You may have seen the new research from 6sense on how buyers actually buy today

If not, here’s the quick version

Buyers now have infinite access to information, from the web, from social, and increasingly from LLMs

Once they decide they’re going to buy something, they dive into all that information

But here’s the twist: they’re not using it to discover solutions anymore… they’re using it to validate the solution they already think is right

The selection phase now makes up around 60–70% of the buying cycle, while validation alone accounts for 39%

By the time a salesperson calls and asks, “Are you in market?”, the buyer shuts it down

Why?

Because nobody wants to be a piece of meat thrown into a CRM

So the rep logs it as a “no”, walks away, and the buyer quietly builds a shortlist and they already know who they want

Only then do they approach the market

And this is where two sales universes emerge:

1. The Roll-Over-and-Submit Approach

This is the default for most companies

Your reps chase buyers “in market”, battling the same competitors with the only differentiation often being price

You hope your brand marketing, demand gen, or comms somehow influence the buyer in the dark

It’s hand-to-hand combat, and wins come down to luck as much as skill

2. The Control-the-Market Approach

This is where elite sales teams operate

We know big purchasing decisions are often triggered by a salesperson, a trusted advisor, who has already built relationship capital inside the business

And when buyers create that shortlist, they shortlist vendors they already know

They then use all that infinite information to validate the solution from the vendor they trust most

Yes, buyers don’t always choose the first option… but being known, visible, and trusted at the point of selection gives you a disproportionate advantage

Conclusion: Move From Hope to Strategy

If you want your sales team to stop relying on hope and start shaping the market rather than reacting to it, you need a strategy that puts your people in the trusted advisor seat long before the buyer “enters the market.”

If you want to move from hand-to-hand combat to controlling demand, we should talk