Not because your marketing isn’t working. Not because sales aren’t trying hard enough. But because that’s just how B2B buying works now.
You’ve probably seen this research floating around, but it’s worth mentioning it again:
“B2B buyers are around 70% through their buying journey before engaging vendors.” (6sense)
Think about that for a second, that means that by the time someone fills out a form, books a demo, or replies to an email, they’re not “starting” their journey. If fact, they're finishing it!
Buyers spend just 17% of their time interacting with suppliers during a purchase and when multiple vendors are involved, that time is split between them, meaning you might get single-digit percentages of actual buyer attention. (Businesswire)
That’s not a lot of time to make your case.
There was a time when buyers needed vendors to understand the market.
They needed:
But now?
So instead of raising their hand early, buyers are doing what we all do in our personal lives: they’re researching quietly and thoroughly.
The latest research shows:
“90% of B2B buyers use search engines during their research process, 61–75% prefer rep-free or self-directed experiences, 61% would rather avoid interacting with a sales rep altogether” (SEOWorks and Gartner)
Which, if you work in B2B sales or marketing like us, is really not ideal. Sadly, the awkward reality is that buyers are ghosting you on purpose.
Here’s where it gets even more interesting (or terrifying).
We are not just saying that buyers are now researching alone, no, we are saying that they are actively avoiding vendors during that phase! Especially if you are irrelevant.
“73% of buyers say they avoid vendors who send irrelevant outreach” (Gartner)
So, while we are out here sending emails, running ads or pushing demos, the buyers are quietly thinking: “Thanks… but I’ll figure this out by myself.”
By the time they talk to you:
And you weren’t even in the room.
At that point, sales aren’t “creating demand”, they’re validating a decision that’s already been shaped elsewhere.
If it’s not happening in sales calls, where is it?
Short answer: everywhere else. The modern B2B buyer journey lives across a messy mix of:
It’s fragmented, non-linear, and largely invisible.
Which makes it very hard to track and even harder to influence if you’re not present.
If you are a company that still operates as if the journey looks like this:
Marketing → Lead → Sales → Close
Neat. Linear. Trackable…
Then, I'm sorry to break it to you, but the reality is more like:
Research → Compare → Validate → Shortlist → then engage sales
And even that’s an oversimplification.
Because buyers:
It’s less of a funnel and more of a group chat where no one fully agrees what’s going on.
And best of all, speaking of group chats… it’s not just one buyer anymore. Another reason the journey feels so opaque? You’re not selling to one person. You’re selling to a group.
Research shows:
And they all care about different things:
So, while one person might love your solution, five others might be quietly Googling alternatives. And again… you’re not in those conversations.
I know this might sound all a bit doom and gloom so let’s discuss what we can actually do!
This is where things get interesting (and slightly uncomfortable, just how we like it here at Sharper!).
Because if:
Then the obvious question is:
“But Sharper, how do you influence a buyer you can’t see yet?”
This is the core challenge of modern B2B marketing. And it’s why the role of marketing has fundamentally shifted. Marketing is no longer about leads - it’s about influence.
Traditionally, we used to generate leads, pass them to sales and support conversion.
Now?
Marketing is responsible for shaping:
Because by the time a “lead” exists, most of the important decisions have already happened.
The companies winning in 2026 understand this shift. The brands that are outperforming right now aren’t necessarily the loudest. They’re the ones that show up early.
They are the companies that create genuinely useful content, educate buyers before they sell to them, build credibility in their market, show up consistently across channels, and make it easy to self-serve information. So, when a buyer eventually does reach out, it feels like a natural next step, not a cold start.
A slightly blunt way to think about it is if your strategy relies heavily on:
We are sorry to tell you that you’re probably arriving too late. It’s not that those tactics don’t work, more that they are happening at the end of the journey, not the beginning.
Without turning this into a full strategy guide (we usually have to agree on a quote for that of course), there are a few clear shifts:
Show up earlier - focus on the stages before buyers convert like problem awareness, education, or category understanding
Create content that actually helps - not just content that sells. Think explainers, comparisons, frameworks, industry insights etc.
Build trust before you need it - because by the time you need it, it’s too late
Accept that you won’t see everything - and that’s okay because the goal isn’t to track every step but rather to influence as many of them as possible
We’ve only scratched the surface here. Because while all this research is important, it’s just one part of a much bigger shift. The full 2026 B2B buyer journey includes so much more than one blog post could contain. So, we’ve mapped all of this out in a visual infographic you can actually use internally with your team.
Download it here (no form, we promise)
If nothing else, it’ll give you a clearer answer to:
“What are our buyers actually doing before we hear from them?”
The sooner you start thinking about how to influence buyers before they show up in your CRM, the more likely you are to be the vendor they’ve already decided to choose.