B2B Reads: Buyer Commitments, GTM Focus, and AI Agents

Summary

Some of our favorite B2B sales and marketing posts from around the web this week.

Every Saturday morning we share some of our favorite B2B sales & marketing posts from around the web from the last week (so it’s fresh!). We’ll miss a ton of great stuff, so if you found something you think is worth sharing please let us know.

Why Strong Tech Stalls Before Production, and the 7 Buyer Commitments That Prevent It by Masha Khmel, Forbes
Passing the technical eval isn’t the same as closing revenue. Khmel breaks complex deals into seven buyer commitments and suggests reviewing your lost deals to find where each one stalled.

Your Customers Don’t Just Want an Agent. They Want Agents. by Isabel Macdonald, Growth Unhinged
A study of 1,000+ software buyers found that calling your product an “agent” did nothing for purchase interest. Calling it a team of agents lifted interest by 6 points, with the exact same features.

Stop Trying to Do It All: The Four Key Elements of a Strong GTM Strategy by Katie Fabiszak, Forrester
Most GTM problems aren’t execution problems. They’re choice problems. Fabiszak makes the case for fewer audiences and deciding where you won’t compete.

Rethinking Growth With AI: A Conversation With Slack CMO Ryan Gavin by Jeff Jacobs, McKinsey & Company
Slack’s CMO defines marketing roles by the business result they own, not the tasks, since AI keeps changing the tasks. Good reminder to point the time AI frees up at revenue, not more busywork.

Your AI Marketing Strategy Is Generic by AL Sefati, Fast Company
Ask a chatbot for a marketing plan and you get something polished that falls apart on contact. The fix is real business context, plus pressure-testing the plan on outcomes, tradeoffs and owners.

Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for reading! If you have B2B news sources you rely on we’d love to hear about them. Please share them with us.