The short version.
A buying group can be written down in seven roles: economic buyer, champion, user, influencer, blocker, indifferent and unknown. This guide says how to recognise each role at a company of 5 to 200 people, what each person cares about, and in which order to approach them.
Our order runs from the bottom up. In a contact plan, users hear first and buyers last. Blockers are never written to. There is a serious argument for the opposite order, and vendor data points both ways, so we set it out in full.
The research behind the seven roles, and what our own maps show, is in Mapping the buying group. This guide is its practical companion.
What changes between 5 and 200 people.
The European Union counts a company with fewer than 50 staff as small, and one with fewer than 250 as medium-sized.[1] Fewer people means fewer people to hold the roles. In our reading:
- 01Up to about 20 people. The owner usually holds the budget, uses the product and argues for it. One person holds three roles, and there is no bottom to start from.
- 02About 20 to 50. A managing director signs, and a team lead or department head runs the work. The roles begin to split.
- 03About 50 to 200. A finance lead or a second director often joins the decision, and someone owns the tool your product would replace. That person is the likeliest blocker.
The seven roles, one by one.
A role describes a person's part in this one purchase. The same person can hold a different role for a different product.
| Role | How to recognise them | What they care about |
|---|---|---|
| Economic buyer | Signs for the spending. The owner or managing director; from about 100 people, often a finance lead as well. | What the purchase does for the company's goals, how soon it delivers value, and who will own it. Gong, a vendor, reports that decision-makers ask these three questions.[4] |
| Champion | Gains enough from the purchase to argue for it, and is listened to. Often the department head who took on a new target or a new team. MEDDICC, which sells sales training, defines a champion as a person with power, influence and credibility inside the company.[2] | A case they can repeat in their own words to the person who signs. |
| User | Would work with the product every day: the planner, the recruiter, the operations manager. Often named in a vacancy or on the team page. | Whether their week gets easier. Details more than strategy. |
| Influencer | Shapes the choice without holding the budget: an outside adviser, the accountant, a senior specialist whose opinion counts. | Whether the product meets the requirements they set. |
| Blocker | Can stop the purchase: the owner of the tool that would be replaced, a security or legal lead, procurement at the larger end. | Stability, and the risk of change. |
| Indifferent | Senior enough to be in the room, but the purchase touches neither their budget nor their work. | Little, for this purchase. |
| Unknown | Found in a source that does not say what they would do in this purchase. | Not known yet. Find out, or leave them out. |
A friendly contact is not yet a champion. The firm behind The Challenger Customer describes a profile it calls the Friend:
“Though this person always takes your call, they rarely buy.”
A user who is glad to talk becomes a champion only when they can move the people around them.
Who to speak to first, and why.
In a contact plan, users hear first and buyers last. Blockers are never written to. Champions and influencers come in the middle, and so do the people marked indifferent or unknown when there is a way to reach them. A contact plan works in waves, one new person a day, and opens the next wave after a reply or five days of silence.
- 01The user can tell you whether the problem is real. Their answer tests your reason before you spend the buyer's attention.
- 02The person who signs hears last. By then, someone inside may already know your name. Gong analysed more than a million sales cycles with executives. It reports win rates roughly 6% lower when an evaluation starts with an executive, and 5% higher when executives join around the third touchpoint.[5] Those are larger deals than most companies of 5 to 200 people make, so read them as an indication.
- 03The reason stays the same for everyone. Only the angle changes per person, so the people in one company hear one story.
- 04Blockers are never written to. The same firm describes the Blocker as someone who “believes stability is the goal”.[3] A message to the owner of the tool you would replace invites them to defend it before anyone has argued for the change.
Take a technical installation company of 60 people that has just advertised for two planners. The planning lead is the user and hears first. The operations director, who owns the growth target, is the champion and comes next. The managing director signs and hears last. The office manager who chose the current planning tool is the blocker and is not written to. Not a client result. The company and the details are invented.
For Dutch readers: the DMU.
In Dutch marketing teaching the buying group is called the DMU, the decision making unit, or the koopcentrum. WikiMarketing, a Dutch course by Ton Bil and Frans van Rooij built on the NIMA-A teaching method, lists six roles.[6] They map onto the seven roles like this.
| DMU role | What it means | Closest of the seven |
|---|---|---|
| Initiatiefnemer | Notices the need and sets the purchase in motion. | Often the champion. The need they notice is often your reason to write. |
| Gebruiker | Influences the decision through actual use. | User. |
| Beïnvloeder | A non-user whose opinion counts, for example on the requirements. | Influencer. |
| Beslisser | Has the formal or informal authority to approve. | Economic buyer. |
| Koper | Chooses the supplier and negotiates. | At a small company, the economic buyer. At the larger end, procurement, which can be a blocker. |
| Gatekeeper (poortwachter) | Controls the flow of information to deciders and users. | No direct match. A gatekeeper who can stop the purchase is a blocker; one who only filters is not. |
Watch the word buyer. In the DMU the koper negotiates the purchase. The economic buyer is the person who signs for the money, which is the beslisser.
Two of the seven have no DMU counterpart. Indifferent and unknown describe what the seller knows, not a part in the purchase. They exist so that nobody is given a role on a guess.
What speaks against this.
The strongest case against our order is that it can take too long to reach the person who decides. Gong looked at 9,056 opportunities and reports that deals which never involve a decision-maker, meaning a vice-president, a C-level executive or a managing director, are 80% less likely to close.[4] Starting at the bottom is only safe if the plan reaches the top. The same study found win rates highest when the decision-maker approves rather than evaluates, which fits hearing last.
The common argument for starting at the top is that a message passed down by the director carries weight that a message from outside does not. At a company of 15 people, writing to a planner before the owner can read as going around the owner. Our order does not answer that well. At the smallest companies, writing to the owner yourself may serve you better.
The people easiest to reach are not always the ones who move a purchase. The Challenger firm also describes a Guide, who passes on information but cannot make change happen.[3] A user who answers first may be a Friend or a Guide.
Never writing to a blocker has a cost too. In larger companies procurement often takes part in the decision itself; the research piece gives the figure.
The size bands and the DMU mapping are our reading, not a measurement. Descriptions of the DMU also differ: the research piece gives the five roles usually credited to Webster and Wind, and the Dutch course lists six.
This guide carries no measurements of ours. We read each outside source on 30 September 2026. The vendor figures come from companies that sell sales software or training; we did not see their data. The contact plan order is described as SYNC applies it today.
- [1]European Commission. SME definition (Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC). Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.read in the original
- [2]MEDDICC. What is MEDDICC?vendor researcha company that sells sales training
- [3]Adamson, B., Dixon, M., Spenner, P. & Toman, N. (2015). The Challenger Customer. Portfolio/Penguin.read in the originala page of the firm behind the book, not the book itself; 700 customer stakeholders
- [4]Reed, D. (2020, updated 2026). Selling to decision makers and how it impacts win rates. Gong.vendor research9,056 opportunities; Gong sells sales software
- [5]Morgese, D. (13 February 2026). When (and how) to multi-thread when selling to executives. Gong.vendor researchmore than a million sales cycles with executives; mid-market and larger deals
- [6]Bil, T. & Van Rooij, F. Rollen in het koopproces. WikiMarketing, online marketingcursus, Businessmarketing 23.4.read in the originalin Dutch; built on the NIMA-A teaching method