Familiarity in the buying group: Why so many deals stall behind closed doors

Here why so many deals stall (using orange gradients to depict familiarity)

In B2B buying, familiarity is key. There are usually far more people involved in a buying decision than your sales team is able to meet – this group of influential people is known as the buying group.This buying group is full of ‘hidden buyers’, a concept that made WARC’s ideas of the year at the end of 2024.

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As people don’t buy from unfamiliar companies, a lack of familiarity within the buying group is likely causing you problems behind closed doors much more than you appreciate.

Example:

Your seller has a successful one-on-one meeting with someone from the buying organisation and feels it went well. (Brighter orange)

However, after that meeting, the person from the buy-side must then present your offering to their team, where differing opinions and unfamiliarity with your brand can hinder or even kill a deal. The key decision-makers may not know you at all, and people tend to avoid buying from unfamiliar companies. (feint shades of orange)

This is because B2B buying involves a lot of defensive decision-making. People often make decisions not based on what’s best for the company, but on what minimises personal risk. This is why familiarity is so important. As Rory Sutherland writes in The Objectivity Trap:"Gigerenzer identified a pattern called 'Defensive Decision-Making'. In this, decision-makers are influenced by an unconscious bias. They don’t always make the best decision for the company, but rather the one that minimises personal risk."

In media, this issue is compounded, as the buying group could be split between the media agency and the client. I’ve heard from agency professionals how a client can remove a vendor and reinvest the budget into channels they are more familiar with.So, what can you do about it?

Another of WARC’s ‘Ideas of the Year’ hints at the solution: Aggregate Attention. Aggregate Attention is about consistent, frequent messaging that builds brand awareness, familiarity, and trust over time. The more familiar you are (to the whole buying group), the more likely you are to be trusted.

‍Six Sells has found that the best way to build 'aggregate attention' across the entire buying group is to enable your senior leadership team to share authentic stories that lead towards your brand and it's value.

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Who is Six Sells?

Six Sells is a UK-based executive visibility and thought leadership agency that works globally with CEOs and senior leaders in media, advertising, adtech and technology.

Founded in 2018, we turn each executive's expertise into distinctive, authoritative content in their own voice, built to reach two audiences at once: the humans that matter to them, and the AI models those humans now ask for answers.

Our work combines executive ghostwriting, video, podcasts, photography and awards to build familiarity, trust and authority across LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, the trade press and the wider web.

We also help executives and their companies improve their visibility in AI search and large language models (LLMs) through generative engine optimisation (GEO), increasing the likelihood that platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can discover, understand, cite and recommend their expertise.

Email hello@sixsells.co.uk for more information.

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