Is the Market Always Buying? 3 Frameworks to Win Both In-Market and Out-of-Market B2B Buyers

Business professionals engaging in a successful B2B meeting, sealing the deal with a handshake amidst teamwork and discussion.

Picture this: In any given B2B market, 5% of buyers are actively "in-market"—researching solutions, engaging vendors, and poised to spend within 90 days—while the remaining 95% are "out-of-market," simmering in latent stages, triggered only by events like leadership changes or budget shifts or dissatisfaction with legacy systems.

B2B buying is no longer a straightforward funnel. Today’s buyers navigate a labyrinth of stakeholders, complex evaluations, and independent research, often spending only 17% of their time engaging sellers amid buying cycles that average nearly a year or more. Yet from a seller’s perspective, this is not dormancy—it’s an always-on market where decisions simmer beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to burst into action.

In-Market vs. Out-of-Market B2B Buyers: Key Differences

B2B buyers split into two distinct groups: in-market (actively evaluating and ready to purchase within 90-180 days, ~5-7% of accounts) and out-of-market (latent, influenced by brand but not actively buying, ~93-95%). In-market buyers drive immediate revenue; out-of-market ones fuel long-term pipeline when triggers activate.

Behaviors

Aspect	In-Market Buyers	Out-of-Market Buyers
Engagement Frequency	High: 5+ interactions/week, multi-threaded (pricing visits 3x, demos requested).	Low: Sporadic (email opens, webinar attendance 1-2x/quarter).​
Content Consumption	Deep: ROI tools, benchmarks, case studies; 70% self-research (Gartner) complete.	Surface: Blogs, newsletters for awareness; passive social monitoring.
Digital Signals	Spikes: Trial logins, stakeholder loops via tools like LinkedIn.	Consistent but light: Brand searches, competitor watches.
Response to Outreach	Fast: 48h replies to tailored offers; propose pilots.	Slow: Nurture-responsive but no urgency.

Motivations

• In-Market: Urgent problem-solving amid triggers like budget resets (post-Q4) or leadership changes (new CIO mandates cloud shift). Driven by financial risk (e.g., compliance fines costing millions) and KPI pressure.​

• Out-of-Market: Future-proofing; building vendor shortlists via reputation. Motivated by peer benchmarks and thought leadership to recall brands when pain intensifies (e.g., 90-day event windows).

Pain Points

• In-Market: Time compression (11.5-month cycles feel endless with 6-10 stakeholders); validation overload ("Prove ROI now"); internal alignment (champions vs. blockers).​

• Out-of-Market: Awareness gaps (missed signals delay entry); decision paralysis from complexity (77% view buys as "complex"); forgotten brands during triggers.

Buying Cycles

Phase	In-Market Cycle	Out-of-Market Cycle
Length	90-180 days; non-linear "messy middle" with loops.	12-36+ months; dormant until triggers (regs, M&A).
Stakeholders	6-11 active; cross-functional (IT/legal engaged).​	1-3 passive; expands on activation.
Spend Time with Sellers	17% of journey; demand fast validation.	<5%; prefer self-serve (75% research solo).
Conversion Trigger	Readiness signals (pilots proposed); 2.8x faster closes.	Internal shifts; nurtured mindshare shortens by 25%.

In-market buyers convert at 2.23% baseline but surge with signals; out-of-market need cadence to flip states, yielding 2x LTV via expansions.​

During the “202X Vision: Is Your Market Always Buying?” session, raw observations about this dynamic inspired a fresh perspective: growth teams don’t win by chasing every lead—they win by developing systems that discover real buyer intent, read readiness signals accurately, and measure true momentum over mere motion. Let’s unpack these three critical, interconnected frameworks.

Discovery as a System – From Sales Skill to Organizational Superpower

Discovery is too often treated as an individual sales skill—a luck-driven meeting or conversation. But session insights revealed that in complex B2B buys, discovery must become a system embedded across the organization.

• Field Discovery: Sales and Customer Success teams capture “signal dumps” after every meaningful interaction—context (e.g., “VP frustrated with legacy ROI tools”), shifting stakeholder dynamics, and subtle timing clues that hint at buying windows.

• Digital Discovery: Marketing and Product teams map website behaviors such as repeated visits to pricing pages, downloading case studies, trial usage spikes, or active participation in user communities. These digital footprints act as new, non-verbal signals of buyer readiness.

• Leadership Rules: Revenue Operations and CXOs define what counts as a readiness event—like a new budget announcement or an executive shift—and codify plays such as “send an intro email within 24 hours of trigger” or “schedule workshop within 3 days.” They also assign ownership and set response time SLAs to close feedback loops swiftly.

Why? Buyers loop through stages non-linearly, revisiting validations and research multiple times. Without integrated discovery, nearly 60% of subtle but critical signals remain hidden, delaying or killing deals. Integrated discovery isn’t just smarter selling—it’s turning all teams into intelligence gatherers constantly feeding go-to-market decisions.

Readiness – Moving from Market Size to Market Timing

Once discovery feeds you rich signals, the next trick is knowing which accounts are ready to buy now—not just someday. Traditional TAM views are blunt instruments—broad but often irrelevant when overlaid on elongated, ambiguous buying cycles.

The READINESS Framework shines a light on near-term intent by decoding real-time behaviors and internal account dynamics:

• R – Real Problem Intensity: Is the problem financially urgent and visible to decision-makers? For example, a finance team alarmed by unexpected regulatory fines signals a high-intensity problem.

• E – Event Triggers: Has there been a leadership change, budget reset, or regulatory update? These often create 90-day buying windows—like a new CIO's arrival accelerating cloud migration projects.

• A – Account Behaviors: Are they moving from casual curiosity to probing “how will this work for us?” with deep pricing questions or requests for custom demos?

• D – Data Pull vs. Content Consumption: Are they requesting ROI calculators, peer benchmarks, or TCO analyses instead of just reading surface-level blogs?

• I – Internal Stakeholder Loops: Champions actively looping in legal, IT, or compliance teams indicate growing organizational alignment.

• N – Next-Step Clarity: Buyers proposing pilots, workshops, or proofs of concept mark concrete, actionable engagement.

• E – Engagement Pattern Consistency: Multiple interactions with different stakeholders over days or weeks (not one-off clicks) differentiate active buyers.

• S – Speed of Response: Teams reacting within 48 hours instead of generic next-quarter campaigns win 40% more deals.

READINESS turns discovery’s raw signals into actionable priorities—helping sellers to focus their energy where timing and intent align.

Momentum vs. Motion – Rewarding What Truly Advances Deals

With discovery fueled and readiness identified, the final challenge is measuring what really moves the needle—distinguishing momentum from motion.

In B2B, activity metrics like the number of emails or meetings often inflate busyness without improving results. The MOMENTUM vs. MOTION Framework calls for a strategic pivot:​

• De-emphasize Motion: Raw counts of emails, dials, or calendar invites without quality buyer context; pipelines padded with low-probability opportunities; and schedules full of activities that don’t meaningfully advance deals.

• Optimize Momentum: Focus on opportunities advancing through buyer-validated stages—such as progressing from pilot to contract negotiation—a high-quality discovery process that improves win rates, rapid, appropriate responses to readiness signals, plus referrals and expansions born from trusted relationships.

This reframe is critical because average B2B win rates linger near 2.23%, and shifting incentives toward momentum helps boost velocity and outcomes rather than just internal effort.​

Seeing the Market Through a New Lens

Our 202X Vision Session on "Is the Market Always Buying?" session didn’t hand us finished playbooks; it illuminated the perpetual, often hidden, nature of B2B buying. By organizing insights into Discovery-as-a-System, Readiness, and Momentum vs. Motion, growth leaders gain frameworks to thrive in this reality.

In a market where 75% of buyers self-serve research before engaging and multiple stakeholders loop continuously, the winners will be those who build systems that see the subtle buying signals, prioritize timing over reach, and reward real progress—because when the market is always buying, the best sellers are always ready.