01The thesis: your contact is not the customer
Almost every B2B sales team has one contact per account. It is the person who answered the first email, asked for the proposal and passes on the news. The team writes to them, prepares decks for them and asks them how the decision is going. And one day the answer is "in the end they went another way," and nobody knows who decided or why.
Our position is that this contact is one role inside a group, and not always the most important one. B2B sales are won or lost on coverage of the group: knowing who takes part, what each person cares about, what proof they need and who can block. Without that map, the pitch is written for a person who does not exist: an average "customer" who decides nothing.
An opportunity with a single contact is not an opportunity. It is a hope with a first name.
This guide applies equally to a company selling to large accounts in Spain and to a distributor selling to retail chains and business groups in the Dominican Republic. Who fills each role changes, and so does how you reach them. The method is the same.
02The Webster and Wind model, explained properly
Frederick Webster and Yoram Wind published their model of organizational buying behavior in 1972. The central idea is that in a company, "the company" does not buy. A buying center buys: the set of people who take part in a specific purchase decision. It is not a department or an org chart. It forms for each purchase and dissolves when the purchase is done.
In the original formulation they distinguished five roles: users, influencers, buyers, deciders and gatekeepers. Later textbooks added the initiator, the person who spots the need, and some authors also separate out the approver, who ratifies what someone else decided. We use the six-role version, because the initiator matters a great deal in selling: they open the door and give you the first version of the problem.
| Role | What they do in the purchase | The question they ask | The rep's typical mistake with them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initiator | Spots the problem and sets the purchase in motion | Does this solve what I raised? | Treating them as the decider because they called first |
| User | Will use the product or service every day | Does this make my job harder or easier? | Ignoring them because they do not sign; then they block the rollout |
| Influencer | Brings technical, financial or risk judgment | Does it meet what I am responsible for checking? | Finding them late, after they have already given their opinion |
| Decider | Has the final word on the choice | Does it solve a business problem I care about? | Never reaching them and hoping the contact will sell for you |
| Buyer | Negotiates terms and places the order | Can I justify this choice and these terms? | Seeing them as an enemy of price rather than a role with its own goals |
| Gatekeeper | Controls access to people and information | Is this worth letting through? | Going around them carelessly, or getting stuck with them |
Three points the model makes clear and that are often forgotten:
- Role is not title. The technical director can be an influencer on one purchase and the decider on another. In a small company, the owner-manager can hold four roles at once.
- One person can hold several roles, and one role can be shared by several people. The executive committee, as a group, can be the decider.
- The buying center changes with the type of purchase. Webster and Wind built on the classification by Robinson, Faris and Wind: new task, modified rebuy and straight rebuy.
| Type of purchase | Who is in the buying center | What changes for the seller |
|---|---|---|
| New task | Many people, including senior management; criteria still undefined | There is room to shape how the problem is defined. Long cycle |
| Modified rebuy | Users, purchasing and a technical influencer or two | The incumbent has the advantage, but there is a window if something fails |
| Straight rebuy | Purchasing and little else | Almost impossible to get in without prompting a rethink of the purchase |
Where the model falls short
The model describes who takes part, but not how much weight each person carries or in what order they step in. It also does not capture each person's stance: one technical influencer in favor is worth more than three neutral ones. That is why our decision-maker map adds two working variables to the roles: real power over the decision and current stance toward your proposal.
03Why today's B2B selling has made it harder
The model was built for industrial purchases with a strong purchasing department and a fairly linear process. Today most purchases of any size are decided by a group, with more people involved and with functions that used to stay out of it.
- New functions join. IT and information security on anything that touches data. Compliance and data protection. Sustainability when the customer has to report on its supply chain. Each can veto without having the power to approve.
- The buyer researches before talking to you. By the time the first contact reaches you, part of the buying center already has a shortlist and criteria. If you were not there in that phase, you compete inside a frame someone else defined.
- Consensus decisions favor "no decision." The more people who have to agree, the easier it is for the purchase to be postponed. In many accounts the most dangerous competitor is not another supplier. It is leaving things as they are.
- Power shifts toward purchasing and finance as soon as the amount crosses a certain internal threshold, even if another department raised the need.
The practical consequence is that a single pitch, written for one contact, falls short. Sales work shifts from convincing one person to giving each member of the group the arguments to defend the decision in front of the others.
04How to map the buying center in practice
A useful decision-maker map does not come out of a whiteboard session with the sales team. It comes out of data. We use three sources and check them against each other, because each one has its own bias.
The three sources
Interviews. With won customers, with a lost one if they agree to talk and with the reps who ran those accounts. Customer interviews give you the buyer's version; rep interviews give you the seller's. The gap between the two is where the learning is.
CRM data. Who appears as a contact on each opportunity, which titles, at what stage each one joined and how many contacts the won opportunities had compared with the lost ones. If the CRM only stores one contact per account, that is already the first finding.
Lost opportunities. This is the most underused source. Review the losses from the last twelve months and ask, one by one: who made the decision? Did we talk to that person? What objection came up at the end? The patterns appear quickly.
Questions that work in the customer interview
- Who first raised the need, and why at that moment?
- Who else took part in the choice, and what was each one worried about?
- Was there anyone who nearly stopped the purchase? Why?
- What information did you have to prepare to convince others inside the company?
- Who signed, and what did they need to see to do it?
The work sequence
- Choose a segment. The map is built by segment, not by company: a supermarket chain and a colmado, the neighborhood corner store, do not buy the same way. Deliverable: segment and type of purchase defined.
- Review the CRM and the lost opportunities. Deliverable: a list of titles that appear in the wins and are missing from the losses.
- Run the interviews. Six to ten are usually enough for the patterns to repeat. Deliverable: notes structured by role.
- Build the map. Role, title, motivation, objection, proof and route in. Deliverable: the template in the next section, filled in.
- Validate it with the sales team. Not to ask permission, but to catch what the interviews missed. Deliverable: map signed off by sales leadership.
05Decision-maker map template
The map fits in a table. This is the template we use, filled in with a hypothetical scenario: an industrial maintenance company that wants to sell a preventive maintenance contract to mid-sized manufacturing plants.
| Role | Usual title | What they care about | Typical objection | Proof they need | How to reach them |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initiator | Maintenance manager | Stop firefighting; have a plan | "We tried this with another supplier and it did not work" | A concrete work plan for their plant, not a brochure | Direct contact, industry trade shows, a referral from another maintenance manager |
| User | Maintenance technicians and production shifts | Not having their way of working changed without notice | "This is more paperwork" | What a normal day looks like with the service; who does what | Through the maintenance manager, during a plant visit |
| Influencer | Quality or safety director | Compliance, audits, traceability | "Does it meet our procedures and certifications?" | Documentation, certificates, service records | A formal documentation request; a dedicated technical meeting |
| Decider | Plant manager or CEO | Production downtime, cost per breakdown, risk | "What do I gain compared with what I have now?" | A business case built on their own downtime data | Presentation of the business case, ideally alongside the initiator |
| Buyer | Purchasing department | Terms, comparability, supplier risk | "I need three comparable quotes" | A structured, comparable proposal with clear terms | The formal purchasing process; never go around it |
| Gatekeeper | Executive assistant or maintenance manager | Protecting their boss's calendar | "Send me some information and we will let you know" | A clear, brief reason to grant access | Ask for the meeting with a concrete objective and short material |
For each specific account we add two working columns to this table: power (high, medium, low) and stance (in favor, neutral, against, unknown). An account where the decider is "unknown" is an account where you do not yet know whether you are selling.
06Adapting the pitch by role and sequencing the conversation
The same product is sold with different arguments to each role. It is not about telling different stories. It is about putting first what each person cares about and giving them the proof they need to defend it internally. The tool we use is promise and proof: without proof, the promise is a slogan, and each role accepts different proof.
| Role | Core message | Proof they accept | Format that works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initiator | We understand your problem better than anyone | A concrete diagnosis of their situation | A working conversation, not a presentation |
| User | Your day gets better, not worse | A demo, a visit, a conversation with another user | Practical and brief |
| Influencer | It meets what you are responsible for checking | Documentation, specifications, technical references | Written and complete |
| Decider | It solves a business problem | A business case with their data | One page and one conversation |
| Buyer | It is a defensible choice | A comparable proposal, clear terms, financial soundness | Formal and structured |
The sequence of the sales conversation
- Enter through the initiator and use that conversation to understand the problem and the buying center: who else takes part, who decides and how these purchases get approved. Deliverable: the first version of the account map.
- Ask for access to the user and the technical influencer before presenting the proposal. Deliverable: technical objections known and resolved, or at least identified.
- Build the business case with the initiator so they can defend it. Deliverable: a document the initiator can show without you in the room.
- Present to the decider, ideally with the initiator present. Deliverable: the decider's position known.
- Enter the purchasing process with the underlying decision already made. Deliverable: formal proposal and negotiation of terms.
Order matters. If the decider's first contact with you is the price proposal, the decider evaluates price. If the first contact is the problem, they evaluate the solution.
07Using the map to prioritize accounts
The decision-maker map is not only for selling better within one account. It is for deciding which accounts not to put more time into. A large opportunity with a single contact and no access to the decider is, in practice, less likely to close than a mid-sized one with three roles covered.
| Criterion | Question | Strong signal | Weak signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coverage | How many roles in the buying center do we know and have we talked to? | Initiator, decider and technical influencer | A single contact |
| Access to the decider | Have we talked to the person who decides? | Yes, and we know their position | No, and the contact is not helping us get there |
| Stance | Is there someone inside who defends our proposal when we are not there? | An initiator acting as an ally | Everyone neutral |
| Process | Do we know how the purchase is approved, and when? | Dates, steps and approvers known | "We will let you know" |
| Fit | Is the account in the priority segment? | Yes, according to the segment matrix | No, it is a one-off opportunity |
These questions go into the pipeline review. You do not need a sophisticated scoring system. It is enough that no opportunity moves to the proposal stage without answers to the first three. The fit criterion links to the winnability matrix, which decides which segments you go after first.
08Spain and the Dominican Republic: how decision-making differs
The method is the same in both markets. What changes is who fills each role and how you reach them. It is worth saying with caution: there is as much difference between a multinational and a small firm within each country as there is between the two countries. What follows are common patterns, not rules.
Dominican Republic
A significant part of the economy is organized in family-owned business groups. In them, decisions on purchases of any size tend to concentrate in the owning family or in someone they trust completely, even when there is an org chart full of directors. The initiator may be a department manager, but final approval is decided higher up and sometimes outside the formal process.
Relationships and trust weigh on the decision. That does not mean price does not matter. It means the door opens sooner through a referral than through cold prospecting, and the gatekeeper has more power than their title suggests.
In free zone companies and subsidiaries of international groups, part of the buying center sits outside the country: headquarters sets approved suppliers or technical criteria. Mapping who decides at headquarters is as important as mapping the local plant. In the modern channel (supermarket chains), the category buyer carries central weight and processes are increasingly formal, while in the traditional channel the decision usually sits with the distributor or wholesaler. The local layer captures these differences without changing the method.
Spain
In small companies, the owner-manager usually holds several roles: initiator, decider and sometimes buyer. The sale involves fewer people, but you need to reach that person early. In mid-sized companies, functional directors appear (sales, operations, finance) and, above a certain size, a purchasing department with supplier approval processes.
The regional branch structure adds its own twist: the branch manager may be initiator and user, but the decision is made at headquarters. If you sell to the branch without mapping headquarters, you can win the goodwill of an entire region and lose the decision. In the public sector, purchasing follows the procedure of Spain's Public Sector Contracts Act, and the buying center is formalized in the tender specifications and the award committee.
If you work in both markets, do not copy one market's map into the other. Build one map per segment and per market, in the same format. There is more detail by country for the Dominican Republic and for Spain.
09Common mistakes
Confusing the org chart with the buying center. It happens because the org chart is at hand and the buying center has to be found out. The result is a map with the right titles and the wrong roles.
Building one map for every customer. It is convenient, but the buying center changes by segment and by type of purchase. A single map ends up describing nobody.
Treating purchasing as the last hurdle. Purchasing has its own goals: justify the choice, compare and reduce risk. If it receives a proposal it cannot compare or defend, it stalls it, even if the decider wants it.
Relying on the initiator to reach everyone. The initiator has their own interests and does not always want you talking to their boss. You have to ask for access explicitly and give them a reason to help.
Building the map once and filing it. People change jobs and purchasing processes change. The map is reviewed every period, using that period's won and lost opportunities as material.
Leaving the map in the best rep's head. When that person leaves, the account knowledge leaves with them. The map has to live in the CRM and in the commercial playbook.
10What to do this week
- Open the five largest opportunities in the pipeline and note, for each, how many contacts you have and whether any of them is the decider. If most have one, that is your diagnosis.
- Review three lost opportunities from the last year and answer for each: who decided, whether we talked to that person and what objection came up at the end.
- Ask two won customers for an interview using the five questions in this guide. Ask in particular who nearly stopped the purchase.
- Fill in the map template for your main segment, even with gaps. The gaps are the team's work list.
- Add a role field to the CRM for the contacts on each opportunity. Without that data, the map cannot be kept alive.
If you want to build it with method, the decision-maker map is part of the diagnostic phase of market strategy and becomes talk tracks in the playbook.