that their next step will be forwards. But they can facilitate that movement by eliminating anything which is under their control or influence that could otherwise **hold the customer back**. And that, of course, is exactly what our Outcome-Centric Selling® System has been designed to do. Let's [set up a call](https://www.inflexion-point.com/book-a-zoom-call) if you'd like to learn more. By the way, I wrote the [first version of this article](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/understanding-your-customers-decision-journey-1) back in 2019. It's both striking and comforting to see how much of the original thinking remains relevant today. ###### Tags: [B2B Buying Process, ](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/topic/b2b-buying-process) [Challenger, ](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/topic/challenger) [Outcome-Centric Selling, ](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/topic/outcome-centric-selling) [Gartner](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/topic/gartner) ![Bob Apollo](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/78fa41976d534cacbb0e22e151bc6816) Post by [Bob Apollo](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/author/bob-apollo) February 26, 2025 Bob Apollo is a Fellow of the Institute of Sales Professionals, a regular contributor to the International Journal of Sales Transformation and Top Sales World Magazine, and the driving force behind Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners, the leading proponents of outcome-centric selling. Following a successful corporate career spanning start-ups, scale-ups and market leaders, Bob now works as a strategic advisor, mentor, trainer and coach to ambitious B2B sales organisations - teaching them how to differentiate themselves through their provably superior approach to achieving their customer's desired outcomes. [Follow me on my website](https://www.inflexion-point.com) [Follow me on LinkedIn ](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/bobapollo) [Follow me on Twitter ](https://twitter.com/bobapollo) ### Comments ###### Related Articles ### [The four pillars of a powerful customer value proposition](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/the-four-pillars-of-a-powerful-customer-value-proposition) Posted by **[Bob Apollo](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/author/bob-apollo),** **Mar 08, 2023** The following article was first published in the March 2023 edition of the always-excellent Top Sales Magazine - there's a ... ### [Why should salespeople bother preparing for their customer interactions?](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/why-should-salespeople-bother-preparing-for-their-customer-interactions) Posted by **[Bob Apollo](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/author/bob-apollo),** **Feb 10, 2023** There’s been a great deal of research into the dynamics of salesperson-customer interaction over the years, and the results ... ### [Crafting Compelling, Customer-Specific, Value Propositions](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/crafting-compelling-customer-specific-value-propositions) Posted by **[Bob Apollo](https://www.inflexion-point.com/blog/author/bob-apollo),** **May 08, 2025** I imagine most of us have probably heard the term “value proposition”. It’s widely used in B2C marketing. But how does the ... 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