A journey map has one lane. Awareness, consideration, decision, and a single figure sliding along it, acquiring feelings at each stage.

Your buyer is not one figure. It is a group whose members enter the process at different moments, evaluate different things, hold different amounts of risk, and are frequently not in the room together. The finance lead joins at the point where the technical lead has already ruled out two options. The eventual sponsor may never read a page of your site. The person who kills the deal often never spoke to you at all.

Mapping an average member of that group produces a description of nobody, and it is the same failure as an over-specified persona: a composite that no actual person matches.

Here is what is actually known about these groups, what is not, and what to map instead.

Start by discarding the number you have been using

Almost every deck about B2B buying committees opens with the claim that a complex purchase involves six to ten decision makers.

That claim never carried a published methodology. The page that hosted it for years contains no sample size, no fieldwork dates, no definition of what counts as a decision maker and no link to a report. And it is no longer there: comparing archived captures of the same page, the sentence is present on 8 October 2023 and absent on 25 October 2023, while the page itself continues to exist and continues to discuss buying groups at length.

What is published, with a method attached, is narrower and more useful. A survey of 632 B2B buyers conducted in August and September 2024 reports that buying groups range “from five to 16 people across as many as four functions”. That is an observed range, not an average, and the report behind it sits behind a client wall.

The same survey produced two findings worth more than the headcount:

  • 74 percent of buyer teams demonstrated unhealthy conflict during the decision process.
  • Groups that reached consensus were 2.5 times more likely to report that their deal was high quality.

Which relocates the problem. The interesting variable is not how many people are involved. It is whether they can agree, and what your material does to help or hinder that.

Published claims and measurements about the size and behavior of business to business buying groupsPublished claims and measurements about the size and behavior of business to business buying groups. The claim that a complex business to business solution involves six to ten decision makers appeared on its publisher’s page from around two thousand twenty and was attributed there to one of its executives, but the full page contained no sample size, no fieldwork date, no definition of what counts as a decision maker and no link to an underlying report, so it never carried a published methodology. Archived captures of that page show the sentence present on the eighth of October two thousand twenty three and absent on the twenty fifth of October two thousand twenty three, while the page continued to exist and continued to discuss buying groups at length. The primary measurement the claim derives from was an average of five point four people formally involved, from a two thousand fourteen survey of more than three thousand stakeholders in a typical business purchase. The same publisher’s current published position comes from a survey of six hundred and thirty two business to business buyers conducted in August and September two thousand twenty four, which reports that buying groups range from five to sixteen people across as many as four functions, an observed range rather than an average, with the underlying report available only to clients. That survey produced two further findings that matter more than the headcount, namely that seventy four percent of buyer teams demonstrated unhealthy conflict during the decision process, and that buying groups reaching consensus were two point five times more likely to report that their deal was high quality. This relocates the practical problem from how many people are involved to whether those people can agree and what a supplier’s material does to help or hinder that agreement.What survives when you checkThe claim everyone cites”six to 10”No method. Removed October 2023.The 2014 measurement5.4 peopleSurvey of 3,000+ stakeholders.The 2024 survey5 to 16n = 632. A range, not a mean.The two findings from that survey that matter more than the headcount74 percent of buyer teams showed unhealthy conflict during the decision process.Groups that reached consensus were 2.5 times more likely to report a high-quality deal.The variable is not how many people. It is whether they can agree.
A removed claim, one 2014 measurement, and a 2024 range. Nobody publishes an average with a method behind it. Source : Archived captures of the publisher's B2B buying journey page; publisher press release of 7 May 2025 reporting a survey of 632 buyers (2025)

The format of the evaluation changes the outcome

There is one body of evidence on group decisions with real stakes, real careers and a real sample, and it is not from marketing.

Researchers analyzed 1,804 promotion and tenure decisions across six universities: 906 made under joint evaluation, where several candidates were considered together, and 898 under separate evaluation, where each was considered alone. These are committee decisions, made by professionals, with irreversible consequences.

The evaluation format changed the results, controlling for productivity, institution, rank, discipline, department size and funding. That is the first finding.

The second is the one that should worry anyone building a sales process. The researchers surveyed 289 professors who had actually served on such committees and asked what they expected. Only 17 percent anticipated the direction of the effect. 43 percent expected the opposite.

The people running the process were, in the majority, wrong about how the procedure they used shapes what it produces.

That generalizes cleanly to a buying committee, and it is the argument for treating the shape of the evaluation as part of your selling, rather than as something that happens to you. Whether your proposal is read alongside a competitor’s or on its own is not a neutral detail. It changes what the group weighs.

The mechanism is well documented. When two options are seen together, attributes that are impossible to judge alone become readable, and their weight rises. In the founding experiment, participants offered $19 and $27 for two used dictionaries seen side by side, and $24 and $20 for the same two seen one at a time. The preference reverses. Alone, you weight what you can actually assess. Compared, an attribute you could not interpret becomes interpretable.

In a deal, the attributes nobody can judge from a single document are the ones that decide it: whether your scope is generous or thin for this category, whether your lead time is normal, whether your price is high. Every one of those is unreadable in isolation and obvious in comparison.

Effect of joint versus separate evaluation on committee decisions and on individual preferenceEffect of joint versus separate evaluation on committee decisions and on individual preference, from two sources. The first is a natural experiment published in Nature Communications in February two thousand twenty six covering one thousand eight hundred and four real promotion and tenure decisions across six universities, of which nine hundred and six were made under joint evaluation with several candidates considered together and eight hundred and ninety eight under separate evaluation with each candidate considered alone. These are committee decisions made by professionals with irreversible consequences for real careers. The evaluation format changed the results, controlling for research productivity, institution, gender, rank, discipline, department size and grant funding. The researchers additionally surveyed two hundred and eighty nine professors who had served on such committees and asked what effect they expected, and found that only seventeen percent anticipated the direction of the effect while forty three percent expected the opposite, meaning the majority of people running the process were wrong about how their own procedure shapes what it produces. The second source is the founding experiment on evaluability, published in nineteen ninety six, in which one hundred and sixteen randomly assigned students valued two used music dictionaries. Seen side by side, participants offered nineteen dollars for the one with ten thousand entries in like new condition and twenty seven dollars for the one with twenty thousand entries and a torn cover. Seen one at a time, the same two options drew twenty four dollars and twenty dollars respectively, reversing the preference. The mechanism is that when two options are seen together, attributes that cannot be judged in isolation become readable and their weight rises, whereas alone a person weights whatever they can actually assess. In a business purchase the attributes nobody can judge from a single document, such as whether a scope is generous for the category, whether a lead time is normal or whether a price is high, are exactly the ones that decide the outcome, and each is unreadable in isolation and obvious in comparison.Committees judge differently depending on the formatReal committee decisions analyzed1,804906 joint, 898 separate, six institutionsCommittee members who guessed right17%43 percent expected the opposite. n = 289The mechanism, from the founding experimentSeen togetheroption A $19option B $27B winsSeen one at a timeoption A $24option B $20A winsAlone, people weight what they can assess. Compared, an unreadable attribute becomes readable.
1,804 real decisions. And 43 percent of committee members surveyed expected the effect to run the other way. Source : Masters-Waage et al., Nature Communications 17, 3080, 23 February 2026; Hsee, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 67(3), 1996 (2026)

Nobody in the group can tell you what happened

The standard fix for a bad journey map is to interview the buyers. Do it, and ask the right thing, because the wrong question produces confident fiction.

A foundational 1977 paper established that people have little or no direct introspective access to their own higher-order reasoning, and that when they explain a decision they draw on plausible causal theories rather than on any actual observation of their own process.

A 2005 experiment in Science made this concrete. Participants chose between pairs of faces on attractiveness, and the experimenters secretly handed back the face they had not chosen. Most failed to notice, and then explained, confidently and in detail, why they had chosen it. The authors named the effect choice blindness.

Add the sensitivity problem. A review in Psychological Bulletin concluded that misreporting on sensitive topics is common and situational, and that respondents “edit the information they report to avoid embarrassing themselves in the presence of an interviewer.”

Now list the questions a vendor typically asks in a win-loss interview. Why did you leave your previous supplier. Who actually made the decision. Why did you not choose us. Every one of them is either an introspection question or a sensitive one, and often both.

The questions that survive this are factual and sequential. When did the project start. What triggered it. Who was in the first meeting. Which documents circulated internally. What was the alternative you compared us against. What was the last objection raised, and by whom. Those have answers people can actually retrieve, and they are checkable against the deal record.

Interview questions that produce reconstructed answers compared with questions that produce checkable evidenceInterview questions that produce reconstructed answers compared with questions that produce checkable evidence, in the context of business to business win and loss interviews. Three research findings underpin the distinction. A foundational nineteen seventy seven paper in Psychological Review established that people have little or no direct introspective access to their own higher order cognitive processes and that when they attempt to report those processes they draw on a priori implicit causal theories rather than on genuine introspection. A two thousand five experiment published in Science demonstrated this concretely, since participants choosing between pairs of faces on attractiveness were secretly handed the face they had not chosen, mostly failed to notice the substitution, and then offered confident introspectively derived reasons for a choice they had not made, an effect the authors named choice blindness. A two thousand seven review in Psychological Bulletin concluded that misreporting on sensitive topics is common and largely situational and that respondents edit the information they report to avoid embarrassing themselves in the presence of an interviewer or to avoid repercussions from third parties. The questions vendors typically ask in win and loss interviews, namely why the buyer left a previous supplier, who actually made the decision, and why the buyer did not choose this vendor, are each either introspective or sensitive and frequently both, so they reliably produce confident and unreliable answers. The questions that survive these problems are factual and sequential: when the project started, what triggered it, who attended the first meeting, which documents circulated internally, what alternative the vendor was compared against, and what the last objection raised was and by whom. Those have answers people can genuinely retrieve from memory and they can be checked against the deal record.Two kinds of question, two kinds of answerProduces reconstruction”Why did you leave your last supplier?""Why did you not choose us?""What matters most to you?""Who really made the decision?”Introspective, sensitive, or both. Answeredconfidently either way.Produces evidence”When did the project start?""What triggered it?""Who was in the first meeting?""What documents circulated internally?”Retrievable from memory, and checkableagainst the deal record.In one experiment, people were handed the option they had rejected, did not notice, and explained why theyhad chosen it. Confidence is not a signal of accuracy.
Introspective and sensitive questions get answered confidently and wrongly. Sequence and artifacts can be checked. Source : Nisbett and Wilson, Psychological Review 84(3), 1977; Johansson, Hall, Sikstrom and Olsson, Science 310(5745), 2005; Tourangeau and Yan, Psychological Bulletin 133(5), 2007 (2007)

The member who never speaks to you

One structural feature of a committee has no equivalent on a journey map: several of its members will form a view of you without any contact.

The theory here is clear even where the measurement is thin. The foundational 1993 article on brand equity holds that raising awareness “increases the likelihood that the brand will be a member of the consideration set, the handful of brands that receive serious consideration for purchase.” Getting into the set is the mechanism. It happens before anyone visits your site.

Two consequences follow that most maps miss.

The first is that in a business purchase the relevant task is recall, not recognition. The same article notes that recognition matters more “to the extent that product decisions are made in the store”. A committee decision is not made in a store. It is made in a meeting where somebody says who else should we be looking at, and the answer comes out of memory, unprompted, in front of colleagues. Being recognizable when someone lands on your page is a different capability from being retrievable when your category is the cue.

The second is that the standard against which you are held is set by whatever else came out of memory in that meeting. Which returns to the point above: the frame of reference is not chosen by you, it is assembled in a room you are not in, and it determines which of your attributes are readable at all.

Comparison between the object a customer journey map represents and the structure of a real buying committeeComparison between the object that a conventional customer journey map represents and the structure of a real business to business buying committee. A journey map represents a single person advancing through a fixed sequence of stages, typically awareness, consideration and decision, acquiring emotional states at each stage, and touching a series of touchpoints controlled and measurable by the seller. A real buying committee is instead composed of several people spread across as many as four functions, according to a survey of six hundred and thirty two buyers conducted in August and September two thousand twenty four which reported group sizes ranging from five to sixteen people. Its members enter the process at different moments and for different reasons, hold different amounts of professional risk, are frequently not in the room at the same time, and several of them form a view of a supplier without ever making contact with that supplier. The foundational nineteen ninety three article on customer based brand equity states that raising brand awareness increases the likelihood that a brand will be a member of the consideration set, described as the handful of brands that receive serious consideration for purchase, and that brand recognition matters more to the extent that product decisions are made in the store. Since a committee decision is made in a meeting rather than in a store, the relevant memory task is recall rather than recognition, meaning the ability to be retrieved when the category is the cue, which is a different capability from being recognizable once someone has arrived on a website. The consequence is that the frame of reference against which a supplier is judged is assembled in a room the supplier is not in, from whatever else came out of the participants’ memories, and that frame determines which of the supplier’s attributes are readable at all.The model, and the thingWhat the map representsOne personOne sequence of stagesOne emotional state per stageTouchpoints you control and measureNobody in the group matches it.What you are selling toFive to sixteen people, up to four functionsDifferent entry points, different momentsDifferent exposure to professional riskMembers who never contact you at allThe decision is a recall task, in a meeting.
One lane and one figure against several functions, several entry points, and members who never contact you. Source : Keller, Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity, Journal of Marketing 57(1), 1993; publisher survey of 632 B2B buyers, August to September 2024 (2024)

What to map instead of a journey

Replace the lane with three things you can actually observe.

Entry points, not stages. Different people enter for different reasons and at different moments: a contract renewal date, a failed audit, a departure, a regulatory deadline, a growth threshold that broke a process. Map the triggers, and note which function notices each one first. That tells you who to be findable by, which is a different answer for each trigger.

Artifacts, not touchpoints. A committee does not carry your website into its meeting. It carries a document: a comparison someone built, a summary written by the internal champion, a page printed from a proposal, a spreadsheet. Ask which documents circulated internally and you learn what your material actually became once it left your control. That is the object your case has to survive in, and it is usually shorter and blunter than anything you produced.

Objections and their owners, not feelings. Every deal that stalls has a last objection and a person who raised it. Record both. Over twenty deals you will find that a small number of objections recur, that each belongs to a specific function, and that some of them are never raised in front of you. Those are the ones worth building material for, and they are invisible on a journey map because the person who holds them never appears in your analytics.

Three observable elements to record in place of journey stagesThree observable elements to record in place of the stages of a conventional customer journey map, each of which can be counted and checked against a deal record rather than inferred. The first is entry points rather than stages, since different members of a buying group enter the process for different reasons and at different moments, including a contract renewal date, a failed audit, a departure, a regulatory deadline, or a growth threshold that broke an internal process, and recording which function notices each trigger first indicates who the supplier needs to be findable by, which is a different answer for each trigger. The second is artifacts rather than touchpoints, since a committee does not carry a supplier’s website into its meeting but carries a document, typically a comparison someone built, a summary written by an internal champion, a page printed from a proposal, or a spreadsheet, and asking which documents circulated internally reveals what the supplier’s material actually became once it left the supplier’s control, which is usually shorter and blunter than anything the supplier produced. The third is objections and their owners rather than emotional states, since every deal that stalls has a last objection and a person who raised it, and recording both across roughly twenty deals reveals that a small number of objections recur, that each belongs to a specific function, and that some are never raised in front of the supplier at all. Those unraised objections are the ones worth building material for, and they are invisible on a journey map because the person holding them never appears in the supplier’s analytics.Record these insteadEntry pointsA renewal date. A failed audit.A departure. A deadline. Athreshold that broke a process.Note which function noticeseach one first.ArtifactsThe comparison someone built.The internal summary. The pageprinted from your proposal.What your material becameonce it left your control.Objections and ownersThe last objection in everystalled deal, and the personwho raised it.Some are never raised infront of you at all.All three are countable, checkable against the deal record, and specific to your market. Stages are none of those.
Triggers, documents and objections are observable, countable, and specific to your market. Stages are none of those. Source : Derived from the group decision and interview methodology sources cited throughout this article (2026)

Practical consequences for how you sell

Assume comparison, and supply it. Given the evaluability evidence, a proposal that arrives without a frame of reference is being read on whatever the reader can judge, which is usually price and length. Providing the comparison yourself, honestly, including where you are not the best option, is not generosity. It is controlling which attributes are readable.

Write for the person who will not be in the room. If the internal champion has to represent your case in a meeting you will not attend, the useful deliverable is the one they can hand round: short, checkable, and free of anything that requires you to explain it. There is a media consequence as well, and our page on B2B paid acquisition sets out how audiences get built around the several functions that have to agree rather than around one job title.

Optimize for their consensus, not for your enthusiasm. The one survey with a published method found unhealthy conflict in three quarters of buying teams, and a strong association between reaching consensus and reporting a good deal. Material that helps a group agree with each other is doing something the research supports. Material that excites one person and threatens another is doing the opposite.

Stop citing a committee size. Nobody measures it publicly. Ask each buyer how many functions were involved in their case, keep your own count, and use that. It will be more accurate for your market than any published range, and you will be able to say where it came from.

The point is not that journey maps are useless. It is that the object they model, one person moving through stages toward a decision, is not the object you are selling to. You are selling to a group that has to agree, whose members judge your offer against whatever else is in front of them at the time, and who will reconstruct their reasons afterward with total confidence. Map that, and the map will be uglier and considerably more useful.