B
Evidence Grade B
Graded
under review
Safe to Cite
Current
60%
60% -- purchasing decision process completed independently before contacting sales rep for B2B customers (2026)
Attribution:
View source
Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:
·
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Source verified
Evidence graded
Value
60%
Unit
Percentage
Data Vintage
2026
Entity
Sample Size
1,900
Evidence Quality
B
Strong, reliable evidence
Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.
Single source - not yet corroborated
Score breakdown
Extraction
50
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
20
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Source
Marketing Leadership Council (Corporate Executive Board)
Primary
Tier C
https://billzipp.com/smart-salespeople/ ↗
Source Article
Death of the Salesman and the Rise of Smart Salespeople
Original Research
Marketing Leadership Council (Corporate Executive Board)
· Original study ↗
Methodology
Survey of 1,900 B2B customers conducted by the Marketing Leadership Council, a division of the Corporate Executive Board. Article notes the finding varied little by business or industry. No survey date given in the article; collection year used as vintage.
Methodology documented
Segmentation
Industrymarketing
Cite this stat
Plain Text
B2B customers: 60% purchasing decision process completed independently before contacting sales rep. Source: Marketing Leadership Council (Corporate Executive Board) (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/b2b-buyers-60-percent-purchase-journey
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<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/b2b-buyers-60-percent-purchase-journey" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>60%</strong> -- purchasing decision process completed independently before contacting sales rep for B2B customers<br><small>Source: Marketing Leadership Council (Corporate Executive Board) (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/b2b-buyers-60-percent-purchase-journey" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
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