Introduction

I started doing B2B Tech market research on September 22nd, 2015. It’s all I’ve done for a decade now. And, I’ve developed a theory: people have forgotten some kinds of research that are super helpful and are totally being overlooked.

I’ve had a front row seat to the types of customer research that organizations prioritize.

• When I started in B2B tech, I was lucky enough to be the fifth employee at a scrappy market research consultancy that only worked in B2B technology (CascadeInsights.com, check them out!). We worked with everyone: cloud infrastructure teams, SaaS rocket ships, legacy app providers, you name it. I’ve walked the halls of too many corporate campuses, figured out where all the free seltzers are, and—somewhat more importantly—done a lot of research. I’ve interviewed everyone from CIOs at top banks to software developers, from people booking corporate travel to the folks deciding which water bottles get shelf space at big box retailers. I’ve done this in three languages (French, Arabic, and my middling English) in more than 50 countries.
• Currently, I work for a software company that helps product marketers, market researchers, product managers, competitive intelligence folks, and corporate strategy teams. These are the people I spend my days with—and it gives me a vantage point as to the kinds of research people choose to do.
• Because we don't charge people extra to choose to conduct research through our platform, I can see what kinds of research needs pop into people's heads. Without a “research tax”, we have an overview of what people choose to research when there's no friction.

From what I can tell, most people default to talking to their target customers (which is great!), but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole world of research—audiences and types of insights—that are being left on the table. The kicker? The friction and cost of doing research (“the research tax”) means most people don’t even realize what they’re missing.

I’m going to use this piece to pull together some of the research types and audiences that I think people have just forgotten about, despite how valuable they are. My hope is that this is a resource for anyone who feels stuck, or who suspects there’s more out there than the usual “talk to your users” advice. If you’re in product marketing, product management, corporate strategy, or even a pure-play market research role, I want to help you climb out of the cave and see the bigger picture. This blog post might not be Plato’s Republic, but maybe it’ll give you a new way to think about the problems you’re facing.

FWIW—I’m going to refer to “customer research” and “market research” pretty interchangeably here.

Let’s get into it.

Table of Contents

• Perspectives worth capturing
  • Ex-Sellers
  • Partners (SIs, GSIs, MSPs, VARs)
  • Adjacent Audiences: The “Deal Killers”
• Research Types
  • Share of Wallet Research
  • Buyer’s Journey Mapping
  • Brand Research (Qualitative)
• Pitfalls, Practical Advice, and Tools
• The Future
  

Perspectives worth capturing

Ex-Sellers

What Are Ex-Sellers?

Ex-sellers are people who have recently left a software vendor and spent their days selling to your target audience. Think: former account executives, sales engineers, or anyone who’s been on the front lines of B2B sales in your space.

Why Do They Matter?

Most research focuses on customers—one person, one experience, one deal. Ex-sellers, on the other hand, have a panoramic view. They’ve worked dozens (sometimes hundreds) of deals, across a range of buyer types, company sizes, and competitive situations. They know the real reasons deals are won or lost, what features actually matter, and how the competitive landscape is shifting in real time.

What Do You Get From Them?

• Deal Dynamics: They can tell you which features or objections come up over and over, and which are just noise.
• Competitive Intel: They know which vendors are gaining or losing ground, and why.
• Persona Insights: They’ve heard every buyer’s rationale, every internal objection, and every “hidden” stakeholder who can kill a deal.
• Market Trends: They’ll notice when the questions buyers ask start to change, or when a new competitor starts showing up in deals.
• Pricing Sensitivity: Sellers are acutely aware of what customers are willing to pay, where budgets get stuck, and what contract terms are deal-breakers.

Cautions or Caveats

• NDAs and Ethics: Don’t treat ex-sellers as a shortcut to corporate secrets. They’re still bound by NDAs, and you should respect that. Focus on trends, patterns, and their personal experience—not confidential information.
• Bias: Remember, ex-sellers may have their own axes to grind, or may be more candid about certain competitors than others. Always triangulate what you hear.

From the memory banks…

I interviewed a former seller from a SalesTech industry leader in a space for one of their upstart competitors. This competitor had been trying to win deals by focusing on some of their better features. But by interviewing this person, we learned that the real driver of dissatisfaction had nothing to do with technology; it had to do with the fact that this leading platform's users rarely fully adopted the product.

As a result, we started differentiating ourselves based on the post-sale onboarding experience and prompted prospective customers to ask the legacy platform about their success rates with onboarding and implementation.

Partners (SIs, GSIs, MSPs, VARs)

What Are Partners?

Partners are the ecosystem players who make B2B software actually work in the real world. This includes:

• Systems Integrators (SIs) and Global SIs (GSIs): The folks who design, configure, and implement complex software systems—think Accenture, Deloitte, Tata, but also smaller regional or niche SIs.
• Managed Service Providers (MSPs): The teams that keep the lights on, handling ongoing management, support, and sometimes even software selection for their clients.
• Value-Added Resellers (VARs): The pragmatic middlemen who bundle, resell, and support software and hardware, often adding their own services or support.

Why Do They Matter?

Partners have a unique vantage point. They see the entire lifecycle of a software product—from selection, to implementation, to day-to-day use, to troubleshooting. They’re the ones who know where projects get stuck, which features are oversold, and what customers complain about after the contract is signed. They also see patterns across dozens of clients, not just one.

What Do You Get From Them?

• Implementation Realities: SIs/GSIs know which features are easy to set up, which ones are a nightmare, and where most projects go off the rails.
• Pain Points in the Wild: MSPs see what breaks, what gets used, and what gets ignored once the software is live. They know the “real” jobs to be done.
• Buying Criteria and Margins: VARs know which vendors are easiest to work with, who gives the best margins, and what really drives a purchase decision (hint: it’s not always the feature list).
• Influence on Selection: Sometimes, the partner is the kingmaker. I’ve heard more than once, “We just buy whatever our SI tells us to buy.” If you’re not talking to them, you’re missing the real decision-makers.
• Cross-Client Patterns: Partners see trends and issues that individual customers never notice, because they’re working across a portfolio.

Cautions or Caveats

• Role Differences: Not all partners are created equal. An architect at an SI will have a different perspective than a hands-on implementer or a partner salesperson. Be clear about who you’re talking to and what lens they bring.
• Incentives: VARs and MSPs may have financial incentives that color their recommendations. Always ask about how they get paid and what influences their advice.
• Secondhand Experience: Partners aren’t end users—they see things from the outside in. Their view is broad, but sometimes less detailed on day-to-day user experience.

Systems Integrators (SIs/GSIs)

What Are SIs/GSIs?

Systems Integrators (SIs) and Global Systems Integrators (GSIs) are the organizations that design, configure, and implement complex software systems. GSIs are the big names—Accenture, Deloitte, Tata, PwC—while SIs can be much smaller, sometimes just a few dozen or a few hundred people, but with deep expertise in a particular tech stack or industry.

Why Do They Matter?

SIs/GSIs are the ones who make the software actually work in the real world. They’re in the weeds with requirements gathering, configuration, integration, and troubleshooting. They see every step of the implementation process, from the first kickoff call to the inevitable “why isn’t this working?” email six months later. They know where projects get stuck, which features are oversold, and what customers complain about after the contract is signed.

What Do You Get From Them?

• Implementation Realities: They’ll tell you which features are easy to set up, which are a nightmare, and where most projects go off the rails.
• Process Pain Points: They know the steps that consistently cause delays, confusion, or outright failure.
• Customer Blind Spots: SIs see what customers don’t know to ask for, and what they wish they’d known before signing.
• Competitive Positioning: They know which vendors are easier to work with, which ones have better documentation, and which ones are notorious for “over-promising and under-delivering.”
• Influence on Selection: Sometimes, the SI is the kingmaker. I’ve heard more than once, “We just buy whatever our SI tells us to buy.”

Cautions or Caveats

• Role Differences: An architect will have a different perspective than a hands-on implementer or a partner salesperson. Be clear about who you’re talking to.
• Not End Users: SIs see things from the outside in. Their view is broad, but sometimes less detailed on day-to-day user experience.
• Project Bias: Some SIs may have a vested interest in longer, more complex projects (more billable hours), so always triangulate what you hear.

From the memory banks…

I worked for a company that sold a particular type of data product, doing win-loss research.

On one of the first few calls, I was talking to one of their decision makers on the customer side who said something like, "Honestly, I don't even think about why we chose this vendor. We just do whatever Ernst & Young tells us."

As a result of that, we pivoted the research to interview these systems integrators—that was the audience we needed to impact!

Managed Service Providers (MSPs)

What Are MSPs?

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are the teams that keep the lights on. They handle ongoing management, support, and sometimes even software selection for their clients. Think of them as the engine room crew—they’re not designing the ship, but they’re the ones making sure it doesn’t sink.

Why Do They Matter?

MSPs have a unique vantage point: they see what happens after the implementation is done and the vendor has moved on. They know what breaks, what gets used, and what gets ignored once the software is live. They’re the first to hear about recurring issues, user complaints, and “workarounds” that become the real workflow.

What Do You Get From Them?

• Day-to-Day Pain Points: MSPs know what users struggle with every day, not just during onboarding.
• Adoption and Abandonment: They see which features get adopted, which get ignored, and which get replaced by spreadsheets.
• Support Trends: They know what generates the most support tickets, what’s easy to fix, and what’s a chronic headache.
• User Education: MSPs can tell you where users need more training, better documentation, or a simpler workflow.
• Cross-Client Patterns: Because they work across multiple clients, they spot trends and issues that individual customers never notice.

Cautions or Caveats

• Not Decision-Makers: MSPs usually don’t make the initial purchase decision, but they can influence renewals and expansions.
• Incentives: Some MSPs may have financial incentives to recommend certain vendors or solutions.
• Secondhand Experience: Their view is broad, but sometimes less detailed on the initial buying process.

From the memory banks…

We were doing some research in the compliance software space (think “SOC 2 Type II” stuff). Everything about the space was commoditized, with even the AI features that were rolling out seeming the same.

However, one vendor's ecosystem of managed service providers were an order of magnitude more expensive than the others. That makes a huge difference!

On the flip side, if you're the vendor whose partners are that much more expensive, you probably want to go find out why. You want to find out what added value your MSPs are providing so that when you hear that objection from prospective customers, your sellers know what to respond.

Value-Added Resellers (VARs)

What Are VARs?

Value-Added Resellers (VARs) are the pragmatic middlemen who bundle, resell, and support software and hardware, often adding their own services or support. They’re the ones who help customers navigate the buying process, sometimes acting as a trusted advisor, sometimes as a gatekeeper.

Why Do They Matter?

VARs know what really drives a purchase decision. They’re on the front lines with customers, helping them compare options, negotiate pricing, and figure out what’s actually going to work in their environment. They also know which vendors are easiest to work with, who gives the best margins, and what makes a deal go smoothly (or fall apart).

What Do You Get From Them?

• Buying Criteria: VARs know what customers actually care about when making a purchase—sometimes it’s features, sometimes it’s price, sometimes it’s just who can deliver on time.
• Margin and Incentives: They know which vendors are most generous with margins, rebates, or incentives, and how that affects their recommendations.
• Deal Dynamics: VARs can tell you what makes a deal easy or hard to close, what paperwork or processes slow things down, and what surprises customers after the sale.
• Service Expectations: They know what customers expect in terms of support, training, and follow-up.
• Market Trends: Because they work with multiple vendors and customers, they spot shifts in demand, new competitors, and emerging needs.

Cautions or Caveats

• Incentives: VARs are motivated by margin and incentives, so always ask about how they get paid and what influences their advice.
• Not Deep on Implementation: They may not have deep technical knowledge of every product—they’re more focused on the sale and the relationship.
• Potential Bias: Some VARs may push certain vendors or solutions because it’s easier for them, not necessarily better for the customer.

From the memory banks…

I worked for a large converged appliance company (these things that go in data centers that are super expensive).

We learned that they kept trying to get chosen as the default provider over others by making it a margin and cost decision, which is an expensive lever to pull. But behind the scenes, the platform that partners had to use to log deals was perceived as so antiquated and tough to deal with that partners would choose to forego some margin and just go work with the vendor partner that had a better interface.

Guess what easy—and cheaper!—fix our customer was able to go make 😇

Adjacent Audiences: The “Deal Killers”

Who Are They?

These are the internal stakeholders who rarely (if ever) use your product, but have the power to block, delay, or kill a deal. Common roles include:

• Procurement
• IT Security / InfoSec
• IT Operations / Infrastructure
• Finance
• Legal / Compliance
• Data Privacy / Risk Management
• HR (for employee-facing tools)
• Other internal “approvers” or gatekeepers

They often show up late in the buying process, and their concerns are usually about risk, integration, compliance, or cost—not your product’s features.

Why Do They Matter?

You can have the world’s best champion and a perfect user fit, but if you don’t clear the hurdles set by these adjacent audiences, your deal is dead in the water. They’re the ones who scrutinize your contracts, grill you on security, or flag your product as “too risky” or “not a priority.” They’re also the ones who can delay a deal for months with a single question or requirement you didn’t anticipate.

What Do You Get From Them?

• Deal-Blocking Criteria: They’ll tell you what makes them say “no”—whether it’s missing compliance certifications, unclear data handling, or a lack of integration with existing systems.
• Hidden Requirements: Adjacent audiences often have checklists or requirements that never make it into the RFP or initial conversations. Knowing these in advance can save you months of pain.
• Process Insights: They can explain how internal approvals really work, what documentation or assurances they need, and what slows things down.
• Training and Onboarding Needs: IT and security teams, in particular, want to know they won’t be left holding the bag after the sale. They’ll tell you what a good onboarding or support plan looks like from their perspective.
• Influence on Messaging and Collateral: Their feedback can help you create materials that address their specific concerns, making it easier for your champion to get internal buy-in.

Cautions or Caveats

• Not Product Users: Their perspective is all about risk, compliance, and process—not day-to-day usability or value.
• Can Be Hard to Access: These folks are often busy, skeptical, and not eager to take research calls. You may need to go through your existing customers or champions to get introductions.
• Role-Specific Needs: Each function (procurement, IT, finance, legal, etc.) has its own language and priorities. Don’t assume what matters to one will matter to another.

From the memory banks…

I can't tell you how many vendors I've worked for where we uncover that a major driver of deal loss is a new member of the leadership team coming in and having a preference for a past competitive software vendor.

The easiest and best way to disrupt that is to either:

1. Identify when there's that leadership change happening and either abandon the deal and spend your time elsewhere
2. Really go work on building a relationship with that influencer, even if they might not seem like someone that's super involved in the deal.

Research Types

Share of Wallet Research

What Is It?

Share of wallet research is about understanding how your buyers actually allocate their budgets—not just for your product, but across all the categories you might compete in. It’s not just “how much are they spending on us?” but “how do they think about the whole pie?” Who else is at the table? What other priorities are fighting for the same dollars? Are you up against another software vendor, a consulting firm, a headcount request, or even a totally different initiative?

This isn’t just a quant exercise (“what percent of the budget do we have?”). It’s about mapping the mental model your buyers use when they think about spend. Are you a “must-have” or a “nice-to-have”? Are you in the “innovation” bucket, the “keep the lights on” bucket, or the “maybe next year” bucket? And who actually owns the budget you’re trying to win?

Why Does It Matter?

If you don’t know how your buyers think about spend, you’re flying blind. You might be building a business case for the wrong person, or pitching against the wrong competitor. You might think you’re losing to another vendor, when in reality, you’re losing to “do nothing” or “hire another person” or “spend the money on a different department’s priority.”

And here’s where it gets really interesting—sometimes, even with our own software, we find ourselves selling against things that aren’t even in the same “category” on paper. Sometimes we’re up against expert networks (GLG, AlphaSense, etc.), sometimes it’s classic consulting firms, and sometimes it’s just the latest wave of chatbots and generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, you name it). Other times, we’re competing with the software people use to write content—think Jasper, Copy.ai, or even just Google Docs and a freelancer. If you don’t know what your buyers are actually spending money on, you can’t position yourself to win. You’ll end up pitching features when you should be pitching speed, or selling “insight” when the real competition is “good enough, fast, and cheap.”

What Do You Get From It?

• Budget Allocation: Who owns the budget? Is it marketing, sales, IT, ops, or someone else? How is it split between software, services, headcount, etc.?
• Category Mapping: Are you seen as a “must-have” or a “nice-to-have”? What other tools or vendors are in the same bucket? Are you fighting for “innovation” dollars, “compliance” dollars, or “cost savings” dollars?
• Decision Dynamics: Who gets to decide how the money is spent? Is it a single budget holder, or a committee? What’s the approval process? Are there “use it or lose it” cycles?
• Competitive Context: Are you fighting for dollars against direct competitors, or against something totally different (like a new headcount, a consulting project, or a generative AI tool)? What’s the real “opportunity cost” in your buyer’s mind?
• Timing: When are budget decisions made? Is there a fiscal year, a quarterly review, or a “whenever something breaks” approach?

How Do You Actually Do It?

• Start with your champion: Ask them, “What else could this budget be spent on? Who else is asking for money right now?”
• Map the alternatives: Don’t just ask about direct competitors—ask about other projects, departments, or initiatives that are in the running. In our case, I’ll often ask, “Are you considering using an expert network, or just having your team use ChatGPT for this?”
• Interview budget holders: If possible, talk to the people who actually sign off on spend. Ask them how they think about priorities, trade-offs, and timing.
• Look for patterns: Are there certain times of year when budgets get freed up? Are there “pet projects” that always get funded, or “third rails” that never do?
• Triangulate: Don’t rely on one person’s view. Ask multiple stakeholders how they see the budget landscape.

Cautions or Caveats

• People may not know (or may not want to say): Budget politics are real. Sometimes people genuinely don’t know where the money goes, or they’re not going to tell you the whole story.
• It’s not just about the numbers: The mental model is as important as the spreadsheet. Listen for how people talk about priorities, not just what they say the numbers are.
• Things change: Budget priorities can shift fast, especially in uncertain markets. Treat this as a living map, not a one-and-done exercise.

Buyer’s Journey Mapping

What Is It?

Buyer’s journey mapping is the process of charting the entire decision process for your product or category—from the first flicker of awareness, through consideration, shortlisting, negotiation, and all the way to renewal (or churn). It’s not just about who’s involved, but what they care about at each stage, what questions they ask, and what can stall or accelerate a deal.

This isn’t a theoretical exercise. It’s about getting granular: Who actually raises their hand first? Who gets brought in for technical due diligence? Who’s the “deal killer” that shows up at the last minute? What’s the real sequence of events, and what are the hidden landmines?

Why Does It Matter?

Deals don’t get done in a straight line. There are twists, turns, and hidden stakeholders at every stage. If you don’t know the journey, you can’t enable your champion, anticipate objections, or spot where deals are likely to get stuck. You’ll waste time pitching the wrong person, or you’ll get blindsided by a late-stage objection you could have headed off with the right collateral or conversation.

In my experience, the biggest surprises in B2B sales almost always come from not understanding the real journey. Sometimes, the “decision” is made at a single annual conference, and nothing you do the rest of the year matters. Sometimes, the real blocker is a security review that nobody mentioned until you’re three months into the process. Sometimes, the deal dies because the person who actually uses the product never got a say.

What Do You Get From It?

• Stage-by-Stage Insights: What matters most at each phase? What causes deals to pause or die? What’s the “moment of truth” for each stakeholder?
• Stakeholder Mapping: Who gets involved when, and what are their priorities? Who’s the champion, who’s the skeptic, and who’s the silent veto?
• Timing and Triggers: When do decisions actually get made? Are there key events (like budget cycles, industry conferences, or leadership changes) that drive action?
• Enablement Opportunities: What materials or support does your champion need to move the deal forward internally? Where do they get stuck, and what would help them get unstuck?
• Variance Analysis: Why do some deals close in two months and others take a year? What’s the difference in the journey?

How Do You Actually Do It?

• Start with recent wins and losses: Interview your own team and your customers. Ask them to walk you through the actual steps, not just the “official” process.
• Map the roles: For each stage, who was involved? What did they care about? What questions did they ask? What almost killed the deal?
• Look for patterns: Are there stages where deals consistently stall? Are there stakeholders who always show up late and cause trouble?
• Ask about timing: When did the real decision get made? Was it tied to a budget cycle, a leadership change, or an external event?
• Validate with multiple perspectives: Don’t just ask your champion—ask the “deal killers,” the users, and even people who evaluated you and went with someone else.
• Visualize it: Build a flowchart or timeline. Make it real, not theoretical.

Cautions or Caveats

• People forget or rewrite history: Memory is fallible, and people often tell the story that makes them look good. Always triangulate.
• The journey changes: New stakeholders, new buying processes, and new tools (like procurement platforms or AI-driven RFPs) can change the journey overnight.
• Don’t get stuck in the “happy path”: The real value is in understanding where things go wrong, not just where they go right.

For example…

The Annual Conference BottleneckOne of the most eye-opening moments in my early research career came when I was working with a hardware company that wanted to understand how to get better placement for their products in big box retail stores. We set out to map the buyer’s journey—who was involved, what mattered at each stage, and, crucially, when decisions actually got made.

What we found was almost comically simple, but it changed everything: the real decision-makers for product placement all went to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas every year. That was it. They’d meet with vendors, see demos, have a few dinners, and—right there, in the span of a few days—make the calls that would determine shelf space for the entire year.

The rest of the year? Basically irrelevant. No amount of follow-up, email campaigns, or “check-in” calls would move the needle if you missed that window. If you weren’t on their radar at CES, you were out of luck until the next cycle.

That insight completely changed our client’s go-to-market strategy. Instead of spreading their efforts evenly throughout the year, they went all-in on CES: bigger presence, more targeted meetings, and a laser focus on getting in front of the right people at the right time. The result? They started winning placements they’d never even been considered for before.

The lesson: sometimes, the “buyer’s journey” isn’t a long, winding road—it’s a single, high-stakes intersection. If you don’t know where it is, you’ll miss it every time.

Brand Research (Qualitative)

What Is It?

Let’s be clear: I’m not talking about your logo, your color palette, or whether your brand guidelines are collecting dust in a Google Drive somewhere. Qualitative brand research is about the “vibe check” your company gets in the market. It’s the stuff that never shows up in a survey or a spreadsheet, but absolutely determines whether you get a shot at the deal or get ghosted before you even know you were in the running.

This isn’t about NPS or a brand tracker. It’s about what people really think when your name comes up in a meeting, a Slack channel, or a group chat at a conference. Are you the safe bet? The dinosaur? The “risky but interesting” upstart? The “oh, those guys again” vendor? What rumors are floating around? What emotional baggage are you carrying from a botched launch, a support meltdown, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Why Does It Matter?

People buy with their gut and justify with a spreadsheet. If your brand is seen as outdated, risky, or just “not for companies like us,” you’re not even making the shortlist—no matter how good your product is. If there’s a whisper network saying you’re about to be acquired, or that your support is a nightmare, or that you’re “not enterprise-ready,” you’re going to get shut out before you even get a chance to pitch.

I’ve seen this firsthand: you can have the best demo, the best pricing, the best everything, and still lose because someone in the room says, “I heard they’re a pain to work with,” or “Didn’t they just lay off half their team?” That’s the stuff that kills deals before they start.

What Do You Get From It?

• Perception Mapping: How do you stack up against competitors? Are you the safe choice, the innovator, the underdog, the “expensive but worth it” option, or the “cheap and risky” one?
• Reputational Landmines: What rumors or misconceptions are out there? Is there a “whisper network” about your company or product? Are you still fighting ghosts from a product launch that went sideways three years ago?
• Emotional Drivers: What makes people excited (or nervous) about working with you? What’s the “gut feel” in the market?
• Strategic Messaging: What do you need to double down on, and what do you need to fix? Where do you need to be seen, and by whom?
• Category Fit: Are you seen as a leader, a follower, or an outsider? Are you even in the right “bucket” in people’s minds?

How Do You Actually Do It?

• Talk to the market, not just your customers: Get out of your echo chamber. Interview prospects, lost deals, partners, analysts, and even competitors if you can. Ask them what comes to mind when they hear your name.
• Ask for stories, not adjectives: “Tell me about the last time you heard someone mention our company.” “What’s the word on the street about us?” “If you had to describe us to a colleague, what would you say?” You want the gossip, not the sanitized version.
• Probe for rumors and baggage: “Have you heard anything about us that would make you hesitate to buy?” “What’s the biggest risk you see in working with us?” Don’t be afraid to ask the uncomfortable stuff.
• Compare with competitors: “Who do you see as the most innovative in this space?” “Who’s the safe bet?” “Who’s on the way up, and who’s on the way out?”
• Look for patterns: Are there consistent themes, stories, or emotional reactions that come up again and again? If three people in a row say, “I heard you guys are getting acquired,” you’ve got a problem.

Cautions or Caveats

• People may not want to be blunt: It can be hard to get people to say negative things directly, especially if you’re the one asking. Use third parties or anonymous interviews if needed.
• Perceptions lag reality: You may have fixed a problem, but the market might not know it yet. Or you might be riding on old goodwill that’s about to run out.
• Don’t confuse “brand” with “marketing”: This is about reputation and emotional resonance, not just your latest campaign.

From the memory banks…

We were working with a client—a big hardware and software provider—who couldn’t figure out why their pipeline was drying up, even though their product was solid and their pricing was competitive. On paper, everything looked fine. But when we started doing qualitative brand research—actually talking to people in the market, not just their customers, but prospects, partners, and even a few folks who’d gone with competitors—we kept hearing the same thing, over and over, in slightly different words:

“Aren’t they about to get acquired?” “I heard they’re going to be out of business in a year.” “We’re worried about support if they get bought and the product gets sunsetted.”

This wasn’t in any RFP. It wasn’t showing up in win/loss notes. But it was everywhere in the market. The rumor mill had gone into overdrive—we later found out due to a competitor whispering in the right ears. But the effect was real: buyers were hesitating, deals were stalling, and nobody wanted to be the one who bought the “soon-to-be-orphaned” product.

That was a difficult but important problem to solve. Our customer is still around—though they did end up getting acquired, ha.

Pitfalls, Practical Advice, and Tools

Let’s get real: knowing what to research is only half the battle. The other half is actually getting it done—finding the right people, getting them to talk to you, asking the right questions, and making sure you don’t end up with a pile of generic, useless answers. This is where most teams get tripped up, and where the difference between “we did some interviews” and “we got real insight” actually lives.

Finding and Recruiting the Right People

• Start with your network, but don’t stop there. Your customers, your prospects, your partners—these are the obvious places to start. But if you only talk to people who already like you, you’re going to get a very rosy (and very incomplete) picture.
• LinkedIn is your friend. If there’s an audience big enough to matter, there’s a way to find them on LinkedIn. Get specific: filter by title, company, geography, whatever matters. Don’t be afraid to reach out cold—just make it worth their time.
• Expert networks and panels. Sometimes you need to go outside your own reach. There are expert networks (GLG, AlphaSense, etc.), recruiting firms, and even platforms like UserInterviews or Respondent that can help you find niche audiences. Just know: you’ll pay for quality, and you’ll need to vet for fit.
• Don’t forget the “deal killers.” Ask your champions, “Who else was involved in the decision?” Then go find those people—procurement, IT, finance, legal, etc. They’re often the ones with the real veto power.

Incentivizing and Engaging

• Pay people for their time. If you want real insight, compensate people fairly. This isn’t just about ethics—it’s about getting people to show up and be candid.
• Make it interesting. Nobody wants to sit through a boring, generic interview. Tell them why you want their perspective, how it will be used, and what’s in it for them (beyond the money).
• Be transparent. If you’re recording, say so. If you’re going to use their quotes, anonymize them unless you have explicit permission.

Interviewing for Depth (Not Just “Data”)

• Ditch the script. Have a list of topics you want to cover, but treat it like a conversation, not a survey. The best insights come from follow-up questions and letting people riff.
• Ask for stories, not opinions. “Tell me about the last time you…” is a thousand times better than “How do you feel about…?” Stories reveal real pain, real workarounds, and real decision criteria.
• Get specific. If someone gives you a generic answer (“We care about security”), dig deeper: “What’s an example of a security issue that almost killed a deal?” “What’s the worst vendor experience you’ve had?”
• Triangulate. Don’t rely on one person’s view. Patterns matter more than anecdotes.

Avoiding Fraud and Low-Quality Data

• Watch for AI-generated or “professional respondent” answers. If someone sounds like they’re reading from a script, or their answers are weirdly generic, push for specifics. If they can’t give you a real story, they’re probably not legit.
• Listen in or review recordings. If you’re using a recruiting firm or expert network, ask to listen in on interviews or at least review transcripts. If they won’t let you, that’s a red flag.
• Replace bad fits. If you realize 10 minutes in that someone isn’t who they said they were, or just isn’t a fit, cut it off and move on. Don’t waste your time (or theirs).

DIY vs. Outsourcing

• DIY: You have more control, you can go deeper, and you’ll learn more about your market just by doing the work. But it’s time-consuming, and you’ll need to build your own recruiting and analysis muscle.
• Outsourcing: Agencies, expert networks, and platforms like GetWhys (yes, I’m biased, but this is why we built it) can take a lot of the pain out of recruiting, scheduling, and even analysis. The tradeoff is you need to vet for quality, stay involved, and make sure you’re getting the right audience—not just the easiest one to find.

Pitfalls to Watch Out For

• Garbage in, garbage out. If you don’t get the right people, or you ask the wrong questions, no amount of analysis will save you.
• Confirmation bias. If you only talk to people who already like you, you’ll get a lot of “keep doing what you’re doing!” and miss the real problems.
• Over-indexing on “happy path” stories. The best insights come from lost deals, churned customers, and people who said “no.”
• Analysis paralysis. Don’t get stuck trying to boil the ocean. Look for patterns, not perfection.

Tools That Can Help

• LinkedIn, UserInterviews, Respondent, expert networks for recruiting.
• Zoom, Otter, Fathom, or Gong for recording and transcribing.
• GetWhys (shameless plug, but this is literally why we exist): to make recruiting, interviewing, and analysis faster, less painful, and more actionable—especially if you want to go beyond the obvious and get real, buyer-backed insight.

The Future

If you’d asked me a few years ago what the future of B2B research looked like, I probably would’ve said, “More dashboards, more quant, more of the same.” But the last few years have been a total reset. Large language models, self-serve everything, and a tidal wave of “insight” that’s mostly just noise. The game has changed, and not always for the better.

So, what’s actually happening? And what should you do about it?

1. The Quantitative Tsunami (and Why It’s Not Enough)

For most of the 2010s, the trend was clear: everything was moving to quant. If you couldn’t put it in a bar chart, it didn’t matter. Product analytics, dashboards, heatmaps, NPS—if you were the in-house researcher, you were fighting for attention against a parade of “look at this graph” moments from product and digital teams.

But here’s the thing: quant tells you how much, but it never tells you why. You can see that a feature is underused, but you have no idea what’s actually going on. You know your NPS is dropping, but you don’t know what’s driving it. And now, with LLMs, you can summarize a thousand interviews in a minute—but if those interviews are garbage, you’re just getting to the wrong answer faster.

The future isn’t about more quant.

2. Qualitative Research Is Everywhere

Spoiler: I think this is the only section of the piece where I’m actually talking about large language models with any depth.

I would venture that qualitative research is the default mode of research right now, because LLMs have made it ridiculously easy to ask questions in natural language and get responses that may or may not be well-sourced. Honestly, it’s not always terrible—If you're asking questions where the audience you care about has written about or has created content about the thing you're interested in online already, it will do a good job of pulling that for you. It’s never been easier to get access to “qualitative research,” but the quality and impact of that research? That’s a whole different question.

If you’re using the same dataset everyone else is—basically, whatever you can find by Googling—you’re not going to get anything that moves the needle. It’s the same reason why online signals monitoring (like getting a Google News alert when a competitor launches a feature) doesn’t actually drive strategy. Just asking a system a question and getting an answer isn’t the same as real qualitative research. The same goes for things like message testing: if you’re only getting surface-level feedback from a “synthetic” that isn’t trained on real data, you’re missing the point.

You have to be careful about the type and depth of data a system is pulling from when it spits out analysis. Large language models are probabilistic black boxes. With any good research—whether it’s from a consulting firm, an expert network, or a tool like ours—you should be able to trace every insight back to its source. Always demand that, whether you’re working with us or anyone else. If you can’t see where the original insight comes from, you’re not just flying blind—you’re in a cockpit where the dials are painted on. It might look like you have instrumentation, but you have no idea what’s actually going on.

3. Research Is Becoming Everyone’s Job

The old model—“throw it over the wall to the research team”—is dying. Now, everyone’s a researcher, whether they want to be or not. Product managers, marketers, sales leaders, even engineers are doing their own research, running their own interviews, and making their own calls.

The tools are getting better, the workflows are getting simpler, and the expectation is that you can get a real answer—fast—without spinning up a six-week project or begging for budget. But just because everyone can do research doesn’t mean everyone should do it alone. The best teams build a culture where research is collaborative, where insights are shared, and where “we already talked to customers” isn’t an excuse unless you can show your work.

4. The Real Limiting Factor: Imagination

Here’s the real headwind: it’s not technology, or budget, or even time. It’s imagination. Most teams have forgotten how many different sources and methods are out there. They’re stuck in the “talk to users, run a survey, call it a day” rut. The future belongs to the curious—the people who ask, “Who else knows something about this?” and “What’s the question nobody’s asking?”

The best insights are almost always hiding in plain sight, just outside the usual playbook. If you’re willing to go off-script, to talk to ex-sellers, partners, deal-killers, and the people who aren’t your customers, you’re going to find answers your competitors never will.

5. Betting on Depth Wins

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that doing the thing that actually works—even if it’s not trendy, even if it’s not “scalable,” even if it’s a little bit weird—pays off. The teams that go deep, that get specific, that aren’t afraid to ask the hard questions, are the ones who win. The rest will be stuck wondering why their “insights” never move the needle.

Depth means talking to the people who actually know, not just the people who are easiest to reach. It means asking the follow-up question, even when it’s awkward. It means being willing to hear that your product isn’t as important as you think it is, or that your brand has baggage you didn’t know about. It means being relentless about getting to the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.

6. What Will Actually Change?

• Research will be abstracted into every workflow. It won’t be a phase, it’ll be part of every decision. Marketers, PMs, sales, even engineers will expect to get real, buyer-backed insight on demand.
• The “research tax” will shrink. The friction of “I have a question, but it’s too much hassle to get an answer” will go away. If you’re not making it easy for your team to get real answers, you’re going to lose to someone who does.
• The value of real research will go up. As the market gets flooded with shallow, AI-generated “insight,” the teams who go deep—who actually talk to the right people, who ask the right questions, who aren’t afraid to get uncomfortable—will stand out even more.
• The best teams will be the ones who stay curious. The future belongs to the people who keep asking, “What am I missing?” and “Who else should I talk to?”

Final Thought

The future of B2B research isn’t about more data, or faster tools, or prettier dashboards. It’s about getting to the truth—however messy, inconvenient, or surprising it might be. If you can do that, you’ll always have an edge, no matter how the landscape shifts.

So: stay curious, go beyond the obvious, and don’t be afraid to ask the questions nobody else is asking. That’s where the real insight lives. And if you’re willing to do the work, to go deeper than everyone else, you’ll find that the future isn’t something that just happens to you—it’s something you can actually shape.