One Site, Five Buyers
A maritime security company is being evaluated for a major vessel protection contract. The evaluation involves:
- The vessel owner who cares about asset protection and insurance implications
- The fleet operations manager who cares about integration with existing protocols
- The insurance underwriter who needs to assess risk reduction
- The legal counsel who needs to evaluate liability and compliance
- The CFO who needs to justify the investment against alternatives
Five stakeholders. Five different sets of concerns. Five different definitions of what "good" looks like.
The company's website speaks to one of them — usually the operations manager, sometimes the owner. The other three navigate the site looking for information that isn't there, forming impressions from content that wasn't designed for them.
This is the buyer committee problem.
Why It Matters Now
The buyer committee isn't new, but its digital behavior is. Research consistently shows that B2B buyers complete 60-70% of their evaluation before contacting a vendor. They're reviewing your website, your materials, your case studies — and forming opinions — before you ever get a chance to tailor a conversation.
In that pre-contact evaluation phase, every stakeholder on the committee is visiting the same website. The operations manager finds what they need. The CFO doesn't. The legal counsel doesn't. The underwriter doesn't.
You've won one vote and lost four before the first meeting.
The Hidden Cost
The buyer committee problem doesn't show up as "we lost the deal." It shows up as:
Longer sales cycles. When committee members can't self-serve the information relevant to their role, they create internal friction. The champion who likes you has to answer questions from colleagues who couldn't find answers on your site. Every unanswered question adds time.
"We need more information" requests. This is the polite version of "your website didn't address my concerns." Every follow-up request that could have been answered by your site is a signal that your digital presence isn't doing its job.
Lost deals with no diagnosis. The most damaging outcome: a committee member quietly vetoes you based on something they didn't find. The operations manager champions your proposal. Legal reviews your site, finds nothing about compliance or liability, and raises a concern in the internal meeting. You never know it happened.
Mapping the Committee
For each of the industries we serve, the buyer committee has predictable roles. Mapping them isn't guesswork — it's a structured exercise.
Maritime Security
- Asset Owner/Principal: Protection quality, brand reputation, discretion
- Fleet/Operations Manager: Integration, protocols, communication
- Insurance/Underwriter: Risk reduction metrics, compliance certifications
- Legal Counsel: Liability frameworks, regulatory compliance, contracts
- CFO/Finance: Cost justification, ROI, comparison to alternatives
Private Aviation
- Aircraft Owner: Safety, service quality, facility standards
- Chief Pilot/Aviation Director: Operational capability, regulatory compliance (Part 91/135)
- Family Office/Advisor: Cost management, asset protection, reporting
- Insurance: Risk assessment, safety record, facility security
- Legal: Regulatory compliance, liability, contractual terms
Defense & Security
- Program Manager: Technical capability, past performance, scalability
- Contracting Officer: Compliance, pricing structure, certifications
- Technical Evaluator: Architecture, methodology, security clearances
- End User Representative: Usability, training requirements, deployment timeline
- Finance/Budget Authority: Cost justification, lifecycle costs, budget fit
The Fix: Content Architecture for Committees
Solving the buyer committee problem isn't about creating five separate websites. It's about building a content architecture that serves multiple audiences through a single, coherent experience.
Role-aware navigation. Subtle pathways that help different stakeholders find relevant content without fragmenting the site. This can be as simple as a "For Technical Teams" or "For Decision Makers" secondary navigation — or as sophisticated as intelligent content recommendations based on browsing behavior.
Depth layers. Surface-level content for the overview buyer. Detailed technical content for the evaluator. Financial justification content for the CFO. Each layer exists within the same page structure, progressively revealed rather than hidden behind separate sections.
Anticipatory content. For each committee role, identify the three questions they'll ask and answer them proactively. The legal counsel wants to know about compliance — put it where they'll look. The CFO wants ROI evidence — make it findable without requiring a sales conversation.
Internal forwarding tools. Make it easy for your champion to share specific content with specific committee members. "Send this to your CFO" links, role-specific one-pagers, and executive summary formats all reduce the friction of internal selling.
The Audit
Pull up your website and answer these questions for each role on your typical buying committee:
- Can this person find content specifically relevant to their concerns within 30 seconds?
- Does any content on the site directly address their evaluation criteria?
- Could your champion forward a specific page to this person that would advance the conversation?
If the answer to any of these is "no" for any committee role, that role is evaluating you with no support from your digital presence. They're forming impressions from content that wasn't designed for them — and those impressions are influencing the decision.