February 9, 2026

I keep seeing B2B teams get flummoxed about the same thing. We still act like a buying decision is one person with one opinion and one neat journey. Then we hit a bunch of stalled deals, frantic requests for “one more asset”, and a calendar full of meetings that produce more noise than clarity.

This session with Tejal Patel landed because she said the quiet bit out loud. Buying is a group sport. It’s messy, cross-functional, multi generational, and full of people trying to avoid looking like a numpty in front of colleagues.

Forrester puts the average buying decision at 13 people, and 89 percent involve two or more departments. Forrester also says Millennials and Gen Z now make up 71 percent of B2B buyers.

B2B International found Millennials spend 13 weeks in the initial research phase on average, compared with 12 for Gen X and 8 for Boomers. It’s a reminder that attention and diligence can vary, even when the end decision is still a group negotiation.

So yes, three generations can end up in the same decision, each with different trust cues and attention habits.

The myth of the one person

Tejal’s line was blunt, and I loved her for it.

“It’s not just one person, that’s such a load of crap.”

If your plan is built around “the CIO” as a single hero buyer, you’re doing highfalutin persona theatre while the real decision happens somewhere else, usually in a Teams thread you’ll never see. The buying group is a collection of risks, and each person carries their own version of career safety.

That’s why the work isn’t just persuasion. It’s reassurance, and it has to travel.

Forwardability beats engagement

We talk about engagement like it’s the prize. It’s tidy and it makes dashboards look busy. It also ignores what actually happens in B2B, which is internal forwarding, internal explaining, internal politics, and someone quietly asking, “Will this make me look stupid”.

Tejal reframed it with one small word that changes how you build content.

“Forwardability is a thing to think about, not shareability.”

Forwardability is the moment your champion sends something to finance, procurement, IT security, or “the internal cynic”, because it explains the decision in plain English.

“Your job is not only to influence the buyer, but help them influence the next person.”

That line has teeth. It also explains why so much B2B content feels like its written to impress rather than to be repeated.

Proof based content is a grown up strategy

Tejal kept coming back to evidence, and she did it without the usual buzzwords.

“We need to shift to a proof based content strategy.”

Proof is what reduces risk. Proof is what survives the doubters in procurement. Proof is what gets repeated without people feeling like they’ve swallowed a sales script.

B2B so often mucks this bit up. We write one big claim, then we pile on more claims, then we wonder why nobody believes us. It’s a slop of “thought leadership” that says very little, just with more words.

A proof based approach forces discipline. One claim, evidence early, and a clear view of who it’s for and what decision it supports.

Gartner found 61% of B2B buyers prefer a rep free buying experience, and 73 percent actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. If your content is vague, you don’t just get ignored, you get avoided.

AI makes you faster, then makes you forgettable

We talked about AI without the hype, and thank the stars for that. AI can help with throughput, summarising, clustering questions, drafting variations, turning long form into cut downs, all the jiggery-pokery that saves time.

Then Tejal gave the warning a lot of teams are refusing to hear.

“Buyers can smell AI generated content a mile away.”

The web is filling up with polite, identical content that proves nothing, and everyone is tired. If AI is speeding up your output and making it more generic at the same time, you are trading time for trust.

Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer shows business is the only institution trusted globally, at 62%. That trust is a privilege and a responsibility, and it makes bland content land harder because it feels like you’re asking for belief without earning it.

My line on AI is simple.

Use it for the boring bits, keep humans on judgement, proof, voice, and boundaries.

You don’t have an execution problem, you’ve got an alignment problem

This was the bit that felt painfully true for anyone running a stretched team.

“I don’t think marketing’s got an execution problem.”

Most teams are already working their socks off. The problem is internal chaos, second order work, extra explanations, extra reassurance, extra approval loops. It’s shenanigans caused by vague briefs and competing agendas.

Tejal’s point on internal briefing was brutal and accurate.

“What you’re putting in, if it’s crap, you’re going to get crap out.”

That’s the comeuppance. If the internal brief is vague, every channel becomes a mess and everyone blames the platform, then the team gets distracted fixing the wrong thing.

Also, meeting fatigue is getting really bad. The time spent on “alignment” that produces no clarity is a waste.

One more truth from the session that deserves repeating. Marketing gets bored with its own messaging far earlier than buyers do. When teams keep refreshing content because they’re bored, it’s usually the buyer who pays the price.

Pick your channels, build your library

Tejal was clear on channel focus.

“Don’t try and be everywhere.”

Most teams don’t need a new platform. They need fewer channels done properly, with content that earns trust and can be referenced later. YouTube came up as a good example, because it lets you build a library of demos, explainers, and proof that people can return to and share internally.

The TikTok debate is often a distraction. It turns into performance, and suddenly everyone’s arguing about trends while the buying group is asking for evidence and implementation detail.

If your team is stretched, choose the channels where buyers already pay attention, then make the work reusable.

What I want you to take away

Buying groups colliding is not solved with more posts. It’s solved with more confidence, and confidence comes from proof that travels.

If your content can’t be repeated by someone your buyer trusts, it’s dead weight. If your story can’t be explained across finance, IT, procurement, and the internal cynic, it will stall. If your content is polished but empty, it won’t travel.

This is a clarity job, a proof job, a trust job. Do that and the channels get easier, the team gets calmer, and the panic cycle starts to lose its grip.