This is a fundamental question I see pop up a lot and agree almost no marketer makes a switch between B2B and B2C in their careers–at least successfully. I know one exec who keeps switching between two divisions which are B2C and B2B and while he brings insights and branding expertise, seems to miss that B2B is just different. Your analysis on decision detail is great and I’d love to know if there has been any academic research on this question.

One point you touched on a bit is that buying decisions inside a company can impact a person’s career (think “No one got fired for hiring IBM”) while making a poor refrigerator choice has a limited downside. Thus, the information needs are quite different between the two. I always like to use the Golden Rule when marketing and knowing who your buyer is and how they want to be treated is critical to success.

The timing of this post is ironic — I just responded this morning to a question on Quora which asked “” While the response is more focused on product management than product marketing, I touch on some of the same items you mentioned, like the importance of buyer personas and the complexity of the buying process.

Jeff