The Committee Has Nearly Doubled in a Decade
The average B2B buying-committee size was 5.4 stakeholders in 2015. By 2025, per the same research compiled by The Starr Conspiracy from Gartner’s Future of Sales research, that average had grown to 8 to 13 stakeholders, described in the source’s own words as nearly doubling in a single decade. A typical buying group today runs 6 to 10 people, with the average enterprise-software purchase specifically drawing 11.
A qualification process built around finding “the decision-maker,” singular, is a process built for a buyer that has been shrinking in relevance for ten straight years, not a temporary anomaly worth waiting out.
Why a Deck Built for One Person Fails a Room of Five
A pitch deck built to persuade a single reachable contact tends to lead with one narrative and one proof point, whatever the deck’s author believes matters most. A CMO in the room is weighing brand and creative fit. A CFO is weighing cost and contract terms. A procurement lead is weighing vendor risk and process compliance. One narrative rarely lands with all three at once, which means a single-audience deck is quietly failing two of the three people in the room even when it succeeds with the one it was written for.
The fix is not three separate decks. It is a deck structured so each stakeholder can find their own answer inside it without the others having to sit through content aimed at someone else.
Mapping the Room Before You Write a Word
The qualification question this guide adds to a standard discovery call is direct: who else, beyond the person on this call, will weigh in before a decision gets made, and what does each of them care about most. That question, asked early, is what turns an 8-to-13-person buying group from an assumption into an actual, named list the pitch can be built against.
A prospect who cannot answer that question yet is not being difficult, they may genuinely not know the full committee themselves this early in the process, which is itself useful information about how far along the decision is.
Building One Deck That Answers Three Different Questions
A workable structure keeps one shared narrative spine, the actual problem being solved and why this approach solves it, while giving each major stakeholder type a section or slide that speaks directly to what they weigh most: cost and terms for a CFO, execution risk and process for a procurement lead, outcome and fit for the person who will use the work day to day.
That structure lets the deck travel inside the buying group after the pitch call ends, since a committee member who was not on the original call is a real, common part of a group this size, and they need to be able to find their own answer without a live presenter in the room to translate it for them.
What Changes About the Follow-Up Once the Room Is Mapped
Once the committee is named, follow-up stops being a single thread to one contact and becomes a genuine multi-threaded effort, checking in with the stakeholder who cared most about cost separately from the one who cared most about execution risk, rather than hoping the original contact relays everything accurately to a room that never fully saw the pitch firsthand.
Gong’s analysis of more than 121,000 recorded B2B sales meetings found won deals average 8.21 emails a week of continued exchange, versus 1.87 on lost deals, a pattern that fits naturally with multi-threaded contact across several stakeholders rather than a single thread to one contact.
Qualifying for the Committee, Not Just the Contact
None of this changes the fundamentals of a good discovery call, it adds one deliberate step: mapping who else is in the room before the deck gets built, not after a lost pitch reveals the deck was never speaking to half the people who read it.
Human + AI SDRs can ask that mapping question directly in the qualifying conversation, surfacing the real buying committee before a meeting even lands on the calendar.
What this means for you
- The average B2B buying-committee size grew from 5.4 stakeholders in 2015 to 8 to 13 by 2025, nearly doubling in a decade, per research compiled by The Starr Conspiracy.
- A pitch deck built around one narrative for a single decision-maker tends to underserve the other stakeholders in a room this size, each weighing a different criterion.
- Won deals average 8.21 emails a week of continued exchange versus 1.87 on lost deals, per Gong, evidence that multi-threaded follow-up across several stakeholders matters more than a single thread.
Sources
The external data in this guide draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- The Starr Conspiracy, B2B Buying Committee Benchmarks 2025
- Gong, 30 Mind-Blowing Sales Stats That Will Change The Way You Sell