202X Vision: Is Your Market Always Buying? Discovery, Signals & Referrals
A comprehensive Q&A from GrowthSutra's LinkedIn Live session featuring host Vishwendra Verma (Founder & CEO, GrowthSutra) with industry experts Deepak Bhootra (CEO, Jabulani Consulting), Dean Nolley (President & Founder, Sales Growth Imagination LLC), Aditi Oberoi (Founder, Ethics by Design). In this GrowthSutra LinkedIn Live session, revenue leaders unpack the myth that "the market is always buying." Only about 5% of buyers are actively in-market at any time, yet most planning assumes constant demand and full engagement across the whole addressable market every quarter. Through three lenses—strategy, discovery/signal intelligence, and referrals—the panel explores how to align plans with buyer reality for cleaner forecasts, less waste, and real momentum.
The session is divided into three key segments:
Is the Market Always Buying? Strategy Lens
Discovery and Signal Intelligence: From Guesswork to Readiness
Referrals: Competitive Moat by Design
Setting the Stage
Segment 1: Is the Market Always Buying? Strategy Lens
What Beliefs About “Market Always Buying” Are Outdated?
Q: What’s one belief about ‘is the market always buying’ that you once defended as a corporate leader but now realize was completely wrong—and that you now help your clients to unlearn?
Aditi Oberoi: For years, I genuinely believed and defended that the market is always buying, and we built strategies, GTMs, and leadership narratives on that assumption. Over time, working with real buyers in high-stakes corporate and public sector environments, it became clear that this view is false: markets don’t buy; people do, and people buy only when their internal world is shifting—when there’s real pain, risk, or a new priority they can no longer postpone. That belief created waste in the form of mis-timed campaigns, pressure on teams, and a lot of “busy work” that did not convert. Today, my work is about unlearning this idea and rebuilding revenue motions around buyer timing instead of corporate timing.
Dean Nolley: As you get closer to the top of organizations, the rhetoric is about taking care of employees and delighting customers, but the operational message is often “don’t miss the number.” That mindset quietly assumes the market will respond if you just push hard enough. In reality, you grow by delighting customers and loving your employees first, because people still buy from people. Relationship selling is not dead; it’s been redefined as relationship economics—understanding how trust, timing, and relevance drive revenue in both existing accounts and new logos.
Deepak Bhootra: I still say “the market is always buying,” but I mean something very different now. You’re always selling, but you’re not always selling a transaction; sometimes the market is “buying” ideas for the future, sometimes solutions for today, and often just the quality of your relationship and presence. Even when customers are not in a position to buy now—frozen budgets, other fires, long-term contracts—showing up with respect and insight means that when budgets return, your ideas shape their RFP and you become the first call.
Why Do Companies Act as If Everyone Is in Play?
Q: If only about 5% of your market is truly ready in any quarter, why do so many organizations still behave as if everyone is in play all the time? Why do budgets, cadences, and leadership narratives assume everyone is listening right now?
Aditi Oberoi: This happens because we plan for reach, not readiness. It is much easier to build a content and outreach calendar than to build a signal engine that tells you who is actually ready this month. Readiness, however, is measurable through three types of indicators:
Problem intensity: Is the customer experiencing the problem in a way that is painful, visible, or financially risky right now? When pain spikes, readiness spikes.
Trigger events: Leadership changes, budget resets, regulatory shifts, system failures, or new KPIs that open real buying windows.
Behavioral micro-signals: A shift from “what does your platform do?” to “how does this integrate with our workflow?”, a move from reading blogs to asking for benchmarks, and a lone champion suddenly looping in legal, finance, or IT.
Companies that cling to “everyone is listening” tend to optimize for calendar slots and campaign volume; companies that win increasingly optimize around “who is ready this month?” instead of “who is in our TAM?”.
Deepak Bhootra: Demand in B2B is lumpy, not linear. Deals often run on 2–10 year horizons; if a customer makes a major purchase this year, they may not be in play again for several years. Despite this, many planning models still assume a smooth demand curve and full coverage across all territories and segments every quarter. That gap between lumpy buyer reality and smooth internal spreadsheets leads leadership to push for more activity—emails, dials, meetings—as if that can flatten demand. It does not; it just creates motion without momentum.
Segment 2: Discovery & Signal Intelligence – From Guesswork to Readiness
Who Owns “Knowing When a Customer Is Ready”?
Q: Who should own “knowing when a customer is becoming ready,” and what breaks when two functions (like sales and marketing) both claim that ownership?
Aditi Oberoi: The biggest unlock is to stop treating discovery as a single sales-call moment and start treating it as an organizational capability. In practice, that means three coordinated layers:
Field discovery (sales, customer success): Capture contextual insights from conversations—short “signal dumps” about upcoming audits, renewed KPIs, internal politics—not polished decks.
Digital discovery (marketing, product): Track behavioral data across websites, content, feature usage, and communities, and turn messy signals (like case study → pricing check within 24 hours) into recognizable readiness patterns.
Leadership / decision layer (RevOps, CXO): Look across field and digital patterns to define what counts as a readiness event, then codify what happens next—who moves, which play runs, and in what timeframe.
When each layer owns its part and leadership owns the rules, intent stops getting stuck in silos and the classic sales‑vs‑marketing tug-of-war over “who owns this lead” becomes irrelevant.
Deepak Bhootra: The real friction appears at the handoff. Marketing might mark an account as high intent because someone downloaded a white paper and checked pricing, while sales might see that as “interest, not pipeline” based on deal context. Both views are valid, but they live in separate systems. Without shared trigger definitions (role changes, funding, strategic shifts) and shared behavior thresholds (multiple high-value interactions), you cannot move from interest to momentum. Leadership has to own that connective tissue: the tools, workflows, and KPIs that ensure signals from anywhere get a coordinated response.
What Leading Indicators Precede Qualified Engagement?
Q: What specific leading indicators reliably precede qualified engagement in B2B, and how quickly should organizations act when they appear?
Aditi Oberoi: Leading indicators of readiness tend to show up long before an opportunity appears in your CRM:
Problem intensity: The issue becomes painful, visible to leadership, or tied to financial/compliance risk.
Trigger events: Leadership changes, new KPIs, regulatory shifts, system failures, or budget resets forcing a rethink of the status quo.
Behavioral micro-signals: Prospects move from generic “what” questions to specific “how will this work for us?”, they start pulling data like benchmarks rather than just consuming content, and internal champions begin looping in cross-functional peers.
Once those signals appear, the window is open and speed matters. Teams that win respond in days, not quarters—for example, by triggering a tailored proposal, a diagnostic workshop, or a micro‑pilot within 48 hours, rather than waiting for the next generic cadence to touch that account.
Deepak Bhootra: Think of a doctor’s visit: you don’t want 20 minutes of chart reading; you want a diagnosis. The quality of discovery is itself a leading indicator—are your teams asking about pain, prior attempts, impact, and urgency, or just ticking boxes? When you layer that high-quality discovery on top of external triggers (like role changes or funding news) and repeat behaviors (multiple downloads or renewed engagement), you move from 30% “maybe they’re interested” to something closer to 80% “they’re getting ready.” But that value is realized only if handoffs are tight and follow-through is timely.
Where Do Signals Actually Die?
Q: Where do these readiness signals really die—in systems, during handoffs, in the tool stack, or on crowded calendars that prioritize meetings over momentum?
Dean Nolley: Signals usually die in three places:
Qualification: Reps misread or over‑qualify situations, projecting a deal where there is only curiosity, or disqualifying too early because they are under pressure.
Follow‑up: Over‑aggressive or generic follow‑up is common—like connecting on LinkedIn and immediately pushing for a meeting, which damages trust instead of building it.
Management cadence: Leadership continues to track activity volume (emails, calls, meetings) instead of progression signals (stage movement, verified need, added decision-makers), so teams learn to optimize for looking busy rather than moving deals.
Robust sales processes—with clear definitions of each funnel step and meaningful KPIs—help ensure signals get interpreted correctly and converted into momentum instead of being smothered by vanity activity.
Deepak Bhootra: At a systems level, the biggest failure mode is decentralized tech: one AI for marketing, another used individually by sales, plus a CRM that doesn’t unify signals into a single view. That creates “silo greatness, corporate failure”—each function optimizes its tools, but no one orchestrates the full picture. AI can help you notice more and earlier, but you still need a cohesive orchestration layer defining: when these signals fire together, here is the sequence of human conversations we initiate.
Segment 3: Referrals – Competitive Moat by Design
What Makes Customers Invite Peers Without Being Asked?
Q: What would have to be true about a product and experience for customers to invite peers without prompts, incentives, or scripts?
Aditi Oberoi: Customers refer peers only when two conditions are met:
They feel genuinely helped, not just sold to—something important in their world got better.
They feel emotionally safe recommending you, because their own reputation is now on the line.
That means engineering trust into your product and experience: onboarding that feels simple and clear (so they never feel foolish), communication that remains honest even when things get messy, and outcomes that trigger “I wish I had this earlier.” When those are true, referrals become a natural side-effect of trust, not a scripted tactic.
How Should Co‑Selling Partners Change Your Behavior?
Q: If you have partners working with you on co-selling motions, what would they stop you from doing, and what would they demand you start now?
Deepak Bhootra: Strong partners will push you to stop treating partnerships as logo trades and start treating them as value and idea exchanges. They will expect you to:
Bring meaningful, winnable deals, not just anything that looks like pipeline.
Align on clear criteria for a good opportunity, so energy isn’t wasted on bad fits.
Measure the partnership on shared wins, thought leadership, and customer impact, not just deal count.
Once you align on what excites both sides, your partnerships move from cosmetic to genuinely strategic, and your co-selling motions become a lever for referrals and expansion, not just net-new logo hunting.
Where Do Referrals Originate, and What Does That Reveal?
Q: Where do referrals originate in business today, and what does that reveal about who trusts you enough to stake their reputation?
Dean Nolley: Referrals often come from:
Current and past customers
Strategic partners and peer SMB owners
Vendors and ecosystem allies
Networks, communities, and informal circles
Each referral source tells you who truly trusts you enough to risk their own credibility. Keeping that trust alive means regular, genuine touchpoints, helping them clearly understand who you serve and how, and making it easy for them to introduce you. If you don’t nurture those relationships proactively, even your strongest advocates can forget you in a crowded market.
How Do Discovery, Signals, and Referrals Become a Designed Moat?
Q: How can discovery, signals, and referrals be turned into a competitive moat by design, not by luck?
Vishwendra (Host): From the buyer’s seat, a moat looks like fewer random touches and more timely help throughout the buying journey. From the company’s seat, it looks like cleaner forecasts, better resource allocation, and fewer vanity metrics. The moat appears when:
Discovery is designed as a cross-functional capability, not a single skill in sales.
Signal intelligence is codified so readiness is detected and acted on within days.
Referrals are the natural output of trustworthy experiences and are amplified by a thoughtful partner and customer ecosystem.
When these levers work together, you depend less on individual heroics and more on a repeatable system that competitors struggle to copy.
Session Date and Recording
This Q&A is based on GrowthSutra’s “202X Vision: Is Your Market Always Buying? Discovery, Signals & Referrals” session held on 20 November. You can watch the full conversation and framework deep dives on GrowthSutra’s YouTube channel to see the complete discussion in context.