# B2B Decision-Making Unit (DMU)

In B2B, you are not selling to a single buyer. You are selling to a buying committee — typically 3–7 people across functions — who collectively decide whether to purchase. Treating B2B prospects as individuals (the way B2C personas often work) misses the dynamics of how decisions actually get made.

The Decision-Making Unit overlay applies to every B2B persona in Core Doc 3.2.

## The Four Roles

Every B2B buying decision involves these roles. Sometimes one person plays multiple roles; sometimes a single role is split across multiple people. The roles are functional, not titular.

### User

**Definition:** The person who will use the product daily once purchased.

**What they care about:**

- Does this make my daily work easier?
- Is the learning curve manageable?
- Will it actually do what it claims?
- Does it integrate with the tools I already use?

**What they fear:**

- Being forced to use a tool that breaks their workflow
- Losing time to a long implementation
- Being blamed if the tool does not deliver

**What gets them to say yes:**

- Tutorials they can self-serve through
- Free trial that lets them prove value to themselves
- Peer testimonials from people in similar roles
- Demonstrations of specific workflow improvements

**Where to reach them:**

- Product-focused YouTube tutorials
- Reddit, Stack Overflow, role-specific communities
- LinkedIn (especially community/group posts)
- Trial signup with self-serve onboarding

**Marketing implications:**

- Content: how-to guides, video tutorials, integration documentation
- Channels: organic search (long-tail product queries), Reddit, role-specific newsletters
- Conversion: free trial > demo for User-led journeys

### Influencer

**Definition:** The person who evaluates options and makes recommendations to the decision-maker. Often technical (CTO, VP of Engineering, Head of Operations), often a senior practitioner.

**What they care about:**

- Capabilities and feature depth
- Integration ecosystem
- Vendor reliability and roadmap
- Comparison to alternatives
- Total cost of ownership beyond just license

**What they fear:**

- Recommending a tool that fails the team
- Missing a better alternative
- Being blamed for lock-in or migration cost
- Being the person who pushed a tool the team hates

**What gets them to say yes:**

- Detailed comparison guides (you vs alternatives)
- Webinars with technical depth
- Case studies from similar companies
- Whitepaper-grade content with substantive analysis
- Vendor responsiveness during evaluation

**Where to reach them:**

- LinkedIn (especially long-form posts, articles, document carousels)
- Industry-specific publications
- Webinars and analyst events
- Comparison content (G2, Capterra, your own comparison pages)
- Sales-led demonstrations

**Marketing implications:**

- Content: comparison pages, technical whitepapers, ROI calculators, customer case studies
- Channels: LinkedIn Sponsored Content, industry publications, webinars
- Conversion: demo > trial for Influencer-led journeys (they want to see capabilities under expert demonstration)

### Decision-maker

**Definition:** The person who approves the budget. Typically a senior business leader (VP, Director, C-suite). Often does not use the product personally.

**What they care about:**

- Strategic alignment (does this advance our priorities?)
- ROI and payback period
- Risk (vendor stability, deployment risk, change management)
- Total cost over 3–5 years
- Reference customers at similar stage / size

**What they fear:**

- Approving a project that fails
- Overspending vs alternatives
- Vendor lock-in
- Negative impact on team / operations

**What gets them to say yes:**

- Quantified business impact from similar customers
- Reference customers willing to take a call
- Clear implementation plan with milestones
- Predictable pricing with no nasty surprises
- Vendor maturity signals (size, longevity, stability)

**Where to reach them:**

- LinkedIn (executive content, thought leadership)
- Industry events and conferences
- Peer networks and analyst recommendations
- Email (only if highly relevant — executives ignore generic email)
- Direct sales outreach (with executive-grade context)

**Marketing implications:**

- Content: executive briefings, business-impact case studies, analyst-style market overviews, ROI calculators with executive-friendly outputs
- Channels: LinkedIn (executive-targeting), industry conferences, ABM, executive briefings
- Conversion: executive briefing > demo for Decision-maker-led journeys

### Gatekeeper

**Definition:** The person who controls access to the buying organisation. Often Procurement, IT Security, Legal, Compliance.

**What they care about:**

- Compliance with company policies (security, data, vendor management)
- Vendor risk (financial stability, certifications, insurance)
- Contract terms and pricing benchmarks
- Negotiating better deals

**What they fear:**

- Approving a vendor that creates compliance issues
- Approving a contract with hidden risks
- Being seen as a rubber-stamp (so they will push back to demonstrate value)

**What gets them to say yes:**

- Complete documentation (security docs, SOC 2, GDPR / DPDP / HIPAA / PCI as applicable, insurance certificates, financial reports)
- Standard contract templates that minimise legal review time
- Reasonable pricing benchmarks
- Vendor responsiveness during procurement

**Where to reach them:**

- Trust pages on the website (security, compliance, certifications)
- Procurement portals (Coupa, SAP Ariba)
- Vendor onboarding materials
- Direct procurement-team outreach

**Marketing implications:**

- Content: trust pages, security documentation, compliance certifications, standard contract templates, public-disclosure pricing where possible
- Channels: trust page, security email programme, procurement-portal listings
- Conversion: not a primary conversion target — but absence of gatekeeper-friendly content blocks all other conversions

## How the DMU plays out across the funnel

A B2B journey rarely happens in one role. Typically:

1. **User discovers the brand first** through organic search or a colleague's recommendation
2. **User raises the topic with the Influencer** ("we should look at this tool")
3. **Influencer evaluates** — researches alternatives, attends a webinar, downloads a comparison guide
4. **Influencer recommends to the Decision-maker** with a brief
5. **Decision-maker requests a business case** — ROI, references, strategic alignment
6. **Marketing provides Decision-maker-grade content** — executive briefings, case studies
7. **Decision-maker approves the spend pending procurement**
8. **Gatekeeper reviews** — security, compliance, contract
9. **Gatekeeper clears the path or blocks**
10. **Purchase completes**

Marketing must be present at every stage with content appropriate to the role active at that stage.

## How skills produce DMU-aware output

For B2B engagements, the four-core-documents skill produces personas with DMU overlays. Each persona (e.g., "Mid-market CTO") has the four roles mapped:

```markdown
### Persona: Mid-market CTO

[6 actionable persona questions answered]

### DMU Overlay

#### As Influencer (Primary Role for This Persona)
- Care about: technical capabilities, integration depth, scaling characteristics, security posture
- Fear: recommending a tool that fails, missing a better alternative
- Win with: detailed comparison guides, technical whitepapers, customer references in similar tech stacks
- Reach via: LinkedIn long-form content, technical webinars, GitHub presence

#### Likely Decision-maker (CFO or CEO depending on company size)
- Care about: 3-year TCO, ROI vs build-vs-buy, vendor stability
- Reach via: ABM with executive-targeted content, peer references at similar companies

#### Likely User (Engineering team members)
- Care about: developer experience, documentation quality, learning curve
- Reach via: GitHub, dev blog content, tutorial videos

#### Likely Gatekeeper (Procurement + IT Security)
- Care about: SOC 2 / ISO 27001 status, data residency, contract terms
- Reach via: trust page, procurement portal listing, sales-team responsiveness during procurement
```

Channel skills (Part 9) and creative skills (Part 10) then produce content variants for each DMU role active at the relevant funnel stage.

## When the DMU does not apply

- **Single-decision-maker B2C** — DMU collapses to "the buyer." Use the standard Actionable Persona Format only.
- **Founder-led small B2B** — Sometimes the User, Influencer, and Decision-maker are the same person. The DMU still applies, but multiple roles map to one person — they just experience different concerns at different stages.
- **Self-service / PLG sales motion** — The User is also the Decision-maker (until the team scales beyond the User's authority). DMU evolves over time; document this and revisit at quarterly strategy refresh.

## Related references

- [actionable-persona-format.md](actionable-persona-format.md) — the 6-question persona format
- [four-core-documents-spec.md](four-core-documents-spec.md) — Core Doc 3.2 Steps 10–13
- [engagement-flow-methodology.md](engagement-flow-methodology.md) — the 12-Part flow
