Business Research: Climbing the Right Ladder

🟦 Business After 60 Conversation

“Didn’t we cover research last week?”

Fair question.

Last week, we covered the basics, knowing your products inside out, finding the Managing Director, checking Companies House, checking turnover, scanning LinkedIn, and looking for recent news.

All of that matters. But here is the thing – that tells you what a company does. It doesn’t tell you how the company actually works.

That is where many salespeople—and business owners—come unstuck.

The most valuable research isn’t sitting on a website. It’s the information you only discover by asking better questions and understanding how the organisation really works.

What Company Research Leaves Out

1. Can They Actually Become a Good Customer?

Just because you can win the business doesn’t mean you should.

Before investing weeks of effort, you need to answer a few fundamental questions:

• What are their payment terms?
• What is their normal payment cycle?
• Are they known for paying on time, or do they squeeze suppliers?
• Will taking on this account damage your cash flow?

If your standard terms are 30 days but theirs are 90, you’ve just given away two months of free credit before you’ve even agreed on a price. That isn’t a sales win; it’s a financial risk.

2. Forget the “Decision Maker”—Build the Ladder of Approach

A lot of traditional sales training focuses on hunting down the single “decision maker.” In reality, very few major purchases rest on one person’s shoulders.

Your real job is finding everyone who influences the decision.

Imagine selling machinery or capital equipment into a factory. The internal ladder might look like this:

• Managing Director
• Operations Director
• Production Manager
• Engineering Manager
• Maintenance Team
• Operators
• Purchasing / Procurement

Every single person on that list can either help your sale along… or quietly kill it behind closed doors.

I learned this lesson the hard way over thirty years ago. I was working as a young automation sales engineer for a major German manufacturer.

We were chasing a breakthrough contract with what was potentially the single biggest user of that product in the UK.

Accompanied by our UK Sales Director, we set off for Belfast, which during the Troubles, was a carefully planned, high-stakes trip in itself involving long drives, ferries, and security checkpoints.

As the sales engineer responsible for securing the opportunity, I genuinely believed we’d covered every angle.

We hadn’t.

What had I forgotten? The Production Team.

We got right in front of the board, made our pitch, and watched the whole deal stall out.

The Design Team loved it, but because we hadn’t bothered to talk to the people on the factory floor who actually had to run and live with the machinery, the internal push-back killed the deal right there on the spot.

All that travel, all that planning, completely wasted.

That painful journey home was when I first realised, there is always a ladder of approach.

Whether it’s just two people in a small business or six different departments in a major corporation, skipping a rung to get to the “big boss” will almost always catch up with you.

3. Who Benefits… and Who Loses?

Every business has competing internal priorities, and every change creates friction.

• If your system saves time for the Production Manager, does it create a headache for Maintenance?
• If your proposal makes Purchasing look good on cost, does Engineering hate the quality compromises?

Uncovering these internal tug-of-wars during your discovery phase is real business research.

4. Respect the Unofficial Influencers

Beyond the formal structure, every business has key influencers who don’t show up on an organisation chart:

• The Receptionist or Executive PA who guards the diary.
• The Stores Manager who knows which suppliers actually deliver on time.
• The Production Supervisor who knows what breaks down.
• The veteran engineer who has been there thirty years and whose opinion everyone trusts.

Ignore them at your peril.

5. Why the Ladder Works: Two Real-World Scenarios

Whether you are dealing with an inbound lead or cold outreach, climbing the rungs systematically is what closes deals.

Scenario A: The Warm Lead or Referral

Even when a client comes to you with a clear pain point, you still have to cover every rung to ensure smooth sailing at the final sign-off.

Take a recent electrical contractor client of mine chasing a long-term local authority contract.

The sales cycle stretched over nine months because of the sheer number of departments involved: Procurement, Planning, Technical & Regulatory, and Logistics.

To win, they had to build trust across every department. Skipping a single rung could have scuppered the entire project.

The discipline of B2B sales is moving methodically from one level of influence to the next.

“Now that we’ve agreed on how our solution solves the bottleneck in your department, are you happy for us to present these findings to the Design Team next?”

At every level you’re gaining agreement, uncovering concerns and refining your proposal. By the time you finally reach the boardroom, very few surprises remain.

Many salespeople skip the ladder because they’re taught to get to the Managing Director as quickly as possible.

It feels efficient. In reality, it often creates resistance.

People who feel ignored during the process have an unfortunate habit of raising objections at exactly the wrong moment.

Scenario B: Proactive Outreach

The same logic applies when your research identifies a potential problem you know you can fix.

By mapping out the influencers beforehand, you aren’t just cold pitching the board—you are reaching out with specific, targeted insights for each level of the organisation.

(We break down how to secure those initial meetings in Episode 2, with detailed frameworks available in our subscriber toolkits).

Applying the Four Pillars

The framework I introduced in Week 1 becomes even more valuable once you’ve secured the meeting and started to understand how the organisation really works.

LOOK

Look beyond the organisation chart. Observe the business itself. How do departments interact? Who seems to carry influence? Which areas appear busy, well organised or under pressure? Often, the physical environment tells you as much as the annual report.

READ

Continue researching throughout the sales process. Read technical specifications, procurement policies, industry publications and anything that helps you understand the customer’s commercial and operational priorities. Research shouldn’t stop once the appointment is booked.

WATCH

Watch how people behave during meetings. Who asks the technical questions? Who remains quiet? Who does everyone turn to before making a decision? The most influential person in the room isn’t always the one sitting at the head of the table.

LISTEN

Listen carefully to the language people use. Listen for frustrations, repeated concerns and throwaway comments. They often reveal more about the real buying process than the formal agenda ever will.

The Four Pillars aren’t simply a way to prepare for meetings. They’re a practical way of understanding how businesses really make decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why isn’t finding the Managing Director enough?

In many B2B organisations, the Managing Director may approve the purchase, but they rarely make the decision in isolation. Production, Engineering, Purchasing, Finance and the end users all influence the outcome. Understanding who shapes the decision is often just as important as knowing who signs the order.

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What is the ‘Ladder of Approach’ in B2B sales?

The Ladder of Approach is a practical way of identifying everyone involved in a buying decision. Rather than focusing on one individual, it encourages you to understand the people who use, specify, influence, approve and ultimately authorise the purchase.

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How do I identify the real influencers inside a business?

Start by asking simple questions. Who will use the product every day? Who maintains it? Who specifies it? Who controls the budget? Who has the final authority? You’ll often discover that influence extends well beyond the organisation chart.

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Can this approach work for small businesses as well as large organisations?

Yes. The ladder may only involve two or three people in a smaller business, but the principle is exactly the same. Before presenting your solution, understand who will be affected by the decision and whose support you’ll need.

The Takeaway

Research doesn’t stop when you’ve found the Managing Director’s name on LinkedIn.

It finishes when you understand how decisions are really made inside the organisation.

In my experience, companies rarely buy because one person says yes. They buy because nobody important is left saying no.