The Science of Buyability: Bain’s Cleghorn & Dave on hidden psychology of B2B buying

Jamie Cleghorn, Bain’s global leader for B2B commercial excellence, says the starting point for the research was to understand how companies actually buy.

“What is true about B2B companies is that individuals buy on behalf of the company,” he explains. “Individuals represent buying groups, and those groups are actually the ones that make the decision.”

But traditional marketing models, he says, don’t reflect that. “Decisions in B2B aren’t made by a single empowered buyer - they’re made by groups of 15 to 20 people with competing motives, biases and levels of risk tolerance.”

And Bain’s research with LinkedIn uncovered an under-explored side of B2B decision-making – the emotional one.

“The number-one driver of decision making was this idea of fear of messing up,” says Cleghorn. “Buyers are centered on that – the number-one thing they’re thinking is: can I defend this decision in a post-mortem two years from now?”

That fear, he argues, is amplified by the presence of “hidden buyers” – people inside the company who may not appear on the marketing radar but have a veto in the decision.

“For traditional target buyers – the ones CMOs think about – they hold about half of the influence,” he says. “The other half sits with hidden buyers – people like process owners or fiduciaries who act as guardians for the company. They’re the brakes, not the gas pedal, and yet they’re more influential than we thought.”

These hidden buyers, often less familiar with marketing messages, tend to rely more heavily on brand reputation to feel confident about a choice. That, says Cleghorn, is where buyability comes in - the ability of a brand to make a buyer feel safe.

“If you think about the job of the CMO, it’s not just to drive awareness or leads,” he says. “It’s to reduce fear, to build confidence, and to make the buyer feel safe.”

If Cleghorn provides the theory, Rishi Dave delivers the playbook. A partner at Bain and global head of its B2B marketing capability, Dave previously served as CMO of public companies including Vonage and MongoDB. He led digital marketing for Dell’s B2B business.

“What Buyability means to me,” says Dave, “is that we have all these tools as CMOs – account-based marketing, AI, data – but buyability tells us what we’re really driving through those capabilities. It tells us who to target, what to say, and how to give buyers confidence in working with you.”

That confidence, he adds, is what separates brands that make the shortlist from those that don’t.

“When B2B buyers are ready to buy, they already have a list of companies in mind and that’s based on buyability,” he explains. “They’ve heard of those companies, people they trust have used them, they can relate to them. About 80% of the time across industries, they end up buying from that initial list.”

To achieve what he calls “category fame,” Dave argues marketers must focus their brand and demand efforts on the same high-value accounts. “It’s not about spreading your brand everywhere,” he says. “It’s about making sure you’re famous within the accounts that matter.”

Dave believes that Buyability gives marketers a way to reframe brand spend as business investment.

“A lot of brand budgets get cut because they’re broad and hard to measure,” he says. “But when you align with sales and finance on an account list and build awareness within those specific accounts, it becomes much easier to justify that spend.”

He shares an example from a recent Bain client. “We helped them map their buying groups inside the CRM, added third-party and LinkedIn data, and identified everyone involved in each decision. Then we developed targeted messaging for each – main buyers, process buyers, influencers – using case studies and references. They even built teams to scale those references and case studies across accounts. That’s how you make Buyability real.”

As a former CMO, Dave says marketers can protect their budgets by changing how they frame them.

“Instead of saying, ‘we need brand spend because people don’t know us,’ say, ‘we’re going after these specific accounts, and here’s what I’m going to do to warm them up,’” he advises. “Go to events, set up meetings with those accounts, run account-based advertising on LinkedIn, and align your messaging across all channels. That doesn’t feel like brand, it feels like you’re helping sales break into accounts.”

That kind of collaboration, Dave says, also boosts productivity. “If marketing warms up the account and builds confidence that buyers won’t get in trouble for choosing you, then by the time sales talks to them, they’re much further along.”

For both Cleghorn and Dave, buyability reframes what it means to be a B2B marketer.

“In an uncertain environment, people are craving safety,” says Cleghorn. “Brands that can position themselves as that trusted, safe space will win.”

Dave adds that the future belongs to marketers who can combine precision and partnership. “Coordinate your approach from the start,” he says. “Marketing goes first, targeting buying groups – both main and hidden buyers. Then sales follows up, and marketing adjusts based on how those accounts respond. Technology now allows that cadence to happen in real time.”

The idea is simple but radical. “B2B marketing isn’t about logic,” Cleghorn says. “It’s about confidence. And confidence is emotional.”

The Science of Buyability video series launched this week, featuring conversations with Bain, LinkedIn and top B2B marketers exploring how brands can become the safe choice in an age of risk.