B2B Buying Committee: Who Signs Off on a Purchase

Bigger than most sellers expect. Gartner research says the typical buying group for a complex business solution involves six to 10 decision makers. Each of them has gathered four or five pieces of information on their own, and the group must sort out which pieces conflict.

The same research says more than three quarters of the customers Gartner surveyed called their purchase very complex or difficult. That is one reason committees exist. A large purchase touches many teams, and each team wants a say.

Size depends on the deal. A small software tool may need two or three people. A system that touches finance, security and daily operations can draw many more. The six to 10 range is a guide for complex buys, not a rule for every purchase.

Sources: Gartner, "The B2B Buying Journey"

Sales teams were long taught to find the one executive who could approve a deal alone. Harvard Business Review argued in 2015 that this has changed. Writers from CEB, now part of Gartner, said that reps rarely find a single decision maker today. Authority sits with a group, and the people in it have different roles. All of them have veto power.

The article found this true at a company with 50 employees and at one with 50,000. Size of company did not remove the group.

A veto does not have to be loud. A security reviewer who says "not yet" can stall a deal for months. A finance lead who cannot see the full cost can send the whole team back to start. A proposal that wins over the main sponsor but ignores these people can still fail.

Sources: Harvard Business Review, "Making the Consensus Sale," Karl Schmidt, Brent Adamson and Anna Bird, March 2015

Titles differ from firm to firm. The jobs below show up again and again. One person can hold more than one job, and small firms often combine them.

• The user. This person or team will work with the product every day. They ask: will this make my work easier or harder?
• The champion. An insider who wants the purchase to happen and speaks for it in meetings.
• The executive sponsor. A senior leader who owns the goal and the budget line. They ask: does this move a result we are judged on?
• The finance approver. Checks the price, the payment terms and the full cost over time. For that view, read about total cost of ownership and what it adds up.
• The technical or security reviewer. Looks at fit with existing systems and at data risk. Many reviewers ask for a SOC 2 report.
• The legal or procurement lead. Reads the contract, the liability terms and the service promises. See our guides to the master service agreement and the service level agreement.

Some committees also hold a person who only wants to keep things as they are. This is not a bad actor. Change costs time, and this person is counting that cost.

Sources: Editorial summary of common practice. Role names are not taken from a single study.

Gartner describes the buying process as six jobs that the customer must complete to close a purchase:

1. Problem identification: "We need to do something."
2. Solution exploration: "What is out there to solve our problem?"
3. Requirements building: "What exactly do we need the purchase to do?"
4. Supplier selection: "Does this do what we want it to do?"
5. Validation: "We think we know the right answer, but we need to be sure."
6. Consensus creation: "We need to get everyone on board."

These jobs do not run in a neat line. Gartner found that buyers loop back and revisit each job at least once, and that the jobs happen more or less at the same time. A committee may be back to defining requirements after it has already seen demos.

The last job matters most for this topic. Consensus is not a step you reach after the others. It is a task the group works on the whole time.

Sources: Gartner, "The B2B Buying Journey"

Gartner reports that buyers spend only about 17 percent of their buying time meeting with possible suppliers. When they compare several suppliers, time with any one sales rep may be only 5 or 6 percent. Most of the work happens when you are not in the room. Your written proposal does a lot of that talking for you.

These habits help a proposal travel through a committee:

• Open with a one page summary. A busy executive may read nothing else.
• Give each role its own answers. Add short sections on price and terms, on security and setup, and on daily use.
• Use plain words. People outside your field will read it. Skip jargon they must look up.
• Show the full cost. Hidden fees raise questions in finance and legal.
• Make it easy to forward. A champion often has to pass your pages to people you never meet. Write so each page makes sense alone.

If the buyer runs a formal bid, the RFP process lays out how those proposals are scored. Many scoring sheets already assign weight to price, fit, risk and support, which maps well to the roles above.

Sources: Gartner, "The B2B Buying Journey"

If you lead a purchase, you can make the group faster and fairer.

• Name the roles early. Decide who has a vote and who only advises.
• Share what each member learned. Gartner notes that members arrive with their own information. A short shared note brings the conflicts into view sooner.
• Bring risk reviewers in at the start. Late security or legal review is a common cause of delay.
• Write down the reasons for the choice. It helps in the next review and in the next purchase.

Sources: Gartner, "The B2B Buying Journey"; Harvard Business Review, "Making the Consensus Sale," 2015

1. Gartner, "The B2B Buying Journey." gartner.com
2. Karl Schmidt, Brent Adamson and Anna Bird, "Making the Consensus Sale," Harvard Business Review, March 2015. hbr.org