B2B Buyers Own the Journey

Hello!

This is the first official edition of The Shortlist! Previously called…something else, it doesn’t matter.

In preparation, I’ve been heads down refining my own positioning, my view on modern B2B demand. It's become sharper than ever since I’ve been building my own thing: this newsletter, and an “anti” consulting business (more on that soon).

This edition sets the tone, and it’s a punchy one. I’ll refer back to it often — because it lays the foundation for how I think about growth today.

If you’re new here — welcome.

Let’s jump in!

The New Game is About Turning an Invisible Buyer Journey Into Real Pipeline

→ Most buyers aren’t filling out forms.
→ They’re not jumping on discovery calls.
→ They’re not sitting around waiting to be “nurtured” or added to a cold call sequence.

They’re doing research. They’re asking around. They’re watching quietly.

And whether you know it or not, they’re making buying decisions before they engage with your sales team. They are deciding:

• The companies they actually want to work with.

• The ones they’ve already decided are legit.

• The ones that feel safe to bet on.

• The ones their team will greenlight without a fight.

That’s what your marketing needs to do. Know who your buyers are and show up where they are. You need to be discovered long before the form fill.

You need to make the shortlist. If you do that, you will build pipeline.

Why Most B2B Marketing Fails Today

Because it’s still built for a world that doesn’t exist anymore. Many demand engines are built to get buyers into our internal system. We assume:

• The buyer journey starts when we say so.

• Attribution tells the whole story.

• More leads = more pipeline.

• Form fills = buying intent.

None of that’s true anymore.

The buyer’s journey is messy and unseen. It doesn’t make sense for companies to make key budget decisions based on ROI from a specific campaign, or make team decisions based on assigning attribution of an opportunity to sales or marketing.

Today’s buyers complete 70–80% of their journey before they ever talk to you.
They ask peers. They browse quietly. They build internal consensus. They consume content, but not necessarily from you. And certainly not behind your gated ebook.

By the time they reach out, they are forming decisions, not starting their research.

• But instead of adapting, most teams double down on outdated playbooks.

• We chase campaign ROI metrics that ignore how real buying happens.

• We build internal processes for tracking leads, not for winning deals.

• We focus on what’s easy to measure, not what actually moves the buyer.

Modern marketing isn’t about chasing leads. It’s about earning awareness, trust, and preference long before sales gets involved.

If you miss that window, you don’t just lose the deal. You never had a chance.

So What Actually Moves Pipeline?

Not gated ebooks.
Not cold SDR cadences.
Not obsessing over MQL volume.

The real levers now are:

Clarity – What do you do, and why should they care? Could a buyer explain it to their CFO?

Credibility – Have you earned trust before the sales process begins?

Consistency – Are you showing up where they research, learn, and network?

Consensus – Are you creating moments buyers share internally to build consensus?

Connection – Are you connecting like-minded peers and creating opportunities for engagement?

Character - Does your brand shine through? Does it have personality and a point of view that shows who your company is?

Collaboration - Are you working in sync with sales? Focusing on the same goals, same ICP and same campaigns that lead to warm outbound calls and conversations that convert?

If you're not thinking this way, you are probably missing opportunities to build pipeline.

What’s Next

We are at the turn of the quarter and it’s an ideal time to sort out how to:

• Become the one buyers already want

• Influence internal buying conversations without being in the room

• Build pipeline that starts before attribution software ever catches up

• Make it easy for buyers to self-educate and engage on their terms

It doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, when you put the buyers at the center of the buying journey things get easier. For now, ask yourself:

If your top buyer personas were looking for a solution like yours today...
Would you make the shortlist?

See you next week. I’ll keep breaking down more of this in every issue, favoring simplicity over complexity, and not paying a whole lot of attention to attribution.

Shannon

P.S. Know someone who should be on The Shortlist? Forward this to them.