If You’re Not on the Day One List, You’re Already Out
There’s a useful piece of research from Harvard Business Review that quietly dismantles one of the most persistent myths in B2B growth.
The myth goes like this:
“If our sales team is good enough, we’ll win the work.”
The reality is far less comforting.
90% of Buyers Decide Before You Ever Speak to Them
HBR spoke to around 1,200 buyers of marketing, IT and technology services, software, cloud hosting, telecoms, industrial equipment, the lot.
The standout finding?
Up to 90% of buyers choose their vendor from a shortlist created on day one.
Not after months of demos.
Not after charming sales conversations.
Not after a brilliant pitch deck.
Day one.
If you’re not on that initial list, you’re essentially invisible.
Sales Don’t Save You If Marketing Never Introduced You
This research isn’t anti-sales, but it is brutally honest about its limits.
You can have:
The best sales team in the world
The slickest pitch
The smartest commercial strategy.
But if a buyer doesn’t know you before they formally start their buying process, you’re not even competing.
At best, you’re fighting for one of the remaining 10–20% of “off-list” decisions.
Those are not odds most agency owners should be comfortable with.
Buyers Don’t “Search”, They Confirm
Another uncomfortable truth: buyers don’t start with Google and an open mind.
They start with:
Prior experience
Colleague recommendations
Brands they already recognise
Agencies have been quietly watching.
Websites matter. Reputation matters. Visibility matters.
And not just at the point of demand, long before it.
This is why “we’ll fix marketing once we’ve got capacity” is such a dangerous belief.
Why This Matters So Much for Agencies
This research aligns perfectly with what we see when talking to people buying agency services.
Most buyers already have:
A mental shortlist
A preference stack
A sense of “who feels right”.
They’re not waiting for your new positioning statement.
They’re not discovering you because you finally rewrote your homepage.
They already know who they want to talk to.
Top-of-Funnel Isn’t Optional, It’s Existential
If eight out of ten buyers choose from a list they made before you ever showed up, the question isn’t:
“Do we need more sales activity?”
It’s:
“Why aren’t we on the list?”
Being on that list requires:
Consistent visibility
Clear positioning
Ongoing marketing effort
Patience and intent.
Not campaigns. Not hacks. Not short-term lead spikes.
Just showing up, before you’re needed.
The Big Takeaway
You don’t lose deals because your sales team underperformed.
You lose them because you were never considered.
And once the list is written, no amount of follow-ups will save you.