Economic buyer
How to spot them: Owns the budget and can say yes when others say no. Often not the most senior person you have met.
What they need: The business case: cost of doing nothing, outcome, risk.
Playbook · Stakeholder mapping
Stakeholder mapping for B2B deals
Know who decides, who pays, who uses and who can block, before the deal stalls. With a free template.
Keep satisfiedManage closelyMonitorKeep informedCFCFOEconomic buyerOMOps leadChampionITITEvaluatorPRProcurementUSUsers
- Time
- 30 minutes per deal, then 5 minutes a week
- Tools
- Your CRM, the template, the stakeholder map skill
- You get
- Deals that survive one person leaving
What is stakeholder mapping in B2B sales?
Stakeholder mapping means listing everyone who influences a decision, then rating their power and interest, so you know whom to involve and how. In B2B sales the stakes are high: Forrester’s 2026 research counts about 13 internal stakeholders and 9 outside influencers in a typical purchase. A deal that depends on one friendly contact is one job change away from "no decision".
Who
Every role covered
Economic buyer, champion, evaluators, users, blockers, procurement.
How much
Power and interest
Where each person sits on the grid decides how closely you work with them.
What next
One step per gap
An introduction, a meeting or material, with an owner and a date.
The roles in a buying group
Titles do not tell you roles. Give each person the role they actually play, using Miller Heiman’s buying roles extended with what newer research found.
Champion
How to spot them: Wants the change, has influence, and sells for you when you are not in the room. Test it: have they shared something they did not have to?
What they need: Material to win the internal argument, and credit for the result.
Mobiliser
How to spot them: Pushes the group towards a decision. Not always the friendliest contact (The Challenger Customer).
What they need: An insight that reframes the problem, and a clear path to agreement.
Evaluator
How to spot them: Compares options: IT, security, operations, finance.
What they need: Specifics: integrations, security answers, total cost.
User
How to spot them: Lives with the result every day.
What they need: Proof it makes their work easier, not harder.
Blocker
How to spot them: Loses something if this goes ahead: budget, control, a project of their own.
What they need: To be heard early. Ignoring them is how deals die late.
Procurement and legal
How to spot them: Decision makers in 53 percent of buying cycles, per Forrester (2026).
What they need: Terms, security, references, early in the process.
Outside influencer
How to spot them: Consultant, partner or peer they trust. Forrester counts about nine external influencers per purchase.
What they need: Something they can verify and repeat.
The power and interest grid
Mendelow’s grid turns the list into priorities. Power is the ability to approve or stop the purchase; interest is how much the outcome affects them.
Keep satisfiedHigh power, low interest. IT, finance, a senior sponsor. Short, specific updates; no surprises.
Manage closelyHigh power, high interest. Economic buyer, champion. Regular contact, shared plan, their words in the proposal.
MonitorLow power, low interest. Watch for changes in role or stance.
Keep informedLow power, high interest. Users, team leads. Proof it helps their day; they influence the people above them.
Free stakeholder map template
One row per person. The example below is a made-up deal with Harbor Foods; the downloadable template has the same columns, ready for your own deals.
| Person | Title | Role | Power | Interest | Stance | Met | Evidence | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mira Jansen | CFO | Economic buyer | High | High | Neutral | No | Asked for the business case in email, 3 Oct | Champion to introduce, with a one-page case |
| Tom Peeters | Head of Operations | Champion | Medium | High | Supporter | Yes | Shared the internal budget timeline, 1 Oct | Prepare him for the CFO meeting |
| Lena Maes | IT Manager | Evaluator | High | Low | Unknown | Yes | Joined the demo, no questions | Send the security summary, ask for 20 minutes |
| Procurement | n/a | Procurement | Medium | Low | Unknown | No | None | Ask Tom when procurement joins |
Download the template (CSV)Opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers. Free, no sign-up.
Step by step
- List everyone you know of.From the CRM, emails, meeting invites and call notes. Include people mentioned but not met.
CRM, email - Give each person a role.Economic buyer, champion, evaluator, user, blocker, procurement, outside influencer. Then write down which roles have nobody yet.
Template - Rate power and interest.High, medium or low for each. Power is the ability to approve or stop; interest is how much the outcome affects them.
Template - Mark stance with evidence.Supporter, neutral, sceptic or unknown, with the quote or event behind it. No evidence means unknown.
Call notes - Place them on the grid.Manage closely: high power, high interest. Keep satisfied: high power, low interest. Keep informed and monitor: the rest.
Grid - Find the gaps.Economic buyer not met, no evaluator yet in a deal heading to contract, a powerful sceptic with no plan, or one contact only.
Template - One next step per gap.With owner and date. The best route to a new person is usually an introduction from your champion, with a reason that helps them.
CRM tasks - Keep it in the CRM.Set the buying role on each contact in HubSpot (Buying role, hs_buying_role) so the map survives hand-offs, and review it in every deal review.
HubSpot
- Deal in HubSpotContacts, emails, meetings, notes
- Stakeholder map skillRoles, power, stance, gaps
- You approveBuying roles and next steps
- CRM updatedhs_buying_role on each contact
The free stakeholder map skill does steps 1 to 6 from your CRM and proposes step 7 and 8 for your approval.
Multithreading without annoying anyone
Reaching more people only helps if each conversation is useful to that person. Ask your champion for the introduction, and give them a reason that makes them look good.
Tom, the business case will land better if Mira hears the cost of waiting from us directly, with your numbers. Would a 20-minute call next week work, with you leading? I can send her a one-page summary first, so it costs her no prep.
Lena, Tom mentioned security review is the next step. I attached our one-page security summary and the data flow. Which two questions usually decide this for your team? I can answer those first.
What goes wrong
- Confusing friendly with powerful. The person who replies fastest is often not the one who decides.
- Guessing stance. No evidence means "unknown", not "supporter".
- Mapping once. People change jobs and minds. Review the map in every deal review.
- Going around the champion. Cold-emailing their boss can cost you the champion.
- Procurement as a surprise. Ask early when procurement and legal join, and what they need.
- Ten contacts from one team. Many names from the same function is still single-threaded.
Questions people ask
How often should you update a stakeholder map?
Build it once per deal, in about 30 minutes, then spend about 5 minutes a week on it while the deal is open. Update it straight away when someone new joins a call, a contact changes jobs, or the deal moves to a new stage. A map that is a month old misses the person who can block the deal.
What is the difference between stakeholder analysis and stakeholder mapping?
Stakeholder analysis is the thinking: what each person needs, how much power they have and where they stand. Stakeholder mapping is the picture that results, usually a power and interest grid or a table like the template on this page.
What is a power interest grid?
A two by two grid (Mendelow’s matrix) with power on one axis and interest on the other. High power and high interest: manage closely. High power and low interest: keep satisfied. Low power and high interest: keep informed. Low on both: monitor.
How many people are involved in a B2B purchase?
Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2026 reports about 13 internal stakeholders and 9 external influencers in a typical purchase, more for complex ones. Purchases that include generative AI tend to involve larger groups.
What is multithreading in sales?
Building real relationships with several people in the buying group instead of relying on one contact. A single-threaded deal stalls or dies when that one person changes jobs, loses interest or cannot convince the others.
Related
Sources: Forrester, The State of Business Buying 2026; Miller and Heiman, Strategic Selling; Mendelow’s power and interest grid; Adamson, Dixon, Spenner and Toman, The Challenger Customer.