The Battles That Can’t Be Avoided

Most strategies teach you to dance around the strong, to sneak through gaps or chip away at the edges.
But sometimes the battlefield leaves you no such luxury.

Sometimes the young challenger kicks down the door, gunning for the throne.
Other times the market is held hostage by an old lion — slow, complacent, but still blocking the way.
In both cases, the only way forward is straight through.

This is the essence of the Frontal Attack:
a doctrine where you engage your competitor head-on, matching them in product, pricing, or positioning. A deliberate, concentrated strike aimed at your rival’s core position — the very ground they believe no one can take from them.

It’s not subtle.
It’s not cheap.
It’s costly, risky, and often brutal. But in some markets — especially those with fragmented competition or weak incumbents — it’s the surest way to establish dominance fast.

Setting the Battlefield

In business, as in military history, frontal attacks are rarely subtle.
You line up your forces directly against your rival’s strongest line and push.

This doctrine works best when:

The market is large and growing fast (room to capture share).
The target competitor is over-extended or slow to respond.
You can match them feature-for-feature but execute better (faster, cheaper, stronger).
There’s low differentiation between offers — customers mainly care about price, convenience, or availability.

It fails when:

The incumbent has entrenched loyalty or significant scale advantage.
The challenger is under-resourced and burns out in a prolonged fight.
Market is shrinking (making the battle purely zero-sum).

Case Example: Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi

Few rivalries illustrate Frontal Attack better than this century-long battle.

Same battlefield: carbonated cola drinks.
Same weapons: flavor profile, mass advertising, bottling and distribution scale.
Same targets: the global mainstream consumer.

Pepsi’s historic strategy wasn’t about flanking or bypassing — it went toe-to-toe.
By narrowing price gaps, matching distribution, and targeting the same mass market, it forced Coke to defend its position everywhere.

The result? While Coke remains #1, Pepsi secured massive market share and built an enduring brand by refusing to yield the front line.

A Modern Tech Example: Zoom vs. Webex

In the early days, Zoom didn’t outflank Cisco’s Webex with niche features or clever bypasses.
It simply built a better core product — faster, simpler video meetings — and then competed head-on for enterprise contracts.

The bet was that Webex’s complexity and inertia would slow its response.
Zoom’s relentless execution on quality, ease of use, and price proved that a well-led frontal assault can unseat even a well-funded incumbent.

Strategic Considerations (The Officer’s Lens)

Before you order a frontal attack, ask:

Do we have the stamina?
A frontal assault is a resource war. If you can’t sustain it, don’t start it.
Can we out-execute, not just out-spend?
The doctrine relies on winning the head-to-head contest by being simply better.
Is there real customer dissatisfaction with the incumbent?
Without some latent frustration in the market, customers have little reason to switch.
Is our product category mature?
Frontal attack tends to work best in mature or commoditized markets where the rules are already clear.

Frontal Attack is the most visible doctrine: everyone knows you’re coming.
That transparency raises the stakes — but it also simplifies the game plan.
Your team knows the target, your marketing is consistent, your product roadmap is focused.

Leaders who succeed with Frontal Attack often:

Accept the price of battle as the cost of market entry.
Keep the strategy singular and disciplined.
Rally the organization around execution excellence.

Those who fail usually:

Underestimate the incumbent’s resilience.
Spread themselves thin in side battles.
Burn resources before tipping customer loyalty.

Closing Insight

A Frontal Attack isn’t the cleverest doctrine — but it can be the decisive one.
When the market is ready for change and the incumbent has grown slow, a head-on fight can open the fastest path to relevance and scale.

“Sometimes the boldest move is to walk straight into the front gate — not because it’s easy, but because it’s where the real prize is.”

The 95–5 Rule in Marketing

The 95–5 rule is a marketing concept suggesting that only around 5 percent of buyers are “in-market” and ready to purchase at any given moment, while the remaining 95 percent are not actively shopping. The idea gained traction because it offers a simple explanation for the importance of long-term brand building: if most of your future customers aren’t buying today, your brand needs to stay memorable so they think of you when they eventually are.

What often gets overlooked is that the rule was never presented as a universal constant. It originated from research in B2B categories with long buying cycles, where companies switch providers rarely. As the idea spread, it began to be applied much more broadly than intended—sometimes without any consideration of whether a given category’s buying behavior actually resembles the conditions the rule was based on.

Understanding where the 95–5 concept came from—and where it doesn’t apply—is essential for sound decision-making. What follows is a closer look at how the rule works, why it matters, and why taking it literally can lead marketers in the wrong direction.

Stop Treating the 95–5 Rule as a Universal Law

The 95–5 rule has become one of the most widely cited ideas in marketing. It’s often used to justify rigid budget splits, siloed teams, and heavy long-term brand investments. Somewhere along the way, a context-specific heuristic turned into a supposed law of marketing physics.

It’s worth resetting the conversation.

The rule originated at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute as a way to explain buying dynamics in B2B markets with long interpurchase cycles—categories such as legal services, banking, and consulting. In these industries, companies tend to switch providers infrequently. If a business changes law firms every five years, then roughly 20 percent of buyers are in-market in a given year, or around 5 percent per quarter.

The math behind the idea is simple:

Proportion in-market = Time period / Average interpurchase time

The point was never that every industry has only 5 percent of buyers ready to buy. The point was that when a small proportion of buyers are actively purchasing at any moment, brands can’t rely solely on short-term activation. They need marketing that builds memory structures so they will be recalled when those buyers eventually enter the market.

Problems arise when the 95–5 concept is treated as universal. Interpurchase times vary dramatically across categories:

SaaS with annual contracts → roughly 25% in-market each quarter
Consumer electronics replaced every two years → roughly 12.5%
Clothing purchased multiple times per year → effectively everyone in-market each quarter
Grocery → consumers are always in-market

Shift the replacement cycle and the proportion shifts with it. Apply the formula literally and the numbers can be made to say almost anything. Shrink the time window enough and any category becomes a zero-percent in-market category. Stretch it and almost any category looks like a constant churn of demand.

This is why using the 95–5 rule to justify strict brand–performance splits is flawed. The rule tells you something about buyer availability, but nothing about team structure, budget allocation, or strategic design. It also assumes brand and performance operate in opposition, when they’re actually two points on a spectrum. Brand investment improves future conversion efficiency; activation captures current opportunity. They reinforce each other.

The takeaway is straightforward: the 95–5 rule isn’t wrong, but it is a heuristic. It’s a useful way to explain long-term demand generation in slow-moving markets—but it’s not a universal ratio, and it shouldn’t dictate how marketing organizations are built.

Marketers should adopt the spirit of the idea—most demand exists in the future—without treating its percentages as immutable. The real advantage comes from understanding your category’s true buying cycles, your customers’ behavior, and the role your brand plays across both short- and long-term horizons.

When the nuance returns, so does the strategy.

Striking Before the Threat Materializes

The best battles are the ones you never have to fight.
Preventive Attack Doctrine focuses on identifying threats early and neutralizing them before they mature.

Rather than reacting to a competitor’s move, you act preemptively to weaken or deter them.

The Core Idea of Preventive Attacks

Preventive attacks are about proactivity over reaction:

Spotting emerging competitors before they become serious threats.
Innovating ahead of the curve to make competitors’ offerings obsolete.
Entering new markets or customer segments before rivals gain a foothold.
Using price adjustments, bundling, or partnerships to discourage new entrants.

A wise general knows the best defense is to keep the enemy weak — or occupied elsewhere.

Case in Point: Facebook vs. Snapchat

The Threat: Snapchat’s rise among younger users threatened Facebook’s dominance.
The Preventive Attack:
- Launched Instagram Stories to replicate Snapchat’s key feature.
- Deployed similar features across WhatsApp and Messenger.
- Used Facebook’s scale to slow Snapchat’s growth momentum.
The Effect:
- Snapchat’s early advantage was blunted, and Facebook retained its grip on younger audiences for years.

When to Use Preventive Attacks

This doctrine is effective when:

You operate in fast-moving markets where customer behavior can shift quickly.
You have the resources and speed to respond before smaller competitors scale.
Your market leadership is at risk from emerging players with disruptive innovations.

The Risks

Preventive attacks can fail or backfire if:

They stretch your focus and resources too thin, leaving core operations vulnerable.
You target the wrong rival or the wrong innovation.
Customers perceive your moves as copycat behavior, eroding brand authenticity.
Aggressive tactics draw regulatory scrutiny or public backlash.

The Commander’s Reflection

Preventive attacks are the art of denying the enemy future strength.
It’s a game of foresight, timing, and bold execution.

You cannot fight every battle, but you can choose the timing and terms of the ones that matter most.

For SMB leaders, this doctrine highlights the importance of constant market intelligence:

Spotting trends, weak signals, and rising challengers early is often more valuable than reacting after they’ve already gained traction.

Key Takeaway:

The best victories happen before the fight begins.
Act early, act decisively, and shape the battlefield to your advantage.

Stop Wasting Years: How Emerging Leaders Outsmart Competitors in Minutes

Building a business today is harder than ever. Markets are crowded, competitors move fast, and customers expect more. For upcoming leaders, the biggest challenge isn’t passion or ambition — it’s clarity.

Too often, companies spend years guessing at strategy, burning money on experiments, and chasing competitors instead of outsmarting them. But what normally takes years of trial and error can now be done in minutes — if you know where to look.

The Problem Every Leader Faces

Every emerging leader faces the same battlefield challenges. Competitors are everywhere, and new ones appear overnight. Traditional market research takes months and costs a fortune. By the time you finish analyzing, the battlefield has already shifted. Leaders are left with foggy intel — and forced to make risky, gut-driven decisions.

The Shift: From Guesswork to Precision

Emerging leaders don’t need more data. They need faster, clearer insights. Imagine being able to identify competitors instantly, see their strengths and weaknesses, map your market position, and spot hidden opportunities before others see them. This is the difference between fighting blind and commanding the field.

How Technology Changes the Game

AI-driven market analysis tools compress what used to take weeks into minutes. Instead of hiring consultants or digging through endless reports, leaders can now run competitor discovery with a click, drill down into strategies that fit their company, and get recommendations rooted in proven frameworks like SWOT, PESTEL, and Porter’s Five Forces. Save months of wasted moves — and focus purely on execution.

The Leader’s Edge

For upcoming leaders, speed and clarity are the real competitive edge. The ones who win are not always the biggest or the loudest — but the ones who make decisions fast, with confidence, and based on real intel. Don’t spend years chasing your competitors. Outsmart them in minutes.

Standing Out in the Fog: Find Clarity, Direction, and Differentiation in Crowded Markets

Today’s leaders face a paradox: there’s never been more data, yet it’s never been harder to find clarity. Competitors multiply, customer attention is fragmented, and new trends appear overnight.

In this fog, many companies default to guesswork — chasing every shiny idea, trying to outshout rivals, or copying what already exists. The result? Burnt budgets, confused teams, and strategies that don’t stick.

But leaders who stand out know the truth: differentiation starts with intel — knowing the market, the competitors, and yourself. Only then can you make moves that are deliberate, confident, and impossible to ignore.

Guesswork Is Costly

In fast-moving industries like SaaS, wellness, fintech, or e-commerce, many leadership teams struggle with:

Constantly shifting priorities based on gut feelings.
Wasted money on campaigns that don’t land.
Competing in the same crowded space as everyone else.
Losing time and morale when experiments fail.

Without clear intel, even the best ideas become costly mistakes.

The Shift: From Features to Value

Customers don’t choose a company for its features — they choose it for the value it brings and the way it differentiates from the rest. Leaders who succeed are those who:

Understand their competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
See the gaps in the market no one else is filling.
Align their own strengths with opportunities worth pursuing.
Pick a direction that’s not just reactive, but strategic.

This is where doctrine comes in.

Proven Doctrines for Smarter Strategies

At BrandScout, our strategic guidance is rooted in the doctrines developed by Jorge A. Vasconcellos e Sá — battle-tested frameworks used by global companies to outsmart rivals and win markets.

Attacking Doctrines

When it’s time to seize ground:

Frontal Assaults – direct head-to-head competition.
Encirclement – overwhelm rivals on multiple fronts.
Flanking Maneuvers – target weak points competitors ignore.
Differentiated Circles – dominate a niche.
Undifferentiated Circles – take the whole market segment.
Guerilla/BYPASS Attacks – surprise moves that drain rivals.

Defensive Doctrines

When holding your ground matters:

Signaling – send messages that deter competitors.
Entry Barriers – make it costly for rivals to enter your market.
Global Services – scale beyond local reach.
Preventive Attacks – strike first to neutralize threats.
Blocking – cut off competitors’ options.
Counterattacks – hit back with precision.
Position Defense – strengthen your stronghold.
Strategic Retreat – withdraw from low-value battles.

Where BrandScout Comes In

Most leaders don’t fail because they lack effort — they fail because they pick the wrong doctrine for the battlefield they’re in. BrandScout acts as your Command Center for Smarter Growth, giving you:

Market Intelligence: Analyze the terrain — competitors, gaps, opportunities.
Strategic Matchmaking: Pair your current position with the right doctrine.
AI-Powered Guidance: Get recommendations that are cold, calculated, and not shaken by distractions.
Campaign Orchestration: Move from insight → execution seamlessly.

Smarter Marketing Strategies: Outsmart. Outmaneuver. Outgrow.

Without doctrine, marketing feels like throwing darts in the fog. With doctrine, every move fits into a larger strategy:

Signal without overspending.
Flank rivals by owning overlooked opportunities.
Counterattack only when it strengthens your core.
Retreat from markets that drain resources.

BrandScout doesn’t just give you clarity. It gives you the discipline to outsmart, outmaneuver, and outgrow competitors — no matter how crowded the market.

The Leadership Advantage

In saturated markets, standing out isn’t about having more features, louder marketing, or bigger budgets.

It’s about having the clarity to pick the right battles — and the discipline to execute them with confidence.
Leaders who rely on guesswork stay stuck in the fog.
Leaders who rely on intel and doctrine claim their rightful place in the market — and defend it.

Porter’s Five Forces: Understanding the Rules of Competition

Markets may look like open fields, but they’re rarely fair fights. Every decision — price, product, positioning — is shaped by unseen pressures. Some come from direct competitors; others from suppliers, buyers, or entirely new entrants changing the terrain.

Porter’s Five Forces gives structure to those pressures. It’s the strategy officer’s way of mapping power — who holds it, how it shifts, and what it means for your next move.

The Five Forces Explained

Michael Porter’s framework identifies five fundamental competitive pressures that determine the attractiveness and profitability of any market:

Rivalry Among Existing Competitors — How fierce is the fight for customers?
Threat of New Entrants — How easy is it for others to enter your space?
Threat of Substitutes — Are customers finding other ways to solve the same problem?
Bargaining Power of Buyers — Do your customers have leverage over you?
Bargaining Power of Suppliers — Are your inputs scarce or replaceable?

Together, these forces define your battlefield — not just who you’re fighting, but what kind of fight you’re in.

Why It Matters Today

Porter’s framework was created in a slower economy, but it’s never been more relevant.
Today’s markets move faster — new entrants appear weekly, and customers shift loyalty at a click. What’s changed isn’t the theory; it’s the tempo.

In SaaS, e-commerce, and emerging digital industries, barriers to entry are often low, meaning rivalry and substitution risks are high. Your profitability isn’t just about how good your product is — it’s about how much control you have over the forces shaping your market.

A high score in Porter’s analysis means a tough, highly competitive market — where profit margins are squeezed and differentiation is vital.
A lower score means favorable conditions — less rivalry, more pricing power, and room to grow. Knowing where you stand helps you decide whether to fight, fortify, or pivot.

How to Build It

Start by defining your scope clearly. A “market” isn’t an industry — it’s the specific space where you compete. Once defined, map each force:

Analyze rivalry: How many competitors? How similar are their offerings? Are price wars common?
Examine new entrants: What would it take for a startup to challenge you? Capital? Expertise? Connections?
Assess substitutes: What other solutions could steal your customers’ attention or budget?
Evaluate buyers: Are they concentrated or fragmented? Can they switch easily?
Consider suppliers: Are there few providers or many? Can you negotiate better terms or integrate vertically?

Each force isn’t static — it shifts as technology, regulation, and behavior evolve. The goal isn’t to eliminate pressure but to anticipate and position yourself where your advantage is strongest.

Common Mistakes

The biggest pitfall is overestimating your differentiation. Many teams believe they’re unique — until they discover substitutes eating into their market quietly from an adjacent space.
Another common mistake: treating every force as equal. In most markets, one or two dominate. A software company might be more threatened by new entrants than by suppliers, for instance.
And finally, failing to revisit the analysis — the market you studied six months ago may no longer exist.

Where Positioning Comes In

Positioning is the response to power.
If Porter’s Five Forces shows you where the market exerts pressure, your positioning decides how you push back.
Do you differentiate to escape price competition?
Do you dominate a niche to limit substitutes?
Do you build partnerships to strengthen your supply chain?

That’s where BrandScout elevates the process — turning a static framework into an active intelligence system. It identifies pressure points, quantifies risk, and provides AI-guided recommendations on how to adjust your position for maximum advantage.

Because real strategy isn’t about avoiding pressure — it’s about owning the points where power flows.

PESTEL: Reading the Winds Before You Move

Every strategist knows that timing is everything. You can have the right product, the right story, and the right execution — but if you move against the wind, even the strongest company stalls.
That’s where the PESTEL analysis comes in. It helps you read the weather of the market before you set sail.

What a PESTEL Analysis Really Does

PESTEL stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors. It’s not about predicting the future; it’s about scanning the horizon for forces that can either accelerate your growth or quietly undermine it.
While SWOT looks inward, PESTEL looks outward — at everything that shapes the conditions of competition.

For instance, changes in data privacy laws (Legal) can rewrite marketing playbooks overnight. A shift in consumer expectations toward sustainability (Environmental) can make yesterday’s product positioning obsolete.
PESTEL is how you spot these undercurrents early — before they become storms.

Why It Matters in Today’s Market

Most modern markets are volatile, interconnected, and politically charged. What happens in one region can ripple globally in days. A new technology can flatten an entire category. And cultural shifts can rewire demand faster than supply chains can adapt.

That’s why the best leaders treat PESTEL as early warning radar.
It doesn’t tell you what to do — it tells you what not to ignore.

Companies that skip this analysis end up reactive, always fighting the last battle. Those that master it stay two steps ahead — ready to adapt their strategy, refine their positioning, and seize opportunity while others are still processing change.

How to Build It

Start broad, then focus.
Map out each factor with your specific market in mind:

Political: Is regulation shifting in your industry? Are subsidies or trade tensions changing cost structures?
Economic: How do inflation, interest rates, or consumer confidence affect spending power?
Social: What cultural or demographic trends are shaping preferences?
Technological: What innovations are emerging that could make your offering obsolete — or exponentially better?
Environmental: How do sustainability expectations or climate realities affect your operations?
Legal: Which laws, standards, or data policies are being rewritten?

Once you’ve surfaced the key dynamics, translate each into implications for your positioning.
If the economy tightens, will customers pay more for reliability or switch to low-cost alternatives?
If AI reshapes productivity, are you positioned as an innovator or a fast follower?

The point isn’t to list — it’s to interpret.

Common Mistakes

The most common trap is overgeneralization — treating global trends as equally relevant to all markets. Context matters. A regulatory change that reshapes fintech in Europe might barely touch a SaaS startup in Brazil.
Another trap is treating PESTEL as a static exercise. The environment changes monthly; your analysis should, too.

Finally, PESTEL without positioning is just a report. Knowing the forces is useless if you don’t adjust how you present, price, or prioritize accordingly.

How Positioning Connects It All

Positioning is how you anchor your business amid external turbulence. PESTEL helps you see which parts of your landscape are shifting, so you can adjust your stance.
It’s the difference between a company caught off guard and one that rides the wave before it crests.

BrandScout’s AI engine continuously analyzes these forces across industries — detecting political shifts, market volatility, and emerging technologies — and translates them into strategic recommendations. You don’t just see the wind; you know how to use it.

Outflank, Don’t Outspend: Netflix’s Playbook for Beating Bigger Rivals

In business, the strongest player often looks untouchable — until a rival appears from an unexpected direction.
Netflix didn’t beat Blockbuster by opening more stores or spending more on ads.
It outflanked the giant, exploiting a blind spot the leader didn’t defend.

For any SMB leader facing an entrenched competitor, the lesson is clear: you don’t have to fight head-to-head — you just need to find the flank.

The Flanking Doctrine Explained

In military strategy, a flank attack bypasses the enemy’s strongest defenses to strike where they’re weak or unprepared.
In markets, a flanking strategy means targeting segments or needs the incumbent has ignored — often because they seem too small, too new, or too unprofitable.

Typical signs that a flank exists:

Customers frustrated by gaps in service or experience
Markets underserved because the leader’s model can’t reach them
Technological shifts that change how customers want to buy or use the product

The power of flanking is leverage: you use insight and positioning, not overwhelming resources.

Case Study: Netflix vs. Blockbuster

Blockbuster dominated the $8 billion video rental market. It had stores everywhere and a huge marketing budget.
Most challengers tried to fight head-on — opening similar stores and burning cash. They all lost.

Netflix took another route:

Identified a neglected segment: customers tired of late fees and inconvenient trips to the store
Leveraged a new channel: DVDs by mail, then streaming — something Blockbuster dismissed as niche
Kept costs lower: no retail footprint, no huge ad spend, focusing instead on convenience and subscription loyalty

By the time Blockbuster realized the threat, Netflix already held the flank — and scaled from there.

Why This Worked

On the strategic map, Blockbuster’s strength — its vast store network — was also a limitation.
Its business model depended on late-fee revenue and foot traffic, making it slow to adapt to a subscription-based, delivery-first world.

Netflix’s leaders saw that the real contest wasn’t about who had more stores — it was about who could deliver convenience and choice at lower friction.

The right move wasn’t to outspend or outbuild.
It was to attack where the incumbent couldn’t or wouldn’t defend.

When to Consider a Flanking Strategy

You don’t always need a flank — but it’s often the smartest path when:

The market leader is entrenched and resource-rich
Customers complain about pain points the leader ignores
New technology or habits make old strengths obsolete
You can offer a simpler, faster, or cheaper alternative to an underserved segment

The test: if fighting head-on would drain you, look for the unguarded angle.

Practical Takeaways

Map the battlefield: identify your rival’s core strengths and their neglected edges
Listen for frustration: customer pain points often reveal where the flank lies
Exploit agility: SMBs can move faster because they aren’t tied to legacy infrastructure
Focus on leverage: a flank strategy wins by precision, not by outspending

Closing Reflection

Competitive advantage isn’t always built in the spotlight.
Often, it’s forged on the quiet edges of the market — where incumbents aren’t looking.

Netflix’s story reminds leaders: your rival’s greatest strength can also be their blind spot.
Find it, focus your effort there, and you can grow without matching their resources.

Is Spending Time on Personas a Waste of Time for B2B Companies?

Marketers have spent decades obsessing over “the buyer persona.” Entire frameworks, workshops, and strategy decks revolve around understanding one idealized decision-maker — their pains, motivations, frustrations, and buying triggers.

But the modern B2B buying process doesn’t look like that at all. Deals rarely hinge on a single persona. They hinge on a group.

LinkedIn’s B2B Institute has been sounding the alarm about this shift. Their research points to a far more frustrating reality than most persona frameworks acknowledge:

More than 40% of B2B deals are abandoned before completion — not because buyers prefer a competitor, but because the buying group simply cannot agree.

In some industries, that abandonment rate climbs as high as 60%.

This group-level gridlock is the real enemy. Not price. Not messaging. Not even product quality.
So the question becomes: if decisions are made by committees, not personas…
is all this persona-building actually helping, or has it blinded B2B marketers to the real problem?

The Problem Isn’t Personas — It’s Consensus

A persona describes one stakeholder.
A B2B deal involves many.

The B2B Institute describes two categories inside every buying group:

Target Buyers — the people marketers usually think about (leaders, champions, power-users).
Hidden Buyers — procurement, finance, legal, operations, IT… the people who rarely raise their hands, but have veto power.

These hidden buyers are the ones who quietly derail deals.
And because persona work usually ignores them, companies end up crafting perfect messaging for the wrong audience — or at least for too small a slice of the real audience.

This is why the B2B Institute argues that:

B2B marketers often aren’t competing with better products — they’re competing with products that are easier for a group of strangers to agree on.

That’s the heart of the consensus problem.

Why Familiar Vendors Win (Even When They Shouldn’t)

The B2B Institute’s findings highlight a pattern that every experienced B2B marketer has felt in their bones:

Buyer groups tend to choose the least risky option — the one everyone has heard of, not necessarily the best one.

This explains why:

Familiar brands beat technically superior products
Committees default to household names
Safe options crush innovative challengers

It’s not a clash of features — it’s a quest for group safety.
If 7–11 people have to say yes, the easiest “yes” wins.

This is also why the Institute repeatedly emphasizes category visibility and broad brand awareness. You don’t win because your champion loves you. You win because the rest of the room doesn’t fear you.

Why the Best Product Often Loses

Internal champions try to sell your story for you — but they have to survive the internal gauntlet:

finance wants cost stability
ops wants smooth rollout
IT wants low-risk integration
legal wants compliance
leadership wants strategic alignment

If even one critical stakeholder doubts the vendor, momentum dies.

This is where most deals evaporate.
Not because the product is weak — but because the internal politics of the buying group slowly grind the deal to a halt.

So… Are Personas a Waste of Time?

Personas aren’t worthless. They’re simply incomplete.

They help you understand individual motivations.
But they don’t help you win a room.

If your marketing only speaks to a single persona — the eager champion — you’re leaving the majority of the real decision-makers unaddressed. The B2B Institute’s work shows that aligning the entire group is the true challenge in B2B.

So instead of throwing personas out, the better move is to expand the model:

Think in terms of buyer groups, not individuals
Build messaging that addresses both target and hidden buyers
Create narratives that are easy for champions to retell internally
Invest early in broad category awareness so every stakeholder recognizes your brand before the deal starts
Reduce perceived risk across the whole committee

Personas help you craft empathy.
Consensus gets you chosen.
B2B marketers need both — but the second is where most strategies fail.

How B2B Companies Win Consensus

Consensus isn’t won with the perfect pitch to a single persona. It’s won by reducing the perceived risk across the entire buying group.

The findings from LinkedIn’s B2B Institute (with Bain), combined with long-term research on brand effectiveness, point to a few consistent drivers of group agreement:

1. Build a Brand That Feels Safe to Choose

Familiar brands win not because they’re better, but because they’re easier to defend in a room full of anxious stakeholders.
This is where mental availability — being top-of-mind before the buying process even starts — becomes a competitive advantage.
A strong brand lowers resistance before the first meeting.

2. Speak to Hidden Buyers, Not Just Target Buyers

Most marketing talks to the champion.
Consensus comes from reassuring the people who weren’t looking for you in the first place: procurement, finance, legal, IT, operations.
These stakeholders rarely raise their hands — but they veto more deals than the main user ever will.

3. Arm Your Internal Champion With a Story They Can Repeat

Deals die when the champion can’t explain the value simply and credibly across the organization.
If your story requires nuance, slides, or a product demo to survive… it won’t.
Winning vendors give champions narrative tools, not just product sheets.

4. Reduce Risk, Not Just Highlight Value

Committees respond more strongly to risk reduction than to benefit expansion.
This means emphasizing reliability, compatibility, stability, and predictable outcomes — the things that calm a group, not just excite an individual.

5. Make Agreement Easy

This is the sleeper advantage.
Winning vendors create materials designed for internal circulation:
simple summaries, FAQ docs for CFOs, implementation roadmaps for ops, security briefs for IT.
The easier it is for a champion to get everyone to nod, the faster the deal moves.

In B2B, consensus isn’t a final step.
Consensus is the sale.

Vendors win when the whole room can say “yes” without friction, fear, or extra meetings.

Source:

https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/b2b-institute/b2b-research/trends/the-hidden-buyer-gap?
https://www.bain.com/insights/the-b2b-growth-divide-commercial-excellence-agenda-2025/

How Underdogs Outsmart Giants: Lessons in Guerilla Strategy from Zoom

When you’re the smaller player in a crowded market, it’s tempting to fight fire with fire.
You copy the leader’s features, match their pricing, and try to outspend them in ads.
That path almost always ends in exhaustion — because you’re playing their game on their battlefield.

Guerilla strategy flips the script.
It’s not about matching strength for strength; it’s about finding the rival’s blind spot and exploiting it with speed, agility, and precision.

Why Guerilla Tactics Exist

History — both military and business — shows that underdogs win not by frontal assault but by attacking where the giant is slow or unprepared.

From Hannibal bypassing the Roman front by crossing the Alps, to Dollar Shave Club bypassing Gillette’s retail fortress by going direct-to-consumer, the principle is the same:

You don’t have to storm the fortress.
You can go around it, and make the fortress irrelevant.

The Battlefield in Modern Business

Today’s markets often reward incumbents:

They have established distribution channels.
They enjoy customer trust.
They can bundle features and lock in users.

That creates a psychological trap for challengers:
We think we must match the leader’s size and features before we can compete.
But the challenger’s true advantage is not size — it’s speed and focus.

The Case: Zoom vs. WebEx & the Enterprise Giants

In 2011, the video conferencing market seemed locked down by enterprise players:
Cisco’s WebEx, Microsoft’s Lync (now Teams), and GoToMeeting.
They owned the IT departments, with long contracts and complex deployments.

The Entrenched Giant

Strengths: Deep integrations, enterprise support, brand credibility.
Weaknesses: Heavy onboarding, high switching costs, clunky interfaces, and a bias toward enterprise buyers over end-users.

The Challenger’s Insight

Eric Yuan, Zoom’s founder and former WebEx engineer, saw what the giants couldn’t:

The market’s frustration was not price.
It was friction — meetings that were hard to start, apps that felt like a chore, and software that didn’t just work.

The Guerilla Approach

Focus on one pain point: frictionless, reliable video meetings.
Bypass IT departments: go directly to end-users with a freemium product.
Exploit overlooked segments: startups, SMBs, and schools that weren’t served well by heavy enterprise software.
Grow virally: users invited other users to join meetings, spreading adoption organically.

Lessons in Guerilla Strategy

An officer studying the battle map would observe:

Avoid the enemy’s strengths
Don’t waste resources competing for entrenched enterprise contracts if your rival dominates them.
Exploit the rival’s blind spot
WebEx prioritized enterprise CIOs. Zoom prioritized end-users — the people actually in the meetings.
Move faster than the giant can pivot
By the time Cisco realized the threat, Zoom had achieved viral adoption.
Keep your campaign focused
Zoom resisted the temptation to build a suite of tools early.
They refined one battlefield (video meetings) and dominated it first.

The Philosophy Behind Guerilla Moves

Guerilla strategy requires discipline and humility.
It’s easy for leaders to let ego dictate that they “take the giant head-on.”
But strategy is not about ego — it’s about odds.

Great leaders pick battles where the ratio of their strength to the enemy’s is highest,
even if that means leaving some ground uncontested.

In many ways, guerilla tactics are a form of strategic patience — you win by winning small battles in neglected territory until the giant is forced to face you on your terms.

The Results

By 2020, Zoom had:

Become synonymous with online meetings.
Reached global scale in months when the pandemic hit — because it had already penetrated SMBs and schools.
Forced incumbents to imitate its product decisions.

Zoom didn’t win by fighting the giants in their fortified position.
It won by bypassing their strongholds and capturing the open ground they ignored.

Key Takeaways

If you lead a challenger brand:

Don’t assume you have to beat the market leader at their own game.
Look for neglected customers or friction points that the leader’s size prevents them from addressing.
Accept that success may look humble at first — but it builds leverage.
Prepare for the moment when the giant notices you; by then, you should have momentum and loyal users.

Choosing Your Battlefield

BrandScout helps you identify:

Where the market is over-defended — a poor place for frontal attack.
Where incumbents are slow or blind — fertile ground for guerilla campaigns.
How your strengths align with those weak points — so your limited resources have maximum impact.

Guerilla strategy isn’t about fighting dirty or cutting corners.
It’s about choosing the right fight.

The greatest mistake a challenger can make is to let the incumbent dictate the battlefield.
The smartest move is often to bypass the main gate entirely.

For leaders in competitive, fast-moving markets, guerilla thinking isn’t optional — it’s often the only way to outwit giants.