Invisible group

The problem with a lead-centric system isn’t that it’s incorrect. It’s simply outdated. Reality has changed, but the system has not. The most important change concerns who the B2B buyer actually is.

A typical B2B buyer is neither an individual person nor the company as a whole. Rather, it is a buying group: a set of people assigned to find a solution to a specific business problem experienced by one or more parts of the organization.

Imagine a midsized company that grew out of a startup and now has 250 employees. The human resources department realizes that the old personnel management system can no longer cope. Processes have become tangled, data is scattered across different spreadsheets, vacation approvals are handled via email, and reporting takes a week instead of one day. This inefficiency affects the entire company.

Let’s look at an example. The human resources manager begins searching for a solution. She studies the market for human resources management systems, attends webinars, and downloads demo versions. In your CRM system, a lead appears: Elena Sokolova, Human Resources Manager at Red Chamomile. Excellent, you think. A hot lead!

However, Elena cannot make the decision alone. She needs the IT director’s support because the new system must be integrated with the existing infrastructure. Sergey from IT studies the technical documentation for your solution and watches a webinar on APIs and integration. After registering for the webinar, a second lead appears in your system: Sergey Volkov, the IT director at Krasnaya Romashka.

However, that is still not enough. The financial director must also approve the budget. She wants to understand the return on investment and the payment terms. Olga downloaded your case study about implementation in a similar company. A third lead: Olga Petrova, the financial director of Red Chamomile.

The chief executive officer wants to ensure that the solution aligns with the company’s development strategy for the next three years. He registers for your conference. Fourth lead: Ivan Mikhailov, the CEO of Red Chamomile.

One or four?

In a traditional lead-centric system, what happens with these four people? Each person is processed as an independent lead. Each receives its own activity score. Each moves through its own qualification funnel. Perhaps Elena is the first to reach the “marketing qualified lead” threshold, at which point she is passed to the sales department. The manager begins working with her, unaware that Sergey, Olga, and Ivan, who work at the same company, are also actively considering your solution.

Then, the system records that Sergey has become an active lead. However, he is transferred to a different manager because he came through a different channel. Even worse, the system might mark him as a duplicate because there is already a lead from the Red Chamomile company in progress.

Olga and Ivan may not qualify as hot leads because their activity level is below the set threshold. Downloading one case study and registering for one conference is not enough to qualify.

As a result, the sales manager sees an incomplete picture. He knows about Elena and possibly Sergey, but he doesn’t realize that the decision is made by a group of four people, each of whom has their own evaluation criteria and concerns. He spends time negotiating with Elena, agreeing on details, and preparing an offer. Then, it turns out that the CFO is only one part of the whole. Her colleagues have their own specific objections that are unresolved and unknown.

The deal stalls. The manager sets the status to: “Client not ready.” Marketing sees that four leads did not convert. In the metrics, this looks like four failures, so they are all sent back for further nurturing.

In reality, the above case was one “opportunity” that neither the CRM nor the marketing or sales teams could properly identify or manage. Now, let’s take a look at what this “opportunity” actually is.

The New Architecture

In 2021, Forrester Research introduced the B2B Revenue Waterfall model, which represents the next stage in the evolution of demand management. The new model’s fundamental difference is that the unit of analysis is the sales opportunity with an associated buying group, not the lead.

The model is built around four key principles.

• A B2B buyer is a group, not an individual. This is not a metaphor or an oversimplification. It is a literal description of reality.
• Second, B2B processes cannot be optimized using lead-centric technologies, systems, or culture. A system designed to track individuals is incapable of effectively working with groups.
• Third, marketing and sales must align their systems and processes to attract, engage, and convert buying groups rather than individual leads. This requires rethinking the entire sales funnel, from the first touchpoint to deal closure.
• Fourth, organizations that adopt a buying group orientation gain a sustainable competitive advantage through better alignment between marketing and sales.

The B2B Revenue Waterfall’s key technological innovation lies in its use of an existing CRM system entity, the “Opportunity” object, as a container for forming and managing the buying group. This eliminates the need for new systems. All major sales automation platforms already have this functionality. An opportunity allows a single deal to be linked to multiple contacts while tracking progress stages and recording interactions.

However, there is one fundamental difference in how this object is used. In the traditional approach, sales creates an opportunity only when the sales manager begins actively working with the client, usually after several meetings and preliminary qualification. Until then, marketing works with leads that exist separately and are periodically transferred into the CRM one by one.

In the new approach, the opportunity is created much earlier — at the attraction stage or, if an account-based approach is used, when marketing and sales define potential sales scenarios within priority companies. In other words, it is created before active engagement begins. From that point forward, all interactions with members of the potential buying group are recorded within the context of the opportunity. Every downloaded document or brochure, every webinar attended, and every event registered for is linked not simply to an individual lead, but to the opportunity.

This creates a whole new level of visibility for everyone involved in demand management and sales. Marketing can see how thoroughly the buying group within each opportunity has been developed. Sales sees all active group members and their roles and gains the ability to work with identified and partially qualified stakeholders.

The Seven Imperatives for Working with Groups

1. Know your market

Transformation begins with rethinking what a “target market” is. In a lead-centric logic, the target market is a group of individuals with specific job titles within particular industries and companies of a certain size. In the logic of buying groups, however, the target market is a collection of potential opportunities within specific companies.

This requires a deeper understanding of who might be interested in your solution and which business situations create a real need. It’s not just “companies with two hundred to one thousand employees in the manufacturing sector,” but rather “manufacturing companies that have crossed the threshold of two hundred employees and are experiencing inefficiencies in their existing human resources processes.”

It also requires an understanding of the typical buying groups for each type of solution. Who usually belongs to the group? What roles? Which departments? Who is the initiator? Who is the technical validator? Who controls the budget? Who makes the final decision? These are not abstract theories, but practical knowledge that will determine how you build your acquisition strategy.

2. Detect Group Formation

The most important moment in the sales cycle is when a buying organization becomes aware of a need and assembles a group to address it. If you can detect this moment earlier than your competitors, your chances of winning increase dramatically.

Traditional marketing focuses on building brand and product awareness. This remains important. However, in the logic of buying groups, the ability to detect early signals of group formation is equally critical.

Over the past two to three weeks, imagine that five people from the company Red Chamomile have visited your pages related to human resources management systems. One person downloaded a brochure about vacation automation; another read an article about integrating human resources systems with accounting; and a third viewed a comparison of different solutions. Each of these actions may be random on its own. Together, however, they suggest that a buying group is forming within Red Chamomile, searching for a solution to a personnel management problem.

This is a signal to take action. You have two options: wait until one of these individuals fills out a form on your website and becomes a qualified lead, or act proactively. You could launch a personalized advertising campaign, invite them to a relevant webinar, or initiate outreach.

3. Engage all members

When members of the buying group interact with your content, it’s crucial that the system correctly links these interactions to the opportunity. In the traditional approach, each interaction is recorded at the individual lead level. For example, Elena downloaded a brochure and became more active. Sergey watched a webinar; another lead became more active. The connection between them is invisible.

In the buying group approach, however, each interaction is aggregated at the opportunity level. The system recognizes that, within the opportunity titled “Human Resources System for Red Chamomile,” six interactions from three different members of the potential buying group have been recorded over the past week. This provides a different understanding of momentum. The opportunity is developing and the group is active. Now is the time for targeted engagement.

However, engagement with each group member must be personalized according to their role and interests. For example, Elena, the Human Resources Manager, is interested in user experience, ease of use, and functionality for employees. Sergey, the Information Technology Director, wants to understand the architecture, integration capabilities, infrastructure requirements, and data security. Olga, the financial director, focuses on total cost of ownership, licensing terms, and return on investment. Ivan, the Chief Executive Officer, is interested in strategic alignment, vendor reliability, and risks.

The same content cannot engage all of them equally effectively. This requires creating diverse, role-specific content and the ability to personalize communication based on each person’s role.

4. Prioritize Correctly

In the traditional lead scoring system, each lead is evaluated independently based on their activity and profile match. Leads earn points for downloading content, visiting the website, and opening emails. Once a lead reaches a predetermined threshold, they are considered marketing qualified and passed on to the sales department.

However, this logic breaks down when we recognize that the buyer is a group. Consider the following two scenarios. In the first, one person from the company “Gazmyasneft” is very active. He downloaded five documents, watched three webinars, and visited the website ten times. His score is high, so he is passed to sales. However, he is the only person from the company who has shown interest. Perhaps he is simply conducting research, and there is no real need for the product. Maybe he doesn’t have the authority to initiate a purchase.

In the second scenario, four people from “Argotrubosbyt” showed moderate activity: Each person downloaded one document and attended one webinar. Individually, none of them reach the qualification threshold. Together, however, they represent a much stronger signal of a real opportunity.

The prioritization system is based on buyer groups and aggregates signals from all group members. It evaluates the overall level of activity and the completeness of role coverage within each group. An “opportunity” with active representatives from HR, IT, and finance takes priority over an “opportunity” with only one active representative, even if that representative’s personal score is higher.

5. Qualify the group, not the lead

In a traditional system, qualification is a conversation with a lead to verify BANT criteria. Is there a budget? Does the person have the authority to make a decision? Is there a real need? What is the timeline?

Qualifying a buying group is a more complex and multifaceted process. First, validate that a real business need exists and is urgent enough to motivate change. Second, identify all key members of the buying group, understand their roles, and assess their influence on the decision. Third, evaluate how well your solution aligns with their combined requirements, taking all constraints into account.

This cannot be done in one call with one person. It requires dialogue with several group members to understand the dynamics of their interactions and identify hidden stakeholders who may not be active but will be critical in the final stages of decision-making.

6. Validate everyone’s needs

Moving an opportunity into the active sales pipeline requires deeper validation. At this stage, knowing that the group exists and is showing interest is no longer enough. You must understand the specific needs of each key group member and how your solution addresses those needs.

As a human resources manager, Elena may be convinced that your system solves her process automation problems. However, Sergey, the Information Technology Director, is concerned about the complexity of integrating it with the existing infrastructure. Olga, the financial director, is uncertain about the business case. Ivan, the Chief Executive Officer, does not see how it fits into the company’s broader digitalization strategy. Each of these concerns is legitimate and must be addressed. This requires the sales team to engage in multi-level dialogue and adapt their message and evidence to each audience.

They must also be able to identify and neutralize potential blockers. Someone in the organization may have been excluded from the decision-making process but feel they should have been involved. There may also be someone who sees your solution as a threat to their position or the processes they are responsible for. If their concerns are not identified and addressed in advance, these hidden opponents can derail the deal at the final stages.

7. Build consensus

The final stage consists of creating consensus within the entire buying group. In B2B sales, unanimity rarely occurs on the first try. Different people have different priorities, concerns, and time horizons.

At this stage, the salesperson acts as a facilitator of the decision-making process within the buying organization. This involves helping the group articulate and align evaluation criteria. They must also provide information and evidence that address the concerns of all parties. Salespeople should also structure the proposal so that it best matches the group’s comprehensive requirements.

Sometimes, this requires adapting your offer. For example, you may need to divide implementation into phases to reduce risks that concern the financial director. It may mean offering additional technical support during integration to reassure the IT director. It may also mean including specific guarantees or success metrics in the contract that are important to the Chief Executive Officer.

It also means understanding internal political dynamics. Who has the final word? Who can persuade skeptics? Who will promote the solution internally when you are not present?

Operational reality

Transforming from a lead-centric to an opportunity-centric system may sound like a large-scale reorganization that requires new technologies and retraining entire teams. In reality, however, there are three implementation models that differ in complexity and level of automation.

Manual Approach

A pragmatic approach involves making minimal changes to existing processes while adding critical improvements at the intersection of marketing and sales. Marketing continues to generate and qualify leads using traditional methods. However, when a lead is ready to be transferred, the marketing manager takes an additional step. He uses the CRM system to identify other potential members of the buying group from the same company who have also expressed interest in relevant solutions.

Marketing creates an opportunity in the CRM and links all identified group members to it. Then, qualification is conducted with a focus on the opportunity as a whole, not a single lead. Who else should be involved? What roles are represented? Who is missing? After qualification, the opportunity is passed to sales with all validated members of the buying group.

This change does not require new technologies. All major CRM systems already support this functionality. It also does not require radical changes to existing business processes. Marketing works as it did before. Sales receives an opportunity just as before, but now with a more complete picture of the buying group.

Partial automation

The next level of maturity requires a greater degree of automation. In this model, an “opportunity” is automatically created when a member of the buying group enters the active engagement stage. CRM uses business rules to interpret each interaction, including who the person is, what role they play in the organization, and what solution they are interested in based on the content with which they have interacted.

This approach captures the value of every marketing interaction by linking it to a specific sales opportunity. It simplifies tasks such as group-level scoring because all activity is already aggregated within the context of the opportunity. This gives marketing and sales earlier and more complete visibility into potential progress.

However, this model requires more advanced system configuration and integration between marketing automation platforms and the CRM. Rules must be established to identify a contact’s role based on job title and activity. Content must be linked to specific solutions to understand the individual’s interests. Logic is also necessary to determine when to create a new opportunity and when to add a contact to an existing one.

Full Automation

The third model is the most advanced and is most often used in account-based marketing. In this model, the opportunity is created during the planning stage when the marketing and sales teams jointly identify target accounts and define potential sales scenarios within each account.

For each target account, possible relevant solutions are defined. A typical buying group profile is outlined for each opportunity: which roles usually participate, which departments, and how many people. In the CRM, opportunities for these potential scenarios are created at this stage. Then, targeted marketing campaigns are launched to identify and engage members of these potential buying groups.

This approach provides maximum clarity regarding the scale of potential opportunities and the required buying group coverage. From day one, the marketing team works within the context of specific opportunities rather than abstract lead generation. Sales has full visibility into the potential pipeline from the earliest stages.

However, this model requires significant changes to business processes. Marketing must stop thinking in terms of “how many leads we generated” and start thinking in terms of “how far we advanced key opportunities.” Sales must be willing to invest time in planning and aligning target accounts and opportunities with marketing. Both departments must agree on the definition of opportunity stages and the criteria for transitioning between stages.

The Transformation of Measurement

Less Does Not Mean Worse

One of the most counterintuitive aspects of switching to an opportunity-centric approach is that fewer entities may be transferred from marketing to sales.

In a lead-centric system, if five people from the company Red Chamomile interacted with your content, marketing might pass five leads to sales. This looks impressive in the metrics. However, in reality, sales often mark four of those leads as duplicates and only work with one, losing information about the other members of the buying group.

In an opportunity-centric system, the same five people are processed as one opportunity with five identified members of the buying group. Marketing passes one opportunity to sales, not five leads. Quantitatively, this looks like a decline in productivity. However, qualitatively, it is an improvement because sales receives a complete picture from the beginning.

If sales are accustomed to receiving one hundred leads per month and now receive only thirty opportunities, they may perceive this as a problem. It’s important to explain that these thirty opportunities represent the same one hundred contacts, simply grouped and prioritized correctly. Furthermore, these opportunities are of higher quality because they reflect real buying scenarios rather than random individual interactions.

The true value of every touch

In a traditional lead-centric system, value attribution is fundamentally unfair. Consider the following scenario: Five people from the company “Red Chamomile” interacted with your marketing. One of them, Elena, for example, reached the qualification threshold first and was passed to sales. Sales worked with Elena, and the deal was closed.

What happens to the other four people in the metrics? They are either marked as duplicates and discarded or remain as unconverted leads. This creates the impression that their interactions with the marketing team were not valuable and that they were unsuccessful contacts. In reality, however, Sergey, Olga, and Ivan were critical to closing the deal. The system is simply incapable of recognizing and measuring this.

In an opportunity-centric approach, every interaction with each member of the buying group is associated with the opportunity, contributing to an understanding of its momentum and likelihood of closing. When the deal is won, value is correctly attributed to all touchpoints with group members who contributed to the success of the deal.

This is not only a matter of fairness in reporting. It’s also a matter of correctly understanding what works. For example, if you notice that a certain type of content is frequently consumed by information technology directors within buying groups of won deals, it’s a sign to invest more in that type of content for that role. If you notice that opportunities involving Financial Directors in the early stages close faster, it’s a sign to deliberately engage Financial Directors earlier.

New success metrics

A transition to an opportunity-centric model requires rethinking success metrics at all levels. Marketing cannot be measured solely by the number of leads generated anymore. New metrics include the number of identified opportunities, the number of engaged buying group members per opportunity, the percentage of key roles covered in buying groups, and the impact of marketing on advancing opportunities through the stages of the funnel.

Sales are now measured by more than just the number of closed deals. They are also measured by the sales team’s ability to effectively work with multiple stakeholders, the time it takes to close an opportunity after it is received, and the value of closed opportunities.

One critically important metric that is only visible in an opportunity-centric system is the average number of engaged buying group members at each stage of the funnel. This metric shows how thoroughly you are covering the buying group. For example, if the average opportunity has 2.5 identified group members at the early engagement stage, 4.2 at the time of passing to sales, and 6.3 at closing, this is healthy momentum. If the number remains low at all stages, it signals that you are not investing enough in identifying and engaging all key participants in the buying group.

Strategic advantages

Forecasting Accuracy

One of the most tangible advantages of an opportunity-centric approach is its ability to radically improve revenue forecasting accuracy. In a lead-centric system, forecasts are based on assumptions about lead conversion rates. For example, if we have a thousand leads and historically convert ten percent, we would forecast one hundred deals. However, this calculation ignores the fact that many of these leads represent the same buyer groups.

In an opportunity-centric system, however, forecasting is based on real opportunities with identified buying groups. We don’t see one thousand leads, but rather three hundred opportunities. We know how many buying group members are represented in each opportunity, how many key roles are filled, and what stage each opportunity is in. This allows for much more precise forecasting.

Marketing and Sales Alignment

As mentioned briefly earlier, this is worth summarizing. Conflict between marketing and sales is a common problem in B2B organizations. Marketing generates leads and complains that sales does not follow up properly. Sales receives leads and complains that they are low quality. Marketing reports on the number of leads generated. Sales report on the number of deals. Between these two sets of metrics, responsibility and transparency disappear into a black hole.

The B2B Revenue Waterfall solves this problem by establishing “opportunity” as a shared metric for both departments. Marketing does not generate abstract leads. Rather, marketing identifies and develops specific opportunities by engaging members of their buying groups. Similarly, sales does not receive random leads. Sales receives qualified opportunities with buying group members already identified.

In this new alignment format, the illusion of separate efficiency disappears because every action is visible, and every customer touchpoint is connected to a real opportunity. Consequently, more attention is given to the substance of marketing content, the quality of communication throughout the process, and the personalization of messages for the various members of the buying group. Salespeople and marketers begin to act as partners, united by a common goal of winning the deal.

Higher conversion rates

When you work with the entire buying group rather than just one person, the probability of a successful close increases. The reason is simple: You address the needs and concerns of everyone involved in the decision, not just the person who became your entry point.

Consider the following two scenarios. In the first scenario, the manager only works with HR manager Elena, who is very interested in your solution. She tries to sell the idea to the IT director, Sergey, and the CFO, Olga. However, she lacks the necessary arguments to address their specific concerns. She lacks the technical expertise to convince Sergey of the integration’s reliability. She lacks a financial model that will convince Olga of the ROI. The deal gets stuck or falls through.

In the second scenario, the manager works directly with all three of them. He discusses functionality and user experience with Elena. He holds a technical session with Sergey and your integration team. He reviews the business case and financial model with Olga. Everyone gets answers to their questions from competent people. The likelihood that all three will say “yes” is significantly higher.

This is especially important for complex, high-cost solutions where the stakes are high and there are many concerns, internal competitors, and alternatives. A single enthusiast within the buying organization can rarely overcome skepticism alone. However, if you work directly with each skeptic, you can turn them from opponents into supporters, or at least neutral observers.

Faster Deals and Lower Risk

In an opportunity-centric system, deal velocity increases for two reasons: proper identification of all stakeholders involved and reduction of surprises during negotiations. When managers see the full group in advance—from initiators to final approvers—they can prepare for key objections, manage expectations early on, and eliminate the risk of unexpected setbacks in the later stages.

The risk of losing a deal due to misunderstandings or hidden blockers decreases sharply. Deals become faster and more reliable. This is real business value, especially in markets with long decision cycles and high customer acquisition costs.

Increased likelihood of repeat sales

Work on an opportunity does not end when the first deal is closed. How you engage and communicate with the group determines your company’s future readiness to renew contracts, expand usage, or consider cross-selling. Maintaining communication with the entire group, reminding them of your value, identifying new pain points, and creating offers that align with different departments’ interests makes it easier to grow the account within your ecosystem.

Instead of a conclusion

B2B sales are complex and ambiguous. Success does not go to those with the most leads, but rather to those who can identify real opportunities and build consensus within decision-making groups. The sooner you start changing your approach, the less likely you are to get caught up in endless approvals and fragmented activity. True mastery lies in seeing not just a stream of individual contacts but also the connections between them, real buying scenarios, and points at which your product can make a significant impact.

Alexander Gorbunov, the CEO of SellPromo, wrote this article for the magazine T-Business Secrets.