Creating buyer personas is a standard step in most marketing playbooks. But in the world of B2B, it’s rarely as straightforward as it seems.

You’re not just selling to one person. You’re selling to a mix of researchers, buyers, gatekeepers, and end-users. Each of them has different needs, questions, and reasons to say no.

In this article, I’ll show you a practical approach to building B2B personas that actually reflect how decisions get made. You’ll learn:

• Why B2B is different from B2C
• Common mistakes to avoid
• A clear framework to map the key roles
• And how to get started without a big research budget

A recent client story: is this you?

I recently worked with a B2B company that provided HR services to international businesses—things like global mobility, immigration compliance, and cross-border tax support.

They wanted to see improvements in the business growth:

• Drive more leads
• Convert faster
• Build stronger trust in a competitive market

They had defined their target audience in form of four different personas: Head of HR. Head of Mobility. CFO. Head of Immigration.

All executive roles.

But when I started asking about the sales process—who actually gets involved, when, and how—we noticed something big:

These execs weren’t the ones visiting the website.

They weren’t researching providers.

They weren’t reading FAQs or downloading resources.

In some cases, they only showed up at the final approval stage—or not at all.

This was a pivotal moment for the marketing team: there were way more players involved than the typical “buyer-persona”. In this case, we had researchers (often HR or mobility coordinators), internal influencers, gatekeepers like IT or compliance, and end-users.

None of them were represented in the persona set.

Which meant they were also missing from the website structure, messaging, and content strategy.

No wonder conversion was lagging.

We took a step back and broadened the research scope. There was a big knowledge gap around the customers – and we wanted to fix it by exploring all those different persona roles.

In this article I will share with you what we’ve learned:

What Is a Persona (and What It’s Not)

I want to start by getting clear on what a persona really is—and where most teams go wrong.

In B2B, there are three types of personas you’ll typically hear about—and they each serve a different purpose:

ICP vs. Buyer Persona vs. User Persona

Term	Definition	Use Case
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)	Describes the company you’re targeting: industry, size, budget, region, growth stage.	Used by sales and marketing to identify high-fit accounts.
Buyer Persona	Describes the person with decision-making or budget authority. Includes their goals, objections, and decision drivers.	Used in messaging, sales enablement, and high-stakes conversations.
User Persona	Describes the person actually using the product or service. Focuses on their needs, tasks, pain points, and behaviors.	Used by UX, product, and onboarding teams.

But here’s the thing most teams miss:

In real B2B journeys, there’s also a researcher—the person who first discovers you, reads your site, downloads your whitepaper, and champions your tool internally.

That person is often not the buyer and not the user, either.

They’re the spark that gets the whole buying process going—and if you’re not speaking to them, you’re already behind.

Why B2B Personas Are Different From B2C

B2C is simple: one person sees a need, shops around, makes a decision, and hits “Buy.”

B2B? Not so much.

In B2B, you’re not selling to a person—you’re selling to a team. Sometimes a chaotic one.

One person does the research. Another joins a demo. Someone else approves the budget. Legal reviews the contract. IT checks for security risks. And finally, the end-user gets handed the tool and told, “Here you go!”

The B2B journeys are not linear -they are a loop.

Unlike B2C journeys that move in predictable stages, B2B journeys often look like this:

• Multiple stakeholders join at different times
• People loop back to previous stages
• Internal alignment takes longer than external vetting
• Most of the research happens before you’re even contacted

This makes it hard to “guide” someone through a funnel. Instead, your job is to show up with the right message, in the right format, at the right moment—for each role involved.

Common B2B Persona Mistakes

Most B2B teams have personas.

But they still struggle with content that misses the mark, deals that stall, or user adoption that flops.

Here are five traps I see again and again—and how to fix it.

Mistake #1: Only focusing on the buyer

The VP of HR or the CFO might hold the budget, but they’re often not the one visiting your website, reading your content, or kicking off the conversation.

What to do instead: Use a multi-persona framework (I’ll share one below) to map out all the people involved—from the researcher who Googles you to the gatekeeper who blocks you in legal. Tailor your content and messaging to support each one of them.

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Mistake #2: Not based on real user research

Many personas are built in a vacuum—based on internal assumptions or “what sales thinks.”

What to do instead: Start with real insights. Talk to customers. Interview sales and support teams. Review onboarding calls or support tickets. Even five well-chosen conversations can reveal pain points and patterns you won’t get from guessing.

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Mistake #3: Treating personas like static documents

You build them once, stick them in a slide deck, and never look at them again. No wonder they don’t drive action.

What to do instead: Make personas working tools. Use them in team discussions. Revisit them when creating content or planning campaigns. Ask, “How will this improve the experience for this specific role?”

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Mistake #4: Using fluffy templates

If your persona starts with “Meet John, 45, married with two kids,” stop right there. That’s not helpful.

What to do instead: Ditch the demographics. Focus on real-world behaviour. Ask “what do they need to do?”, “What’s frustrating them?”, “What would make them trust you?”

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Mistake #5: Forgetting the full journey

Too many personas stop at the point of sale. But the real work—and often the real risk—starts after the contract is signed.

What to do instead: Zoom out. Think end-to-end: from the first moment of awareness all the way to adoption, support, and renewal. A simple user journey map can help you spot gaps, handoffs, and missed opportunities. Further reading: How to create an effective B2B customer journey map

A Practical B2B Persona Framework

Here’s the simple framework I use with my clients to map the various roles that are typically involved in a B2B journey.

I usually set up a workshop where we go through the roles, adjust them (some aren’t relevant, some need to be added) and add more information.

Start With These 5 Core Roles

Role	What They Do	What They Need From You	What Might Hold Them Back
Researcher	Identifies the problem and explores options	Quick-to-scan content, credibility, clarity	Overwhelm, unclear value, too much jargon
User	Uses the product or service day-to-day	Ease of use, clear benefit to their workflow	Complexity, learning curve, fear of disruption
Buyer	Approves the budget and signs off	ROI, efficiency, strategic alignment	Perceived risk, unclear business case, long ramp-up
Gatekeeper (IT, Legal, Compliance)	Ensures solution is safe and compliant	Security docs, integration guides, smooth onboarding	Missing technical details, lack of control
Champion	Internally advocates for your solution	Confidence, success stories, internal buy-in support	Uncertainty, lack of details to convince others

This framework is intentionally light—because heavy persona docs often get ignored.

You can capture this in a spreadsheet, Miro board, or sticky notes on a wall. Start with what you know, then fill in the gaps with real research.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel for every one of them.

Start small: rough bullet points are better than polished fiction. The key is to map:

• What they care about
• What they fear
• What might stop them from saying yes

How to Get to These Personas

As I mentioned on one of the common traps:

Good personas are based on real research.

If you want to understand behavior, expectations, and decision-making—you need to observe and talk to actual people.

That means going beyond surveys or analytics. You won’t find emotional triggers or internal politics in a dashboard. You need conversations. And ideally, you need to see how people interact with your product, content, or sales process.

But… you don’t need to launch a month-long research project to get started.

If timelines are tight (and when aren’t they?), here’s how to build momentum:

Start with what existing data—but treat it like a hypothesis

We often overlook the amount of data we are already collecting. Areas you should think about:

• CRM notes or sales call recordings
• Onboarding and support tickets
• Live chat transcripts
• Customer reviews
• Competitor research

Talk to colleagues who are interacting with your customers

Sales, CS, support, and onboarding teams are goldmines for insight. Just remember: They’re seeing one slice of the journey.

• Talk to:
  • Sales: “Who joins calls? Who derails deals?”
  • Customer Success: “Who asks the most questions?”
  • Product: “Who complains the most?”

Observe your customers

Even 3–5 interviews can dramatically change your perspective.

Ask open-ended questions like:

• “Can you walk me through how you first started looking for a solution?”
• “What were you unsure or hesitant about?”
• “Who else got involved in making the final decision?”
• “What would have made your experience easier?”

Whenever possible, watch how people interact with your materials, platform, or onboarding. Observation gives you what interviews can’t: real behavior.

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The takeaway: You don’t need to do everything at once. But if your personas aren’t based on real user insight, they’re just guesswork with a name and a headshot.

Why This Is Important (The Real Cost of Getting It Wrong

Personas got a real bad reputation – it takes effort and tehy are mostly forgotten right after tehy have been created. So why bother?

Because if you don’t take the time and effort to understand your customers, it comes with a real cost.

1. Missed Opportunities

If you’re only targeting the final buyer, you’re ignoring the person who does the research.

You’re missing the questions the legal team has.

You’re overlooking the objections from IT.

Every gap = one more chance to lose the deal.

2. Slower Sales Cycles

When you don’t address the right roles at the right time, your sales team has to fill in the blanks.

That means more calls. More objections. More internal delays.

Good personas help you preempt resistance and speed up decision-making.

3. Lower Conversion

Your website doesn’t convert because it’s not speaking to the person actually reading it.

They’re looking for proof, reassurance, clarity—and instead, they get messaging meant for a VP who hasn’t even joined the conversation yet.

4. Poor Adoption (and Churn Risk)

You may win the sale… but if the users feel confused, unsupported, or disconnected, you’ll lose the renewal.

Personas don’t just help you sell.

They help you design a better post-sale experience.

5. It Helps the Whole Org Think Smarter

Real personas—rooted in actual behavior and needs—help marketing, sales, product, and service teams speak the same language.

They align your internal efforts around real people, not generic job titles.

Over to You (One Tangible Action)

You don’t need to rebuild your entire strategy overnight. But if your personas don’t reflect the full cast of people involved in a B2B decision, now’s the time to fix that.

Here’s one small action you can take today:

Look at your last 3 closed deals (won or lost)

Ask yourself:

• Who kicked off the search?
• Who joined the conversations later?
• Who raised objections?
• Who signed off?
• Who ended up using the product or service?

You’ll quickly see it wasn’t just one persona—it was a group.

And that group deserves to be understood.

Want a head start?

Want a head start? Download my free B2B Persona & Journey Map Starter Kit—a simple Google Sheet to help you map the real roles, needs, and blockers in your sales process.

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And if your team is tired of guessing and ready for clarity, let’s talk. I help B2B organizations build research-backed personas that actually drive conversions.