Research

B2B Sales Statistics 2026: Why Buyers Choose Before You Call

rahmanbazian-admin · October 5, 2026 · 16 min read

Abdul Rahman Bazian · 10/5/2026 · 17 min read

Most B2B sellers still picture the buying process starting with their first call. The data says otherwise. By the time a buyer picks up the phone, the shortlist is usually written.

This report gathers the most reliable B2B sales statistics from 2024 to 2026 and checks every figure at its source. It then asks what they mean for sellers in Jordan, where no local buyer data exists yet.

Inside This B2B Sales Statistics Report

This report brings together the most reliable research from 2024 to 2026 on how B2B buyers choose suppliers. It then asks what those findings mean for sellers in Jordan and the region. Five questions guide it:

• When do buyers first contact sellers, and who makes the first move?
• Who takes part in a business purchase decision, inside and outside the company?
• How do shortlists form, and how often does the early favorite win?
• Where does trust come from, and what role does thought leadership play?
• How are buying cycles, marketing budgets and sales teams changing?

The headline finding is simple: most deals are decided before a seller is ever contacted, because buyers pick from vendors they already know.

About this data: every figure links to its original source. The buyer data comes from global studies, so the Jordan findings are projections. Our only local figure comes from our own records at Checkers Inc. See how we verified it.

First Contact Comes Late in B2B Buyer Journey Statistics

B2B buyers now do most of their homework alone. By the time they first contact a seller, they are 61% of the way through their journey, down from 69% the year before. They also start the conversation themselves: buyers initiated 79% of engagements in 2025.

The preference for going it alone keeps rising. Among B2B buyers surveyed in 2025, 67% prefer a rep-free experience, up from 61% a year earlier. The same earlier survey found 73% actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. AI is part of the routine too. While buying, 94% use large language models (LLMs), and 45% used AI in a recent purchase.

Table 1: How B2B buyers research and first contact sellers. Years show when the data was collected; the 2024 figure for buyer-started contacts is the 2023 to 2024 average.

This is a shift, not an upheaval. First contact moved eight points earlier, and buyers started 79% of contacts, down from 82%. Buyers still lead, but outreach is gaining ground. Two readings fit that change:

• Buyers are holding off. Slower commitments leave more room for outreach to reach them mid-journey.
• Outreach is winning share. Digital or in person, it is taking a gradually larger slice of the buying journey.

The evidence leans toward the second. Buying cycles got shorter in 2025, not longer. And 58% of buyers engaged sellers earlier because they needed to see how vendors were building AI into their products. Buyers are letting sellers in sooner to check them, not to be sold to, which is why the preference for rep-free buying still rose.

Figure 1: A modest shift in the B2B buyer journey, 2024 vs 2025.

These numbers look contradictory at first. Buyers say they want fewer reps, yet they log 16 interactions per person with the vendor they end up choosing. The explanation is timing and choice: buyers avoid sellers who chase them, then engage heavily with the one they already picked.

Channel habits point the same way. B2B customers now use an average of ten channels to buy, split roughly evenly between in-person, remote and self-serve. Influence now has to happen across all of them, well before a meeting is booked.

A note on the sample. The 6sense study covers roughly 4,000 buyers in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. It leans toward technology and services purchases worth $25,000 or more, so read it as a picture of mid-market and enterprise buying.

Bigger Buying Groups Reshape B2B Buying Behavior

A B2B purchase is rarely one person’s decision. On average, every business purchase decision involves, at some point, 13 stakeholders within the company. It is also shaped by an average of nine people from outside the business. These are the internal and external influencers, counted separately.

The figures are averages across nearly 18,000 buyers worldwide. Large purchases pull them up, and smaller deals may involve fewer people. Procurement acts as a decision-maker in 53% of buying cycles.

Figure 2: An average business purchase decision involves internal and external influencers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) makes the table bigger. When a purchase includes generative AI features, the buying group doubles in size, from seven to 14 members. That gives a seller more people to convince, and more ways for a deal to stall.

Table 2: Who takes part in B2B buying decisions.

Larger groups bring friction, and 74% of B2B buyer teams show unhealthy conflict during the decision. In The JOLT Effect, Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna estimate that 40% to 60% of deals are lost to indecision, not competitors. That research dates from 2022, so treat it as a benchmark to re-check.

For sellers, the lesson is simple. One internal champion rarely carries a deal on their own. Every person in the group needs a reason to trust you before the vendor list is drawn up.

Day-One Shortlists Dominate the Latest B2B Buyer Statistics

Most B2B deals are decided before a seller joins the conversation. Buying groups put four of the five vendors they’ll evaluate on the shortlist from day one. They then buy from one of those four 95% of the time.

Figure 3: The deal is decided before the first call.

Experience drives those early lists. The average buying group member is around 40 and has been through eight or nine purchase cycles in the category. They arrive with vendors already in mind. A truly cold start, where no one knows any seller, happens in only about a quarter of buying journeys.

Table 3: How B2B shortlists form before first contact.

The pattern is consistent. Buyers spend more than 60% of the journey in internal discussion and gathering input from peers and advisers. By the time they call, 94% of buying groups have already agreed on a preferred vendor.

A vendor that isn’t known before the buying cycle starts is competing for the few deals left over. That is the core of brand advocacy: the work that gets you onto the list happens months or years before the list is written.

Key B2B Sales Statistics for 2026 at a Glance

The strongest figures in this report, in one place. Each links to the section where its source and method are set out.

• Buyers are about 61% of the way through their journey before they first contact a seller, and they start most of those contacts themselves.
• About two in three B2B buyers now say they prefer a buying experience without a sales rep.
• An average purchase decision involves 13 internal and nine external influencers, and procurement decides more than half the time.
• Buyers pick from their day-one shortlist 95% of the time, and the vendor they prefer before first contact usually wins.
• Among US decision-makers, 79% are more likely to champion a proposal from a company with strong thought leadership.
• The average buying cycle is about 10 months, and economic pressure is pushing buyers toward incumbents.
• Binet and Field found B2B growth peaks with roughly 46% of the budget on brand and 54% on activation.
• Sales reps spend only 40% of their time selling.
• In Jordan, 1% of companies took 60% of public procurement value, and no survey of Jordanian B2B buyers exists.

Thought Leadership Statistics Show Where B2B Trust Comes From

If buyers choose vendors they already know, the next question is how they come to trust them. The clearest B2B evidence comes from "hidden" decision-makers in the US: people who shape a purchase without ever meeting sales. In fact, 71% say they have little or no interaction with sales teams.

Table 4: Where trust comes from in B2B buying.

Two of these findings matter most for smaller firms. Among hidden decision-makers, 79% say they’re more likely to champion proposals from companies that publish strong thought leadership. That is advocacy inside the buyer’s own company. And 53% say brand recognition matters less when the thinking is good, so a small firm can compete with a bigger name.

Figure 4: Why thought leadership earns trust among US hidden decision-makers.

The consumer evidence points the same way, but it should be read as supporting context. Globally, 88% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know over any other channel. At one German bank, referred customers were worth at least 16% more. Both are B2C findings and several years old, and no equivalent peer-reviewed B2B study turned up in this research.

Why the Average B2B Sales Cycle Length Keeps Changing

The average B2B buying cycle shortened from about 11 months in 2024 to about 10 months in 2025. Buyers also engaged sellers nearly ten percentage points earlier in their journey. Part of the drop reflects a change in the mix of purchases surveyed, so the headline figure overstates the shift.

Table 5: How economic pressure changed B2B buying cycles in 2025.

Economic pressure is the thread running through these numbers. Almost half of buyers said it shortened their cycles, and 70% said economic anxiety shaped their choice of vendor, often in favor of incumbents. Buyers are moving faster, but they are not taking more risks.

That is hard news for newcomers. When budgets tighten, the familiar vendor wins by default. The only way around it is to be familiar before the pressure arrives.

LinkedIn B2B Marketing Statistics on Brand vs Quick Wins

Most potential buyers are not in the market right now. John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that up to 95% of potential B2B buyers are out of the market at any given time. The LinkedIn B2B Institute published the research, which dates from 2021.

Yet most B2B marketing is built for the few who are ready today. In one survey, 96% of B2B marketers expected to see a campaign’s main effect within two weeks. An analysis of 435 award-entered B2B cases found the sector leans on short-term, rational, narrowly targeted work.

Table 6: Brand building versus short-term activation in B2B.

Les Binet and Peter Field studied B2B campaigns in the IPA Databank. They found growth peaks with about 46% of the budget on brand and 54% on activation. Both authors call the split approximate, and it rests on fewer than 50 cases from 2019, so it is a guide, not a rule.

Their most striking finding concerns loyalty. B2B campaigns aimed only at existing customers produced no very large business effects in their data. Growth came from reaching people who weren’t buying yet, which is the same audience brand advocacy is built to reach.

Figure 5: Most B2B buyers are not buying yet, and growth favors a balanced budget.

Where the B2B Sales Process Loses Time and Quota

Sales teams are busy, but not always selling. Reps spend only 40% of their time selling. The rest goes to admin, internal work and tools, and 42% of reps say they are overwhelmed by too many of them.

Table 7: Time, targets and results in the B2B sales process.

Results are mixed. Some 59.9% of sales teams say they’re on track to meet their targets. Yet only 45% of chief sales officers report meeting several of their 2024 goals.

The reasons deals are lost matter more than the win rate. Poor value for money explains 35% of lost deals, just behind no product fit. That is a statement about perceived value, not headline price. Buyers who already trust you judge your value differently from buyers comparing quotes.

Jordan Has No B2B Buyer Survey, and That Is a Finding

Every buyer-behavior figure above comes from North America, Europe or Asia-Pacific. None of the major studies samples Jordan. This research also found no published survey of B2B buyers in Jordan, the Gulf or the wider Middle East. Jordanian sellers are applying findings that have never been tested locally. Everything this report says about Jordanian buyers is therefore a projection from those global studies, not a measurement.

What does exist is firm-level data, and it describes a hard market for smaller firms. Nearly 9 in 10 Jordanian firms are microenterprises, yet medium and large firms, about 2% of all firms, employ more than 60% of workers. The widely repeated claim that small firms provide 60% of Jordan’s jobs has no official source and conflicts with these figures.

Table 8: Jordan’s firms and jobs by firm size (DoS data, 2019). The 88% and 61% are the remainders once the other published shares are subtracted.

The middle is thin. Small firms make up 10% of all firms and provide 16% of jobs, while microenterprises provide 23%. Most people work for the few firms at the top.

Figure 6: Jordan’s hollow middle: share of firms vs share of employment, by firm size (DoS data, 2019).

The latest World Bank enterprise survey shows the conditions these firms compete in.

Table 9: The conditions Jordanian firms compete in (World Bank Enterprise Survey, 2024).

The survey covers formal firms with five or more employees, so it leaves out most microenterprises.

Three findings stand out. Half of Jordan’s formal firms, 50.2%, compete with informal businesses, well above the regional average. Most investment is financed from firms’ own funds. And in the state market, 1% of companies took 60% of the value of public procurement between 2018 and 2022.

Bribery, by contrast, is rare: 4% of Jordanian firms report it, against 15% across the region.

Figure 7: How Jordan compares with the region (World Bank Enterprise Survey, 2024).

The public procurement system can’t yet show who is being left out. Jordan’s online e-procurement system, JONEPS, does not identify micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), so the official baseline had to be estimated.

Table 10: Digital reach in Jordan.

The audience is online. Jordan had 10.6 million internet users and 2.20 million LinkedIn members at the end of 2025, so the channels for building a reputation already exist. Personal connections still count too: a 2019 survey found 25% of Jordanians used wasta to reach public services. That figure is dated and covers public services, not business buying, which is exactly the kind of gap a local buyer survey should close.

Our Own B2B Buyer Data Points the Same Way

One local data point does exist, from our own work. I run Checkers Inc., a digital marketing and consulting company in Amman. Since we founded it in 2018, more than 80% of our contracts have started with the client contacting us first. Usually it was someone influencing the decision, gathering options for the people who sign off. That put us on the shortlist before any pitch.

That is one firm’s records, not a survey, and it can’t stand in for the market. But it matches the global pattern, where buyers start most contacts themselves and pick from a shortlist built early.

A Jordanian B2B buyer survey would answer the questions this report can only borrow answers to:

• When do local buyers first contact sellers?
• How many people sign off on a deal?
• Do referrals and connections outweigh advertising, and by how much?

Until someone asks, every Jordanian marketing plan rests on someone else’s buyers.

What These B2B Buying Statistics Mean for Jordan’s SMEs

Projected onto Jordan, the global numbers describe a problem that small Jordanian firms know well. Buyers make up their minds before first contact, stick with familiar vendors under pressure, and spread each decision across a crowd of stakeholders. In a market where informal competitors and a handful of large firms set the terms, the easy response is to cut prices.

If those patterns hold here, and our own experience suggests they do, the research points to a better response. Trust built before the buying cycle decides who gets onto the shortlist, and good thinking can outweigh a bigger name. For an SME, that means investing in reputation, expertise and advocates inside target companies long before a tender or a request for quotes appears.

Our Insight makes the argument: Brand Advocacy Is How Jordan’s SMEs Escape the Price War. Our guide shows the method: Brand Advocacy Done Right.

The Bottom Line From 2026 B2B Marketing Statistics

Read together, these B2B marketing statistics say one thing: B2B buying is decided early, by groups, and in favor of vendors buyers already know. Outreach, discounts and short campaigns work on the small share of buyers ready today. Reputation, thought leadership and advocates work on everyone else, and that is where most future deals come from.

Takeaways for Sellers From the 2026 B2B Buyer Data

• Get known before buyers start looking. The shortlist forms before first contact, so reputation work has to come first.
• Build influencers across the buying group. One champion is rarely enough when people inside and outside the company shape the decision.
• Publish thinking worth trusting. Good thought leadership can outweigh a bigger name, which gives smaller firms a way in.
• Compete on perceived value, not headline price. Buyers who already trust you judge your value differently from buyers comparing quotes.
• Treat outreach as validation. Sellers are getting in a little earlier, but mostly so buyers can check them, not so they can be sold to.
• Measure your own market. In Jordan, no one else is collecting the buyer data yet.

In Conclusion

The 2026 data doesn’t describe a revolution. Buyers let sellers in a little earlier, AI has become part of the routine, and buying groups grow when new technology is involved. What hasn’t changed matters more: the vendor that wins is usually the one buyers knew before they started looking.

For sellers in Jordan and the region, there is one more lesson. The data about local buyers doesn’t exist yet, so every plan here borrows someone else’s numbers. Firms that measure their own market first will understand it better than anyone competing with them.

How We Verified the B2B Buyer Statistics in This Report

Roughly How Long Is the Average B2B Sales Cycle?

About 10 months. The average buying cycle fell from about 11 months in 2024 to about 10 months in 2025, partly because of changes in its sample.

Which B2B Buyer Demographics Stand Out in 2026?

Experience. The average buying group member is around 40, with eight or nine purchase cycles behind them in the same category. Most arrive with vendors already in mind.

When Do Buyers Contact Sellers in the B2B Buying Journey?

Late. Buyers are about 61% of the way through their journey at first contact, and they start most of those conversations themselves.

Do Buyers Trust B2B Marketing Data or Their Peers?

Peers and experts, mostly. Among US decision-makers, 64% trust thought leadership more than marketing materials and product sheets. Buyers using AI also check its answers with peers, product experts and analysts.

Does a Typical B2B Sales Cycle Differ in Jordan?

Nobody knows yet. No survey of Jordanian B2B buyers exists, so there is no local figure for cycle length, buying group size or first contact. Firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey shows a market with heavy informal competition and tight finance, which likely shapes how local buyers behave.