You know that moment when you’re in a heated argument and suddenly realise you’re wrong? Do you double down or admit it? Personally, I lean towards admitting I was wrong. (Usually. Hey, I’m human.)  Professionally, it's always the right call, because it means learning something new. Unlike Tom Petty who "won’t back down," I'm amending a previous thought.

I used to say founders should focus on analysing their deals to create a repeatable sales process. Sure, I included, “What is the buyer doing at each step?”—but I got it wrong-ish. That was the second step. Most of us did because B2B SaaS sales have changed dramatically. It's time to switch the mindset from “How do we sell?” to “How do we help the right customers buy?”  

The Evolution from Sales Process to Buying Process

Historically, a solid Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy meant creating a scalable sales process based on past deals, establishing a predictable sales cycle, and training the sales team to follow it. But things have evolved. Today’s customers come informed—often knowing your product, competitors, and trends before they engage. They have no patience for jumping through hoops that exist only because “it’s our process.”

At Qover, we focus on a full educational nurture campaign to ensure we are top of mind when a future customer engages with our team.  This helps shape how they educate themselves during their research phase, allowing us to meet the clients where they are.  Discovery has turned from solely focused on ‘do they have a problem’, to more understanding how far along they are in their thinking and what information they still need to determine how and whether to move forward. Then we’re able to quickly adapt how we engage from there. –Parker Crockford, CRO Qover

The game has changed. Instead of a sales process optimised for internal efficiency, companies must align with their Ideal Customer Profile’s (ICP) buying journey. Founders need to dig deep, understanding not just the pain they solve but how ICPs make purchasing decisions, what they need at each stage, and who gets involved. A buying-centric process meets customers where they are and offers the right info at the right time. It sounds like the same thing, but it’s subtle—shifting from “what is the buyer doing when we are here”, instead to  “what does the buyer do, and how can we help make it easier for them to get through their process to get to a yes”.  It’s not about making it easier for us—it’s about making it easier for them.

Why Focus on the Buying Process?

Customer-Centric Approach: This keeps the customer at the heart of your GTM strategy. Tailoring your interactions to their needs builds trust, positioning you as a helpful partner, not just a vendor.

Improved Sales Efficiency: Aligning your process with how customers buy cuts out unnecessary steps, reduces friction, and leads to shorter sales cycles and better conversion rates.

Enhanced Customer Experience: When the buying and selling processes are aligned, customers get the right info at the right time, making decisions easier and boosting overall satisfaction.

Data-Driven Insights: Analysing the buying process yields valuable data on behaviour and preferences, guiding your marketing, product development, and business strategy.

Shifting from Sales Process to Buying Process

Consider this: A sales team might claim an opportunity is in “Negotiation Stage” just because they’ve sent a proposal and offered a discount. But the only one “negotiating” is the sales rep—negotiating with themselves! The prospect sits back, amused, as the price has dropped without them even asking for it. The takeaway? It’s not about your sales process; it’s about how the buyer experiences it.

1. Research and Define Your ICP’s Buying Journey
   
   Start by deeply understanding your ICP. This means:
   
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   • Recognising Pain Points and Motivations: What challenges does your ICP face? What motivates them to seek a solution? Do they even know that a better way of doing something is possible? Position your product as the best answer to their problems. It sounds basic, but you'd be surprised how many companies start as solutions in search of problems. Stephen Millard at Notion Capital advises being “uncomfortably narrow” in defining your ICP early on to really hone in.
     
     
   • Mapping the Full Customer Journey: What stages do customers go through from awareness to decision? This typically includes awareness, prioritisation, consideration, decision, and post-purchase. Also, identify where they go for information—what communities they engage with, who the thought leaders are, etc. Put yourself in their shoes; if you had to deal with their challenge, what would you do?
     
     
   • Identifying Key Stakeholders: Know who is involved in decisions and when they should be brought in—end-users, technical evaluators, financial approvers, and exec sponsors. Missing someone early can create roadblocks later. You might think not involving these people is a good thing but I promise, they will eventually need to be. Better to bring them in early not only to not delay the deal, but also to make the full rollout much smoother.
     
     
   • Understanding Information Needs: What info does each stakeholder need at each stage? During awareness, it might be educational content; during consideration, detailed comparisons; and during decision-making, ROI analyses and testimonials. Don't assume prospects know how to buy; oftentimes, they don’t. Ask directly about their decision-making process—many will appreciate the guidance and learning how other similar organisations approached the decision.
     
     

Mews is in vertical SaaS - we have a ‘mission critical’ platform that is used by the entire hotel operation including guests, staff, reservations teams, finance, tech and owners. The marketing team is always thinking about the challenges that Mews is solving for each of these unique personas. We also serve a wide variety of segments within the hotel industry. The aim is to have as much personalised content as possible for specific users and segments. Generic marketing just isn’t effective, you have to keep answering the questions ‘what problems are we solving for you, why does it matter, and what will the business impact be after you choose Mews.’ We’re sweating the solutions and role-based sections of our website. Every content piece and campaign is pointed at specific segments and roles. It’s simply the only way to be effective across multiple buyer personas and categories of hotels.  –Leah Anathan, CMO Mews
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2. Align Your Sales Process with Their Buying Journey
   
   After you’ve mapped the buying journey, align your sales process to match. Your sales process must be designed with the sole aim of helping make it easier for your prospect to move through their cycle. How do you take the heavy lifting off them, and instead give them the tools, the information and the ammunition to move forward and to bring others in the business alongside?
   
   
   • Developing Stage-Specific Strategies: Create tailored strategies for each buying stage. In awareness, use content marketing and SEO to educate potential customers. In consideration, work collaboratively on business cases. The sales process should be a continuous business case, showing not just financial benefits but also engagement and partnership value.
     
     When we talk about multi-threading, I don’t just mean speaking to multiple people in the prospect: I mean also having multiple threads in your own organisation so if one goes silent you have other avenues of communication, and with different points of view. What information your solutions engineer gets from their technical contacts is often unfiltered, and quite different from what sales reps might hear. 

Think very specifically about making it easy for your prospect to buy. If you expect them to do the heavy lifting, you’re putting the burden on them and it will slow down or stop. Often they have no idea what to do next, or what has worked previously. That’s your job to guide them. How can your champion present to their peers to bring them along? How exactly will they present the benefits to the CFO? What content do they need and how do they need it tailored for internal discussions? 

• Training Your GTM Team: Equip your team with the knowledge to support customers at every stage, specific to that persona.
  
  How many of us grew up with the adage that you get the customer to do all the talking on the first call? I sure did, back in the days where most meetings were face to face, and an hour long. Now, most first meetings are 30 minute video calls. Yes, you still need to do discovery on that call but your prospect is expecting to at least see something. How many of you have short ‘teaser’ demos to show something so the buyer isn’t frustrated, but then use that to prompt more discussion leading to next sessions where you give a personalised demo based on the discovery conversation? That’s not only a great way to get in front of more of the right people, but in these, you’ll be showing exactly what they need to see to solve their specific challenge. This is in contrast to a generic one-size-fits all-demo which is often wasting time and could end up tanking a deal.
  
  This isn’t “sales training”—it’s GTM training. Everyone, from marketing to customer success, should understand the industry, ICP, and competition. Think of it as a relay race: when passing the baton, there's absolute trust that the next person will place it correctly.

And this is tough–what triggers do you need to put in place to show that you may need to move a deal back a stage? You need to be honest with yourself about what the buyer is actually doing, and only then align your sales stage with that corresponding action. A prospect is never in early stage consideration for 9 months. That’s not a real deal, sorry.

• Implementing the Right Enablement Tools: Use data to route high-value leads directly to Account Executives rather than making them jump through hoops for "qualification." If a senior persona from a target account reaches out, don’t waste time—get them to the right person.
  
  
• Creating Feedback Loops: Establish feedback loops between sales and marketing to continually refine your understanding of the buying process. Align their success metrics and compensation to ensure they support each other. Too often, marketing gets paid on MQLs while sales falls short on revenue targets. And a lead that should have been great wasn’t contacted for 3 days so goes cold. The frustration on both sides? Avoidable.

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Real-World Example: HubSpot’s Transformation

Look at HubSpot, a leader in marketing, sales, and customer service software. Initially, they focused heavily on outbound sales and a predictable process. But they faced challenges:

• Long Sales Cycles: Prospects took too long to move through the funnel.
• Low Conversion Rates: Many leads didn’t convert, highlighting inefficiencies.
• Customer Frustration: Aggressive tactics clashed with prospects' research-based decision-making.

After deep diving into their ICP’s buying journey, they realised customers started by looking for educational content on marketing best practices. Different stakeholders—marketing managers, sales directors, C-level execs—were involved, each needing different info. HubSpot revamped their GTM strategy:

• They launched content to attract prospects during awareness, like blogs and webinars.
• For consideration, they provided targeted demos and case studies focused on specific pain points.
• During decision-making, they offered personalised ROI analyses and facilitated testimonials with existing customers.

The result? Shorter sales cycles, higher conversion rates, and more effective sales teams.

Conclusion
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“The art of persuasion is paradoxical.  The more we attempt to persuade people, the more they tend to resist us.  But the more we attempt to understand them and create value for them, the more they tend to persuade themselves.”  – Ron Willingham

I love this quote; it sums up exactly why we need to shift our focus. Rather than starting with ourselves, we need to start with the customer and build not just our products around solving their problem but build our process around helping them persuade themselves.

Shifting from a sales-centric to a buying-centric approach is essential for modern SaaS companies. And from my previous post about GTM Fit, it helps ensure that you’re bringing in the right customers in the first place. It requires understanding your customers deeply, measuring and optimising continuously, and committing to adapting based on feedback. Start by aligning with your ICP’s buying journey and design every step to help them move through it.  Pushing hard and getting the wrong customers to sign a contract isn’t a win in the long run–it creates problems for the team in the short term and a hole to fill once they churn in the long run.  (previously guilty, I’m very well aware)

Flip the script: Don’t just follow a sales process—help the right customers buy and you’re building a strong relationship from day one.