TL;DR The B2B buying journey is not a linear funnel. Gartner identifies six buying jobs: problem identification, solution exploration, requirements building, supplier selection, validation, and consensus creation — and buyers loop through these repeatedly, often simultaneously and in no fixed order. Buyer enablement is not a single intervention. It is a set of coordinated supports that help buyers complete each of these jobs accurately and confidently, at the point they need them. Most organisations front-load their buyer enablement at solution exploration and supplier selection, and leave problem identification, validation, and consensus creation severely underserved. The deals most likely to stall or go to no decision are those where buyers could not complete validation or consensus creation — not because they chose a competitor, but because they could not build sufficient internal alignment or confidence. Good buyer enablement at each stage is specific, not generic. What buyers need when they are building requirements is categorically different from what they need when they are trying to create internal consensus.
Most revenue teams think about buyer enablement as a content problem. They ask: do we have the right collateral? Is it well-organised? Can the champion find it easily? Those are reasonable operational questions, but they start from the wrong frame.
The more useful question is: what job is the buyer trying to complete right now, and what does good support for that job actually look like?
Gartner’s research into the B2B buying journey identified six distinct buying jobs — problem identification, solution exploration, requirements building, supplier selection, validation, and consensus creation. The finding that changed how sophisticated revenue teams approach this is that these jobs do not happen in sequence. Buyers loop through them repeatedly, revisiting earlier stages when new information arrives, when a stakeholder raises a concern, or when internal consensus fractures. Gartner describes the actual buying journey as resembling a big bowl of spaghetti rather than a tidy funnel.
That description has practical implications. It means buyer enablement is not something you deploy at stage three of your CRM pipeline. It is something that has to be available, and calibrated, across all six jobs, in whatever order the buyer encounters them. And it means that the quality of what you provide at each job — not just the quantity — determines whether the deal advances or stalls.
This article takes each of the six buying jobs in turn. For each one, it describes what the buyer is actually trying to accomplish, what good buyer enablement looks like at that stage, and what poor enablement — or its absence — typically produces instead.
Why the Buying Jobs Frame Matters
Before working through each stage, one important reframing: the six buying jobs are the buyer’s tasks, not the seller’s pipeline stages. A buyer completing supplier selection is not in your qualification stage. A buyer working on consensus creation is not in your negotiation stage. Those two framings describe different realities, and conflating them is one of the most consistent failure modes in how organisations think about buyer enablement.
The relevant numbers make the stakes clear. Gartner’s research found that 77 per cent of B2B buyers describe their most recent purchase as very complex or difficult. Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2024, drawing on more than 16,000 global buyers, found that 86 per cent of B2B purchases stall during the buying process and 81 per cent of buyers express dissatisfaction with the provider they ultimately select. Between 40 and 60 per cent of qualified pipeline ends in no decision — not a loss to a competitor, but a failure to complete the buying journey at all.
Consensus creation failure and validation failure are the leading causes of no-decision outcomes. The buying journey broke down not because a competitor offered a better product, but because the buying group could not build the internal confidence and alignment to move forward. That is a buyer enablement problem.
There is also a Gartner finding that sets the performance ceiling: buyers who engage with supplier-provided digital tools in combination with a sales representative are 1.8 times more likely to complete a high-quality deal than those who rely on either channel alone. The hybrid experience — where the buyer can explore independently and engage the seller when they choose — outperforms both purely self-directed and purely rep-led buying. Good buyer enablement is designed with that hybrid in mind.
The Six Buying Jobs: What Good Looks Like
Buying job 1: Problem identification — “We need to do something about this.”
What good looks like: Content that helps buyers size and frame the problem — not your product, the problem. Diagnostic tools or self-assessment frameworks that help the buyer quantify the cost of inaction. Research-backed framing that validates the problem as real, common, and worth addressing. Language the buyer can use internally to describe the problem to colleagues who have not yet recognised it.
What poor looks like: Leading with product features or capabilities before the buyer has articulated the problem. Assuming the buyer already understands and cares about the problem the same way you do. Providing content about your solution when the buyer is still deciding whether to act at all.
Problem identification is the most frequently underserved stage because most marketing and sales content is built around the solution rather than the problem. Buyers who are still in this stage are still building the internal case that action is needed. They are not looking for product comparisons. They are looking for frameworks, data, and language that helps them convince colleagues and stakeholders that the problem is real and worth solving. Content that jumps straight to solution evaluation lands too early and often gets ignored.
Buying job 2: Solution exploration — “What is out there that could solve this?”
What good looks like: Category education that explains how different types of solution approach the problem — not just your approach. Honest positioning that acknowledges the trade-offs in different solution categories. Content that helps buyers understand what they are actually choosing between, not just why you are better. Accessible formats: short explainers, comparison overviews, category primers.
What poor looks like: Treating solution exploration as a sales qualification opportunity rather than a genuine research support moment. Content that is so vendor-specific it cannot help a buyer who is still forming their view of the solution space. Competitor comparison pages that are overtly promotional rather than genuinely useful.
Solution exploration is where most buyers first engage with vendor content — where first impressions of credibility and usefulness are formed. Buyers at this stage are not committed to your category, let alone your product. The organisations that earn trust here are those willing to help buyers understand the full solution landscape rather than immediately narrowing to their own product. Counter-intuitively, being genuinely useful at this stage — even if it means acknowledging alternatives — builds more durable pipeline than content that starts selling before the buyer is ready to be sold to.
Buying job 3: Requirements building — “What does our solution actually need to do?”
What good looks like: Role-specific content that addresses what each stakeholder cares about — the CFO, the technical lead, the end user, and the economic buyer have different requirements. Templates or structured frameworks that help buyers define and prioritise their own criteria. Guidance on how to build an internal evaluation brief. Content that helps buyers articulate their own requirements rather than simply accepting yours.
What poor looks like: Generic content that speaks to no specific stakeholder in depth. Assuming the champion will relay accurate requirements to all other stakeholders without support. Providing requirements templates that are transparently designed to favour your solution’s specific capabilities.
Requirements building is where the buying group starts to fracture if it is not well supported. Each stakeholder is, in effect, building their own set of requirements, and those requirements may not align. The technical lead is thinking about integration and security. The CFO is thinking about total cost of ownership and implementation risk. The end users are thinking about whether this will actually make their working lives better. Buyer enablement at this stage has to be multi-stakeholder by design. Content that only speaks to the champion’s perspective will leave every other decision-maker underserved and make internal alignment harder, not easier.
Buying job 4: Supplier selection — “Does this specific vendor do what we need?”
What good looks like: Accurate, accessible answers to the questions buyers are actually asking during evaluation — including difficult ones. A governed evaluation environment where buyers can explore independently and have their questions answered with verified accuracy. Competitor comparisons that are honest, specific, and genuinely useful rather than promotional. Case studies with enough context to be relevant. Clear, non-obfuscated pricing and implementation information.
What poor looks like: Leaving buyers to form conclusions from competitor sites, outdated review platform entries, and AI summaries of uncertain accuracy. Demo processes that show features but do not help buyers understand how those features address their specific requirements. Withholding information that buyers need to make an informed decision, creating the impression of evasion.
Supplier selection is the stage where confident misunderstanding most commonly forms. Buyers are actively researching, comparing, and drawing conclusions — largely without seller involvement. A buyer who develops an inaccurate view of your implementation timeline, your integration model, or your pricing structure during supplier selection will carry that view forward. It will not necessarily surface until it becomes a late-stage objection. The enablement challenge here is ensuring that what buyers learn during self-directed evaluation is accurate.
Buying job 5: Validation — “We think this is right, but we need to be sure.”
What good looks like: Customer references who are accessible, credible, and comparable to the buyer’s situation. ROI calculators and business case frameworks that buyers can run with their own numbers. Security and compliance documentation that procurement and legal teams can review without a sales intermediary. Pilot or proof-of-concept structures with clear success criteria. Analyst coverage and third-party research that provides independent corroboration.
What poor looks like: Responding to validation needs with sales pressure rather than reassurance materials. Making reference customers hard to access or protecting them from direct buyer conversation. Providing ROI models that are not credible because the assumptions are obviously optimistic.
Validation is where deals that looked close frequently stall. A buyer who has completed supplier selection and believes they have found the right vendor still faces an internal accountability question: if this goes wrong, can I defend my decision? The materials that answer that question are not primarily about the product — they are about risk reduction and decision confidence. Reference customers, third-party validation, independently credible ROI models, and transparent security and compliance documentation all serve the same function: they help the buyer’s internal stakeholders believe that the decision is safe, not just that the product is good.
Buying job 6: Consensus creation — “Can we all agree to move forward?”
What good looks like: Champion kits — a curated package of materials the champion can use to brief colleagues without distortion. Stakeholder-specific summaries that each decision-maker can read without requiring the champion to translate. Shared evaluation workspaces where multiple stakeholders can review the same accurate information independently. Business case templates the champion can customise and present to executive stakeholders. Facilitated stakeholder briefings, available asynchronously, for committee members the champion cannot easily access.
What poor looks like: Treating the champion as the only audience after initial discovery. Providing one-size-fits-all collateral that no specific stakeholder finds directly relevant. Assuming the champion will accurately convey the seller’s positioning to every other committee member — this is the single most common and consequential assumption in B2B sales.
Consensus creation is where the most pipeline value is destroyed invisibly. Gartner’s 2025 research found that 74 per cent of buying teams experience unhealthy conflict during the decision process, and buying groups which do reach consensus are 2.5 times more likely to report a high-quality deal outcome. The champion is not a reliable conduit. Every briefing hop between the champion and a new stakeholder introduces interpretation, omission, and the risk of distortion. Buyer enablement for consensus creation means giving every relevant stakeholder direct access to accurate, relevant information — not just making the champion better equipped to brief them.
The Six Buying Jobs at a Glance
| Buying job | Buyer’s question | What good buyer enablement provides | Common failure mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| Problem identification | Do we need to act on this? | Framing content that helps buyers size and articulate the problem; diagnostic tools | Overwhelming buyers with solution detail before the problem is acknowledged |
| Solution exploration | What is out there? | Category education; honest comparison; unbiased positioning of the solution space | Leading with product features rather than helping buyers understand the category |
| Requirements building | What does our solution need to do? | Requirements templates; role-specific content for each stakeholder; customisation guidance | One-size content that ignores the CFO, security lead, and end-user reading the same page differently |
| Supplier selection | Is this the right vendor? | Competitor comparisons; case studies; governed evaluation where buyers can explore accurately | Leaving buyers to form conclusions from competitor sites and outdated reviews |
| Validation | Are we making the right call? | Reference customers; ROI calculators; pilot structures; security documentation | Pressuring for decision without giving buyers the reassurance materials they actually need |
| Consensus creation | Can we all agree? | Champion kits; stakeholder-specific summaries; shared evaluation workspaces | Treating the champion as the only audience and leaving every other stakeholder unserved |
What This Means in Practice
The consistent pattern in underperforming buyer enablement programmes is the same: organisations invest heavily in solution exploration and supplier selection content, and neglect everything else. They have strong product decks, competitive battlecards, and case studies — and nothing to help a buyer who is still deciding whether to act, or a buying group that is struggling to reach alignment.
A practical audit of your buyer enablement starts with a simple question for each of the six jobs: if a buyer needed to complete this task right now, without asking a sales representative for help, what would they actually have access to? The gaps that question reveals are usually more specific than expected: not “we need more content” but “we have nothing that helps the CFO understand total cost of ownership” or “we have no way for buyers to explore our integration model accurately on their own.”
The second practical implication is about what happens between seller touchpoints. B2B buyers spend only 17 per cent of their total purchase journey in contact with vendors. The other 83 per cent is independent research, internal discussion, and evaluation activity that sellers cannot see. Buyer enablement that only operates in the 17 per cent — in prepared demos and sales calls — is leaving the majority of the buying journey unaddressed.
Good buyer enablement is designed for the gaps between meetings, not just for the meetings themselves. It gives buyers a way to keep exploring accurately, surfaces the questions they are actually asking, and ensures that what they conclude during self-directed research reflects the seller’s actual positioning rather than whatever they happened to find. For the distinction between buyer enablement and sales enablement, and how the two complement each other, see our foundational comparison. For a deeper look at the signals that reveal where buyers are in their journey, see what buyer intent data actually tells you — and what it cannot.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the six B2B buying jobs?
Gartner’s research identified six distinct buying jobs that buyers must complete during a complex B2B purchase: problem identification (recognising that action is needed), solution exploration (understanding what types of solution exist), requirements building (defining what a solution must do), supplier selection (evaluating specific vendors), validation (confirming the decision is defensible), and consensus creation (building internal alignment across the buying group). These jobs do not happen in a fixed sequence. Buyers loop through them repeatedly and often address several simultaneously.
Why do B2B deals go to no decision?
Between 40 and 60 per cent of qualified B2B pipeline ends in no decision. The most common causes are failures at validation and consensus creation — not product-fit problems or competitive losses. A buying group that cannot build sufficient internal confidence or alignment to commit will stall or abandon the decision even when they have identified a preferred vendor. Buyer enablement that addresses these final two buying jobs is one of the most direct levers for reducing no-decision rates.
What is a champion kit in buyer enablement?
A champion kit is a curated package of materials designed to help an internal advocate — the buyer champion — to brief their colleagues and build internal consensus without relying on the seller’s continued involvement. A well-structured champion kit typically includes an executive summary, a business case template, relevant case studies, security or compliance documentation for specific stakeholder functions, and answers to the most common internal objections. The goal is to make the champion effective with stakeholders the seller cannot directly reach.
What does good buyer enablement look like at the problem identification stage?
At the problem identification stage, good buyer enablement provides framing, data, and language that helps buyers recognise, size, and articulate the problem internally. This typically means research-backed content that validates the problem as real and significant, diagnostic tools that help buyers quantify the cost of inaction, and frameworks buyers can use to brief colleagues who have not yet recognised the problem. What it does not include is product or solution content. Buyers who have not yet committed to acting are not ready to evaluate specific vendors.
Why is consensus creation the hardest buying job to support?
Consensus creation is difficult to support because it requires reaching stakeholders the seller often cannot directly access. The champion is the primary conduit, but champions are imperfect intermediaries. Every time they brief a new stakeholder, there is risk of omission, misinterpretation, or inaccurate framing. Supporting consensus creation effectively means giving each relevant stakeholder direct access to accurate, relevant information in a form they can use without the champion’s mediation. Stakeholder-specific content, shared evaluation workspaces, and asynchronous briefing resources are the practical mechanisms for this.
How should buyer enablement content change at the validation stage?
Validation-stage content should focus on risk reduction and decision confidence rather than persuasion. Buyers at this stage have usually already chosen a preferred vendor. They are now asking whether that choice is defensible. The materials that matter most are: accessible customer references comparable to the buyer’s situation, independently credible ROI models, third-party analyst coverage, and security and compliance documentation that procurement and legal can review directly. Pressure tactics at this stage tend to backfire because they increase perceived risk rather than reducing it.
Sources
| Source | Date | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Gartner — B2B Buying Journey and six buying jobs framework | 2024 | Free |
| Gartner: 74% buying team conflict; 2.5x consensus quality | May 2025 | Free |
| Forrester — State of Business Buying 2024 | Dec 2024 | Free |
| ENaiBLD — Why Buyer Understanding Breaks Between Sales Meetings | 2026 | Free |
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