5 types of B2B decision makers (& how to sell to each one)

Finding the right decision-makers in your buyer’s org shouldn’t feel like a never-ending game of hide-and-seek with Michael Scott.

Identifying and selling to the right B2B decision-makers is a real pain. With multiple stakeholders involved in every layer of a deal, it’s easy to get stuck with the wrong gatekeeper—or worse, miss key people altogether.

Here’s the good news: 

With a targeted strategy that zeroes in on building detailed personas, systematizing your approach, and leveraging tech to speed up the entire process, your team can narrow down the correct decision-makers quickly—preventing deals from stalling or being lost to a competitor who found the right people first.

Below, you’ll learn:

• How to find and sell to B2B decision-makers
• The typical players on a buying committee
• How to uncover them with the right tech,
• Strategies to win them over (once you know who they are)

Types of decision-makers

B2B decision-makers hold the power to say 'yes' or 'no' to adopting your solution. And because B2B moves fast—especially in startups where roles blend and change frequently—identifying the right decision-makers early is crucial to avoid wasting a sales rep’s valuable time on the wrong contacts. 

While the list below doesn't cover everyone in a B2B buying committee (think legal and even HR), these are the people to focus on first.

1. Champions

Buyer champions believe in your solution and push for its adoption internally. They might not have the final say, but their influence is substantial. 

More often than not, these are people who understand the pain points your product addresses and are passionate about its benefits because it can directly impact their day-to-day.

2. Economic decision-makers

Economic buyers need clear, quantifiable benefits. They're usually in roles such as CFO or VP of Finance. 

These decision-makers are focused on getting the best ROI, and whether or not you present a good financial argument will make or break their final decision to buy in.

3. Technical decision-makers

IT Managers or CTOs are your technical buyers. They're focused on the implementation and compatibility of your product within the existing tech setup. 

While they might advocate for a positive outcome, their primary concern is that your solution integrates seamlessly with their current stack without causing disruption.

4. End users

End users are the ones using your product day-to-day. These decision-makers care less about financials or tech specifics; they want to know what's in it for them. How does what you bring to the table improve their jobs? A strong focus on a great UX and ease of use can sway their support.

End users aren’t typically treated as decision-makers, but loud enough end users can be enough to make or block a deal (especially in a product-led growth motion or during a proof-of-concept project).

5. Executive decision-makers

The C-suite and other executives like VPs ensure that the tech and tools purchased align with the company's long-term goals. Their focus remains on bottom-line impact. 

Especially in environments like Series A startups, these leaders are still involved in day-to-day details. With a business case that zeros in on strategic objective alignment, their support will be easier to get.

Example decision-makers in a deal

Let’s say you’re selling Hoxhunt—a cybersecurity training platform—to DocuSign. Here’s how these decision-makers might work together as a buying team.

• CISO: The Chief Information Security Officer is your champion. They recognize Hoxhunt’s ability to improve cybersecurity awareness. They advocate for you when you’re not in the room.
• CFO: Focuses on financial justification. You provide the CFO with detailed ROI analysis, case studies, and cost-benefit data, collaborating closely with the CISO and CTO.
• CTO: Ensures technical compatibility. You work with the CTO to facilitate a proof of concept (POC), providing technical documentation and gathering end-user feedback to assess system integration and UX.
• End Users: Participate in the POC, offering feedback on Hoxhunt’s usability. Your team actively engages with these users.
• CEO: Oversees the strategic fit. The CEO integrates input from the CISO, CFO, CTO, and end users, informed by your insights, to make the final decision.

But for all of this to come together, your team at Hoxhunt needs to identify and engage all of these decision-makers correctly. So how do you get them right?

Tips and tools to identify decision-makers

To sell to these key decision-makers, you first have to find out who they are. Here's how to do it.

1. Create detailed personas

Understanding your company's decision-maker ideal customer personas (ICPs) is important. You have to tailor your approach based on your target’s specific needs and characteristics (not just their job title).

For example, if you're selling AI note-taking software to a healthcare organization, your decision-makers might be the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), the CIO, and the CFO. 

But selling an analytics tool to a tech startup might involve the CTO, the VP of Product, and the CEO. These groups, their needs, priorities, pain points, and decision-making processes are vastly different.

To put it all together, create detailed personas for your decision-makers covering:

• Key roles: Determine the critical roles influencing the decision.
• Fit: How each person fits into the org structure.
• Challenges and goals: Understand each role's pain points and objectives.

CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot are the best spots to build and manage these profiles. Tools like this let your team store and update information about each persona. And they integrate details with plenty of other tech and tools (like Dock, Gong, and others).

2. Use a consistent sales methodology

It’s really hard to get sales reps to engage multiple decision-makers on every single deal without a systematic sales methodology that encourages discovery and qualification. 

Qualification-focused frameworks like MEDDIC and Sandler Selling can help salespeople address the more nuanced challenges of larger, longer deals. This can help reduce sales cycle time and increase close rates. Here’s what you need to know:

MEDDIC

MEDDIC (or MEDDPICC) provides a structured approach to identifying and engaging key decision-makers.

1. Metrics: How does each decision-maker measure success?
2. Economic buyer: Are you focused on at least one person who can approve spending?
3. Decision criteria: What does each stakeholder base purchasing decisions on?
4. Decision process: How are decision-makers reaching a yes or no?
5. Implicate pain: What pain point is forcing them to purchase?
6. Champion: Who will advocate for your solution on your buyer’s team?

Sandler

The Sandler Selling System emphasizes strong relationships and understanding your prospect's needs deeply (vital for high-value sales). Here’s your focus:

1. Rapport: Establish strong relationships with prospects to gain trust
2. Expectations: Set clear expectations to earn and maintain trust
3. Pain: Use questions to uncover the pain points and needs of different decision-makers. 
4. Budget: Identify the budget (and the person who manages it) early to make sure the deal is viable
5. Decision: Understand the decision-making process and criteria to frame your solution.
6. Present a solution: Address the identified pain points, fit within the budget, and align with the decision-making criteria
7. Post-Sell: Continue to support the customer after the close

To uncover pain in step 3, consider questions like:

• What specific issues are causing delays in your [specific timelines or deadlines]? 
• Which areas of your current process are leading to increased costs or gaps in efficiency? 
• Who within your org is feeling the most pressure from these challenges?

3. Focus on account mapping (with your champion)

Account mapping identifies key stakeholders in your target accounts to ensure you're engaging the right people. To cut back on the amount of research on the front end, collaborate with your champion to build an accurate map.

But, to get to this point, you need to make sure your champion is actually a viable decision-maker. Pete Prowitt, Head of Revenue at Stytch, explains why (and how) you need to test your champions early.

Once you’re sure your champion is the right contact, work with them to identify key stakeholders, capturing the most relevant and accurate information directly from someone who understands internal dynamics (or politics).

Ask questions like:

• Who are the key decision-makers?
• What are the most important factors for them?
• What common objections will we face?
• Who was involved in the last sales process?
• Who needs to know about this purchase?
• Which departments will use our solution?
• Who is the economic buyer?
• What does the buying process look like?

Use collaborative tools (Figma, Miro, Notion, or Airtable) to create and update the account map. The tool you opt for should be able to show profiles, pain points, and the organizational structure. Then, share this map with your champion to double-check accuracy.

4. Leverage sales intelligence and enrichment tools

While you’ll get plenty of information from your champion, you likely still need to do some independent research. ‍

Sales intelligence tools like 6sense, ZoomInfo, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator provide data-driven insights to help you find the most relevant decision-makers (and contact information) for every deal.

Lead enrichment tools like Clay and Apollo can also help you fill in the missing pieces on customer-side contacts.

5. Track decision-maker engagement with a sales room

In addition to collaborating with your champion, monitor stakeholder engagement throughout the sales cycle to adjust your strategy (and your map) as needed.

Dock's digital sales rooms are invaluable for uncovering contacts involved in the deal by allowing you to see who's viewing what sales assets you end over, when they viewed them, and how often. This helps you:

1. Identify which stakeholders are actively engaged.
2. Understand what content interests them most.
3. Adjust your strategy based on their interactions.

Dock’s people analytics let you see exactly which decision-makers are viewing your workspace and when.

How to sell to business decision-makers

Once you've identified your decision-makers, the focus shifts to making the buying process seamless and straightforward. It’s about reducing friction and helping them see your solution as the clear, easy choice to meet their needs. Here are four ways to get it right.

1. Connect your product to their #1 problem

Instead of some hand-wavy or generic pitch, connect your product to the #1 problem each decision-maker is facing with a strong business case. Here's how you can make that connection tangible and actionable:

Research

Begin by understanding the specific challenges your target decision-makers are facing. Use tools like LinkedIn and industry reports to gather insights into their current issues. (A tool like Crayon can make this faster with competitor activity reports, market trends, and real-time insights.)

Look at your buyer’s recent website or social media posts, press releases, and any public statements about their goals and struggles. Evaluate what solutions they’re currently using or considering. Leveraging your internal champion to discover these things can also make this process easier. The key here is to identify the gaps or shortcomings in those solutions that your product can address. 

Customize messaging

Develop value props that directly address the identified pain points. For example, if you're selling a project management tool to a tech startup struggling with project deadlines, focus on features that improve deadline tracking and collaboration. 

Share case studies and success stories from similar companies that faced the same challenges. Show how your solution made a measurable impact on their operations.

Tools like Dock can help you organize and present these materials in a way that's easy for decision-makers to access and understand.

Add a personalized demo

Offer interactive demos where decision-makers can see firsthand how your solution addresses their specific pain points. A demo allows them to visualize exactly how your product will solve their problems, making the connection between their needs and your solution clear. 

Make these demos available in the same space where you store the rest of your sales enablement documentation for easy access and reference. 

2. Frame your product (correctly)

The way you position your product can make all the difference in engaging the right stakeholders. In tandem with connecting your product to each decision maker’s #1 problem, you also need to frame your offering to align with their broader priorities and pain points. 

On a recent episode of Grow & Tell, Chris Orlob, former Director of Product Marketing at Gong, discussed how mispositioning Gong in the early days led to tougher sales:

"One of the problems we had on the sales side during the first couple of years is we were positioned as a coaching tool—a call recording tool—for enablement. If you're positioned as coaching or something like that, you tend to start your sales cycles in [Sales Enablement teams]. Those were really tough sells. 
‍
“I don't know why we struggled so much with Enablement [as a persona]. A lot of it is because they don't have as much power as you would think. And so we started to reposition as not just coaching but also pipeline management and strategy execution so that we could get in front of the Chief Revenue Officer. Because we had huge sales problem of like so many deals would just get stuck with a Director of Enablement, and they wouldn't go anywhere."

Framing your product correctly from the start ensures two things:

1. You're engaging the right stakeholders
2. Your solution aligns with top-down strategic objectives

3. Multithread relationships

Sales multithreading involves building relationships with multiple stakeholders within the org to ensure exhaustive engagement and influence throughout the sale. 

By now, you already know who your stakeholders are; here's how to thread your approach:

• Do multi-channel outreach: Use personalized emails, LinkedIn messages, phone calls, and virtual meetings to establish initial contact. But because this step requires more effort, your tech is going to play an important role. Check out tools like Outreach, Salesloft, Clari’s Groove, or Apollo to automate some of these more time-consuming tasks.
• Engage across departments: Share tailored content relevant to different departments. These conversations can help get you in front of other decision-makers.
• Establish many-to-many connections: Facilitate introductions between your team and their buyer counterparts to build trust. (For example, your CEO and their CEO.) To show your solution holistically, you need a coordinated team effort—don't be afraid to push your team members to engage across multiple levels of the buyer's org.
• Provide continuous value: Regularly share relevant content like industry reports and success stories. Schedule check-ins to update and, as always, gather feedback, potential blockers, and stay helpful.

4. Use a digital sales room 

Digital sales rooms like Dock's allow you to share the most important information with every decision-maker (and your entire Sales team). It also helps you keep your messaging clear, coherent, and consistent.

Ingrid Murra, CEO and Co-Founder of Two Front, added Dock to their sales process—increasing growth by 30% MoM. Here's what she had to say:

"When we introduced Dock, it was at the same time that we were making a couple of other pretty massive changes. But a couple of months later, our numbers started to really take off. We started seeing 30 percent month-over-month growth. And it's got to be a part of all the changes we made." 

And when it comes to the impact of Dock beyond the financial ROI?

"It's going to streamline your sales process. It's going to streamline your onboarding and account management process. And it's gonna deliver a better experience for your customers."

Messy email attachments, PDFs, and forwarded quotes often complicate the buying experience. Important details get lost. Instead, a deal room allows you to present unified content and tailored messaging to everyone—like you're all on the same page.

Here's what to consider sharing in a sales deal room:

• Mutual action plans
• Case studies
• ROI analyses
• Pricing quotes (with context!)

Find and win over decision-makers with Dock 

Finding and winning over B2B decision-makers requires more than just a solid pitch—it requires a strategic, white-glove approach that engages the right stakeholders at the right time—the right way.

With Dock, you can create personalized digital sales rooms that keep everyone aligned, informed, and moving toward a decision. 

From tracking engagement across departments to presenting unified content that speaks directly to each decision-maker’s pain points and priorities, Dock helps your team simplify and streamline complex sales cycles.

Want to see how Dock can help you give decision-makers the clarity and confidence they need to say ‘yes’ in less time? 

Dock is free to try. Sign up for 5 free customer workspaces here.