Why Reaching One Person at a Target Account Isn't Enough
Key takeaways
- B2B buying groups have grown substantially over the past decade. Gartner tracked an average of 5.4 stakeholders in 2015, 6.8 by 2017, and 6 to 10 in more recent research.
- Forrester's 2024 State of Business Buying report puts the current average even higher, at 13 stakeholders, with 89% of B2B purchases crossing multiple departments.
- Buyers spend only about 17% of their total purchasing time meeting with vendors, so most of the decision happens in research and internal conversations a single contact may never report back.
- Gartner's 2025 research found 74% of buying committees experience unhealthy conflict during a purchase decision, while committees that reach consensus are 2.5x more likely to describe the outcome as high-quality.
- A deal built on one relationship often fails quietly because one person was never positioned to carry a group decision alone.
- Reaching multiple relevant roles at a target account is a prospecting decision, not just a deal-management tactic to add later.
The reply that feels like progress but might not be
A reply from someone at a target company feels like real progress, and it can be. But it is worth asking a specific question before treating it as momentum: is this person actually able to move a purchase through their organization, or are they one voice in a room that has not been reached yet?
The data on how B2B buying works suggests the second scenario is increasingly common.
The buying committee has nearly doubled in a decade
Gartner has tracked this shift for years. In 2015, the average B2B purchase involved 5.4 stakeholders. By 2017, that had grown to 6.8. More recent Gartner research puts the figure at 6 to 10 stakeholders for a typical complex B2B solution.
Forrester's 2024 State of Business Buying report puts the current average even higher, at 13 stakeholders, with 89% of purchasing decisions crossing two or more departments. For larger enterprise deals, buying groups of 15 or more are not unusual.
Whatever the exact number for a given deal, the direction is consistent across the research cited in the source material: fewer purchases are made, or meaningfully influenced, by a single person than a decade ago.
Why more people in the room makes this harder, not just bigger
A larger buying group is not simply more people to loop in later. Gartner's 2025 research found that 74% of buying committees experience unhealthy conflict during a purchase decision. Different stakeholders arrive with different priorities, questions, and assumptions.
Each member of the committee may conduct independent research and form a view before the group compares notes, so the group is not necessarily starting from a shared understanding of the problem or the solution.
There is also a payoff for working through that friction. Gartner found that when a buying committee reaches genuine consensus, members are 2.5x more likely to describe the resulting decision as high-quality.
The 17% problem
Gartner's research indicates buyers spend only about 17% of their total purchasing time in meetings with vendors, including every vendor they are comparing. The other 83% happens in internal discussions, independent research, and conversations between stakeholders.
A single reply, even an enthusiastic one, therefore offers visibility into only a small part of the buying process. A contact does not need to be misleading or withholding information for a deal to go quiet. They may simply not be in every room where the decision is being shaped.
Who is actually in the room
Buying committees are typically made up of a mix of roles rather than one universal decision-maker title. The group can include someone who identifies the initial need, technical evaluators, an economic buyer who controls or approves budget, end users, procurement, finance, and an internal champion who advocates for an option when the vendor is not in the room.
In a smaller company, one person may genuinely hold several of these roles. In a larger organization, each role can belong to a different person and sometimes a different department, which helps explain why so many purchases now cross functional boundaries.
What single-threading actually costs
The practical risk of reaching only one contact is not always a dramatic rejection. More often, the deal stalls quietly. The relationship you built can lose influence, change roles, leave the company, or simply turn out to be only one input into a much larger decision.
That silence is easy to misread as low intent when the real problem is structural: one person was never going to be enough to move a multi-stakeholder decision on their own.
Why this is a prospecting decision, not just a deal-management one
Multi-threading is often discussed as something an account executive does after a deal is already underway: bring in budget owners, technical evaluators, procurement, or additional users. That framing treats it as a repair step.
The data above suggests it is better treated as an outreach-stage decision. If a typical purchase involves a broad group of stakeholders, deciding which roles to reach and reaching more than one of them should be part of account planning before the first message goes out.
Frequently asked questions
How many people are involved in a typical B2B purchase?
Estimates vary by source and deal complexity. Gartner research points to 6 to 10 stakeholders for a typical complex solution, while Forrester's 2024 research puts the average at 13 and reports that 89% of purchases cross multiple departments.
Has the number of stakeholders always been this high?
No. Gartner's tracking shows a rise from an average of 5.4 stakeholders in 2015 to 6.8 by 2017, with more recent research describing even larger groups.
Why can one enthusiastic contact still fail to move a deal forward?
Because buyers spend only a small share of their purchasing time meeting with vendors. Most of the decision is shaped internally, and one contact may not have complete visibility into every conversation or priority affecting the outcome.
Is reaching multiple people only relevant after a deal is already in progress?
No. Since buying groups are involved early, deciding which roles to reach can be more useful as a prospecting-stage choice than as a late fix after one contact goes quiet.
Does a bigger buying committee make a deal less likely to close?
Not necessarily. Gartner's research found that committees reaching genuine consensus are 2.5x more likely to describe the resulting decision as high-quality. The group adds friction, but consensus can improve how the decision is experienced.
Are all buying-committee roles always held by different people?
No. In smaller companies, one person can hold several roles. In larger organizations, those roles are more likely to be distributed across different people and departments.
Summary
B2B buying groups have grown substantially over the past decade, with current estimates ranging from 6 to 10 stakeholders to an average of 13 depending on the source and deal type. This matters because buyers spend only a small fraction of their total purchasing time in vendor meetings, while most of the real decision happens through internal discussion and independent research. Committees create friction, but they also create the possibility of stronger consensus. The practical implication is that deciding which roles to reach at a target account belongs at the prospecting stage, not only after a deal has already gone quiet.
Conclusion
A reply from one person at a target account is real progress, but it is rarely the whole picture. With buying groups regularly spanning multiple roles and departments, and most of the decision happening outside vendor conversations, the more useful question is not just whether someone replied. It is how much of the actual buying group has been reached at all. That is a question worth answering before the first message goes out.