{"id":7042600,"date":"2026-08-20T07:16:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T07:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/faster-shortlists-slower-decisions-a-leadership-playbook-for-ai-led-b2b-buying\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T07:16:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T07:16:48","slug":"faster-shortlists-slower-decisions-a-leadership-playbook-for-ai-led-b2b-buying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7042600","title":{"rendered":"Faster Shortlists, Slower Decisions \u2014 A Leadership Playbook for AI-Led B2B Buying"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Every company I\u2019ve worked at, and according to research also, most companies, are struggling with the same issues \u2013 falling conversion rates, and higher costs per lead. Those two powerful forces can absolutely pull a campaign apart, so I think it is worth exploring them in detail.<\/span><\/p>\n

If I can break these two problems down into what\u2019s always been a factor, and what is changing, I believe that will be the simplest way of getting to the root of the issue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, I will demonstrate what actions you can take to alleviate these problems, and even, capitalize on these trends; to ensure that you are riding the wave of the major changes that are happening, rather than fighting upstream against them.<\/span><\/p>\n

First off, why are high quality leads getting harder to deliver? There\u2019s a myriad of reasons for this. One of the key problems is the constant war for people\u2019s attention. Back in the day, there used to be a few key ad channels, and a sure fire way of delivering from them; Create new prospects with email, and google and linkedin ads. Then the Sales Development Representative would close out the first meeting, and pass the promising ones to sales to seal the deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you can see the problem here; Nowadays there\u2019s a plethora of platforms and channels that your prospects are scouring for information, as well as connecting with like-minded communities on: from Quora for in-depth b2b discussions, to review sites like G2, and Truspilot, to video channels, Podcasts (every thought leader seems to have one now), not to mention, Reddit, X, Facebook, Meta, Instagram\/Tiktok (Yes, B2B companies are really using both these days, I\u2019ve worked at some of them).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s private communities like Whatsapp, Skool, Linkedin groups, Slack, Circle (this is a big one in Cybersecurity), Shopify community, AWS, Hubspot, Salesforce Trailblazer, GitHub discussions, blogs (like mine) and other niche channels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Audiences have become ultra segmented (not in the traditional way by job title, country, company size or sector) but by the way they find and absorb information. And that is before we\u2019ve even mentioned AI.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, once you secure a new prospect, the fact that it’s harder to reach them directly by phone these days doesn’t help the sales team either. The window in which sales can influence a prospect has been narrowing for many years now.<\/span><\/p>\n

What can you do about this problem? I would use both feeback, qualitative research, and data, to discover what are the five or six most powerful channels (in terms of how your attribution model shows they drive sales revenue) and double down on them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Secondly, I would ensure that you create content that is feeding directly into AI search engines. There\u2019s plenty of research to show that you can accomplish this fairly simply and effectively: For B2B, AI will draw from key channels like Quora, reddit, Wikipedia, Linkedin, and surprisingly, your own guides, if they are well written, authoritative, and provide real answers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the one hand, b2b content teams seem to often lack the experience or understanding of their audience to double down on these opportunities. I suggest spending time with prospects to understand what their business challenges are, and even what they do and how they spend their time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

9 times out of 10, B2B content is too focused on what their company does, and who they are.\u00a0<\/span>Perhaps because I worked in sales and as as sales development rep at the start of my career, the needs of the prospect are always central to my messaging. Too many companies fall into the age-old trap of selling features, not benefits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is how so much marketing outreach looks like today –\u00a0<\/span>– \u2018Whizzletech is the leader in fintech solutions (it\u2019s clearly not) and we want to make the world a better place (also hard to prove and debatable)\u2019. We have x number of products that do c things’.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing about the prospect, what their problems are, or how your company solves them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Where you can really make a positive impact and drive sales requires you to understand at deep level: What is their actual business objective? \u2014 revenue, growth, cost reduction, efficiency, market share, retention, etc. What would get them fired? (\u2018What keeps you up at night?) What would get them promoted? (A quantum leap in the efficiency with which they do their job). You get the picture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately you are also looking to find the prospects who are BANT qualified, and who have a 9 or ideally 10\/10 problem. Obviously you will struggle with those who think your solution is merely \u2018a nice to have\u2019. But companies have driven themselves out of existence trying to fool themselves into believing a lot of buyers with 5 or 6 out of ten pain points, need their product now, and will buy in this quarter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Focus on the prospects who have the greatest need of your solution, when they are in market (only 5% of them will be at any one time), with a targeted personalised message (that solves their pain), in the channels that they operate in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, I will add that AI is creating a massive opportunity here. It is like the first years of Google when only 5 or 10% of the market understood and capitalised on the changes, by running those first basic advertisements. If you can crack the AI code now, and keep innovating, you will likely reap a massive growing annual harvest from it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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I recently attended a day long session, organised by Demandbase <\/span><\/a>and Turtl <\/span><\/a>on Account based marketing with AI. The good news is that even with limited resources, experts on AI and ABM will enable your company to:<\/span><\/p>\n