Brand Trust in Software Buyer Journeys

In the early years of building Software Finder, we lost a $100,000 deal. It was a painful moment. On paper, we had the right offering. Our platform was competitive, even more affordable, and seemed perfectly aligned with their needs. We should have won. But we didn't. The feedback was stark: "You're saying the right things, but we don't see third-party validation. Working with a newer company like yours feels too risky." That was the moment I realised: we lost on trust. We were focused on what we said about ourselves. We forgot what the market truly needs to see to believe. They liked our price, even our website, but our glaring absence on social media - no human faces, no one else talking about us - made us a silent risk. Here’s what I learned (and what every B2B SaaS founder should know): 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮. Social proof, case studies, testimonials, certifications, these aren't just "nice-to-haves." For enterprise deals, they are deal-breakers. 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 We were active, but we never showed the people behind the work. No faces. No voices. And buyers notice that void. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 It’s built in your content, your customers' words, your consistent visibility in the market and yes, even in how active your team is online. This was an epiphany for Software Finder. It forced us to rebuild our "trust layer" not just for our brand and our offering, but to understand deeply how we could help the vendors on our platform build theirs. Because no matter what you're offering: software, services, or a connection between the two - if trust isn’t visible, it simply doesn’t exist. If you’re early-stage and chasing big deals: - Get testimonials early. - Put your team front and center. - Make trust part of your strategy from day one. Build trust before you pitch. Build it where your buyers already are. And build it in a way they don't need to ask for it.

🔥 Buyer journey reality check: By the time a buyer reaches out or fills in your form, they’ve already done their homework. They’ve read your content, compared you to competitors, and scrolled through reviews and case studies. So, in many cases, they’ll know more about your brand and product than your Sales reps could tell them. 😜 That’s why the real job of marketing is NOT lead capture (although it's important you do that well), but these two things instead: ✅ Create brand memory and trust - so they think of you at the right time ✅ Accelerate their self-education - and make it easy to buy when they’re ready Here’s how: 1. Make information easy to find 👉🏽 no gates, no forms 2. Be transparent about your offerings 👉🏽 e.g. don't hide your pricing info 3. Lean on use cases and social proof 👉🏽 customer stories, testimonials, case studies, TCO tools 4. Meet buyers where they are 👉🏽 create on-platform experiences instead of driving traffic to your sites (this is zero-click marketing - even if you lose attribution data) 5. Smooth the path to purchase 👉🏽 when they’re ready, how easy is it for them to buy or get in touch with a human? In short, the brands that win aren’t the ones spending the most or shouting the loudest, but the ones that build memory and make buying easy...

People do not buy when they see your ad. They buy when your brand finally makes sense to them. And that happens only after a long, messy buyer journey that marketers actively study and adapt to and this is how it actually looks from a marketer’s eye: Someone has a problem. They search it on Google at 11pm. They read a few blogs, save a YouTube video for “later,” and then forget about it for a week. Days later, the problem shows up again. They see a quick 14-second Reel explaining the same issue. They come across a LinkedIn post from a peer sharing their struggle. Your employee comments on that post, suddenly your brand feels human, not robotic. They notice your brand again in someone’s carousel. A colleague casually mentions your company during a meeting. Now curiosity kicks in. They google your brand name. They check reviews. They visit your website. They watch your YouTube demo. They compare a few vendors because “procurement needs options.” They ask for recommendations on WhatsApp, Slack, or their alumni group. And finally, they fill out your demo form. Not to decide, but to validate the decision they already made long before. And data proves it: 📌 81% of buyers already have a preferred vendor when they reach out (6sense) 📌 85% already know what they want before talking to sales (6sense) 📌 Buyers spend only 17% of the journey talking to sales, split across all vendors (Gartner Research Board) 📌 Most buyers are 70% through their journey before engaging a company (6sense) Means? When someone hits “Book a demo,” they are not discovering you, they are confirming a decision made long ago. It is not the funnel that closes deals. It is your brand on social media, content, people, reviews, and the trust built over time. Real marketing is not one touch, it is countless invisible moments stacking into trust. The real battle for the brands is to make those silent reels, late-night searches, casual comments, repeated impressions, more engaging and relatable. If you are not present there, you won’t get shortlisted. Invest in mindshare. People buy when their brain already trusts you. P.S., Think like a buyer, what is the step you personally never skip before purchasing?

Most B2B companies market like they’re selling to robots. - They focus on ROI, efficiency, and cost savings. - They assume buyers are making purely rational decisions. - They believe data wins deals. But here’s the truth: B2B buyers are just as emotional as B2C buyers. They don’t buy the best solution. They buy the one that gets them, is most familiar and that they like best. Every B2B purchase carries risk: career risk, financial risk, reputation risk. If a software implementation fails, someone’s job is on the line. If a vendor overpromises and underdelivers, trust is broken. So how do buyers mitigate that risk? → They choose brands they trust. → They go with the familiar over the unknown. → They buy from the companies that own the conversation in their space. Emotion wins over logic in B2B. • Salesforce isn’t the cheapest CRM. But it’s the category king. • HubSpot made inbound marketing feel like the future, and now thousands of companies trust them over bigger competitors. These brands win because they understand: ✅ Trust > Features ✅ Familiarity > Price ✅ Storytelling > Specs So how can you build brand credibility? 1. Become the go-to voice Post insights. Share expertise. Make sure your audience sees you as an industry leader before they ever need your product. 2. Tell the best stories Case studies, founder journeys, customer wins…people connect with narratives, not corporate jargon. 3. Show up consistently You can’t build trust if people barely hear from you. Stay visible, be helpful, and keep reinforcing what your brand stands for. B2B buyers don’t buy products. They buy certainty. They buy confidence. They buy from brands they already trust. Are you giving them a reason to trust you?

The latest Edelman Brand Trust report confirms something I've been thinking about for a while. Trust and relevance have become two of the biggest drivers of revenue growth but I feel the report stops one level too soon. Most of the conversation is still happening at the brand level. In B2B, that's half the story. When someone signs a 6 or 7 figure contract, they're not buying software or a service. They're making a decision they'll have to defend. If it fails, their credibility is on the line as much as the vendor's. Trust in B2B is rarely transferred from a logo to a person or through a contract. It's transferred from one person to another. This is why I believe many employee advocacy programs today are solving yesterday's problem. They're designed to distribute brand content vs elevate expert voices. The Edelman research suggests buyers want something different. They want perspectives from people who understand their world. People whose experience helps them make better decisions. To do that, employees need the confidence and skills to show up. For CMOs, this changes the conversation. Employee influence isn't another marketing campaign scheduled in quarterly cycles measuring volume based metrics e.g. engagements and clicks. Sales, product, customer success, HR and executives all shape the trust buyers and candidates experience. If trust has become a commercial growth asset, employee influence must become a company-wide capability. That's the conclusion I took from Edelman's research. Not that trust has become more important (we all know that) but that in B2B, growth increasingly depends on making your trusted people impossible to ignore.

The slide no one wanted… except the buyer I was reminded yesterday why I’ve always used a risk register in buyer presentations Especially early in my sales career, when I was selling high-value, complex, expensive solutions, I knew I had one job above all else: Build trust with the buyer and build it fast The risk register became my shortcut Back in the 90s, I worked for a company where the sales team was tasked with building what we’d now call a First Meeting Excellence (FME) deck A standardised presentation for a first meeting, every salesperson would use I insisted we include a risk register slide No one else wanted it They argued it was negative That it would scare buyers That it gave the competition ammunition I found that resistance both strange… and fascinating I won the argument, the slide went into the deck, and then something interesting happened Most of the sales team simply left it out Or they “ran out of time.” Or somehow never quite made it to that slide But in my presentations, it was always the slide buyers leaned into You could see it physically They’d move forward in their chairs They’d stop listening politely and start taking notes When I got to that slide, I’d always say something like: “It doesn’t matter which system you choose, ours or someone else’s, these are the risks you will face And if another supplier tells you otherwise, they’re either naïve… or lying.” While other salespeople were busy arguing about red buttons versus blue buttons, I was shifting the conversation From product selection to implementation reality And that’s when something subtle but powerful happened in the buyer’s mind They weren’t just evaluating the software anymore They were thinking: “If their salespeople understand this much about complex implementations, their delivery team must be exceptional.” Conclusion The irony is that the very slide salespeople feared was the one buyers trusted the most A risk register doesn’t weaken your position, it strengthens it It shows confidence It shows maturity And most importantly, it shows you understand the whole journey, not just the sale Trust isn’t built by pretending risk doesn’t exist It’s built by being the first person in the room willing to talk about it #Sales #Marketing #Leadership #SocialSelling #Speaker

Everyone talks about sales. Very few talk about what happens after. But here’s the truth most developers learn late: Every stage after booking is still sales. After-sales discipline isn’t a support function. It’s brand-building in real time. Because a buyer doesn’t judge you only at launch. They judge you when: • documentation is explained without confusion • bank coordination happens without panic • first disbursement goes through accurately • onboarding feels guided, not rushed • possession is delivered without friction Every interaction is a silent sales pitch. This is where real brands are created. Projects that ignore after-sales discipline may sell units once. Projects that respect it get repeat buyers, referrals, and reputation. Clients don’t want perfection. They want clarity, response, and resolution. The moment a buyer feels unheard, delayed, or misled sales stops, even if the agreement is signed. After-sales isn’t the end of the journey. It’s where trust either compounds… or collapses. And developers who understand this don’t need to chase customers. Customers come looking for them.

The new B2B sales funnel starts with your team’s LinkedIn posts (and most companies haven’t even noticed the shift). Buyers aren’t waiting for your outbound cadence. They’re scrolling. Listening. Lurking. Before they ever visit your website… Before they request a demo… Before they read your case studies… They’re on LinkedIn. → They’re seeing what your execs post (or don’t). → They’re reading what your customers say (good or bad). → They’re paying attention to the comments, the tags, the silence. Here’s what the data says: • LinkedIn is now the #3 most trusted research channel for enterprise buyers - behind only Google and YouTube. • It ranks above G2, TrustRadius, and most vendor websites. • 56% of buyers talk to a product user before making a decision - yet vendors assume it’s only 12–34%. That’s not a small gap. ↳ That’s a total disconnect. I remember when we first started MAIA Digital, I was surprised by how many potential clients were already following my co-founder Shay Thieberg and me on LinkedIn. They knew our thoughts on the platform, saw our engagement, and that trust was already half-built before we even spoke. The modern buyer journey is peer-led, platform-powered, and *trust*-first. So if your team isn’t showing up visibly and consistently on LinkedIn, you’re not just missing reach. ↳ You’re missing relevance. Here’s how we help brands fix that at MAIA Digital - LinkedIn™ Agency: Make your team visible. → Let your experts lead. Real voices build real trust. Join the conversation. → Don’t just post - engage. Answer questions. Be helpful, not salesy. Share social proof. → Highlight customer wins. Share testimonials. Let your users speak for you. Stay consistent. → Trust isn’t built in a single post - it’s built in a rhythm. Trust grows over time. Track the right signals. → Skip the vanity metrics. Look for conversation, not just clicks. LinkedIn isn’t a resume. It’s a growth engine. And the companies winning today are the ones shaping the narrative - one post, one comment, one connection at a time. You are already being Googled. But you are also being LinkedIn’d. How do you look?

We ran a study to test how often LLMs recommend brands when users aren’t explicitly shopping. Across 180 prompts and more than 5,000 responses, Cate Dombrowski looked at queries across the customer journey. Brand mentions increase as queries move closer to purchase intent, but they don’t begin there. Even for broad, informational questions, brands appeared in roughly one out of five responses. This suggests LLMs act less like neutral reference tools and more like category interpreters. When explaining problems or approaches, they often ground abstractions in familiar, widely recognized examples. Brands become shorthand for what’s standard or proven, whether or not the user asked for recommendations. The effect varies by industry and model. B2B SaaS shows higher rates of brand surfacing than professional services, and different LLMs introduce brands at different points. There is no single “AI search” behavior. The implication isn’t that brands should chase LLM mentions directly. It’s that brand salience now emerges earlier in the journey, embedded in how problems and categories are explained, well before explicit buying intent.

Your B2B buyer has already decided. Before you knew they existed. That's not a hypothesis. It's the data. From 6Sense research on B2B buying behavior: → 80% of buyers know their shortlist on DAY 1 of their buying journey → 90% ultimately buy from that shortlist — with almost no deviation → 95% of the buying group had prior experience with shortlisted vendors before the process began → And across every purchase type — from new capabilities to renewals — 73-85% of buyers personally knew a seller from a shortlisted vendor before evaluating them Think of the impact of these stats. The RFP isn't the decision. It's simply the paperwork. Your SDR isn't making the introduction. If they're picking up the phone, they likely already know you. The decision was made in a Slack community, at an industry event, over a podcast recommendation from a trusted peer, or in a one-on-one conversation you weren't in the room for. And here's where it gets harder for most B2B SaaS leaders: Your attribution software is lying to you. Refine Labs ran a 12-month study comparing software-based vs. self-reported attribution across 620 conversions. The gap was staggering: Software-based said 78% of conversions came from web search. Buyers said web search drove only 12%. Self-reported? 85% came from dark social — peer recommendations, LinkedIn, podcasts, communities. Channels your CRM will never see. And for Closed/Won revenue? 98% traced back to dark social sources. The channels that drive your revenue are likely invisible to your dashboards. This is is a challenge scaling B2B SaaS companies are running headfirst into: They're optimizing for what they can measure — paid search, demo requests, MQL volume — while their buyers are making shortlist decisions based on reputation, relationships, and peer trust. You can't ABM your way into a shortlist you're not already on. So what actually gets you on the shortlist? Not better SEO. Not another nurture sequence. It's brand presence and content in the communities and events where your buyers learn and trust. It's your sellers being known before the buyer process starts. It's creating the kind of thought leadership that makes a peer say "you should talk to them" — unprompted, untracked, and more powerful than any campaign you'll run this quarter. The buyers aren't broken. A GTM model built for a different era is. Winners aren't outrunning the sales cycle. They opted out of it. They're already on the list. Meaning most GTM teams are optimizing for a buyer that no longer exists. Want to discuss your GTM strategy? Ping me. #GTM #B2BSaaS #DemandGeneration #BuyerBehavior #RevenueGrowth #CMO #MarketingStrategy Clark Growth Partners