By

Simon Hazeldine

In modern B2B sales, the most important part of the sales process often happens before your sales team even knows the buyer exists.

According to research by Gartner and others, today’s B2B buyers complete up to 60% of their decision-making process before engaging with a salesperson. By the time your team gets the call or the email, the deal is already half-done. Your only chance to win is if you’ve already won the invisible sale.

This blog challenges traditional thinking about the sales cycle and provides a practical playbook for pre-engagement influence. Because if you wait until the prospect reaches out, you’re already behind.

The Silent Shift: From Selling to Influencing

Let’s be clear. This isn’t about marketing taking over sales. It’s about redefining what it means to sell. In today’s environment, influence is the new currency. Buyers are consuming thought leadership, social content, peer reviews, and third-party insights long before they pick up the phone.

If your sales team is sitting back waiting for leads to be handed over, you’re playing the wrong game.

Great sales leaders are re-training their teams to think like strategic influencers and trusted advisors, not just quota-chasers. They are inserting themselves into the buyer’s journey before the buyer ever steps into the sales funnel.

Three Signs You’re Losing the Invisible Sale

Before we fix it, let’s diagnose it. Here are three red flags:

1. Low Inbound Conversion
   If most of your pipeline is generated through cold outbound efforts, you’re not being found or considered during the buyer’s early research phase.
   
2. Sales-Only Activity
   Your salespeople aren’t visible online. No content. No conversations. No personal brand. If your reps are invisible on LinkedIn, they’re invisible to buyers too.
   
3. Marketing-Sales Divide
   Marketing is pushing out generic brand messaging. Sales is complaining about bad leads. And neither team is focused on pre-engagement influence.

The Strategic Playbook: Winning Before the First Call

So how do you actually win before the conversation starts? Here’s your action plan.

1. Train Salespeople to Build Personal Brand Authority

Buyers don’t trust logos. They trust people. Especially people who educate, challenge, and guide.

Every sales professional on your team needs to be seen as a subject matter expert. Not just internally, but externally.

Actions:

• Encourage your salespeople to share insights, not product pitches, on LinkedIn.
• Publish thought-provoking posts weekly. Talk about trends, challenges, industry shifts.
• Use video. Face-to-camera videos build authenticity and trust fast.

Sales reps need to stop being order takers and start becoming digital influencers in their niche.

2. Equip Sales Teams with Pre-Funnel Content

Marketing collateral is built for the middle and bottom of the funnel. But the invisible sale happens before that.

Salespeople need content designed to influence awareness, shape thinking, and create trust.

Actions:

• Build an asset library of short, conversational pieces: explainer videos, one-pager trend breakdowns, practical checklists.
• Enable reps to deliver insights via email or social in a way that adds value, not asks for time.
• Encourage customisation. Cookie-cutter messages don’t win trust.

3. Leverage Social Selling Strategically

Social selling is not just about connecting with buyers and liking posts. It’s about building meaningful visibility with decision-makers.

Actions:

• Target 15 to 25 key accounts. Follow key stakeholders. Engage consistently.
• Comment with insight, not fluff. Stand out by being useful.
• Use social listening to detect trigger events. Be ready when the timing is right.

Done correctly, your salespeople and therefore your company will be top of mind when the buyer realises they have a need.

4. Turn Sales into Content Collaborators

Want to create content that actually resonates? Get your salespeople involved.

They are the ones hearing objections, spotting trends, and decoding decision drivers in real time.

Actions:

• Involve sales in content brainstorming. Treat them as frontline researchers.
• Use recorded calls (with permission) to extract exact customer language.
• Let your salespeople co-author or co-present with marketing. Elevate their credibility.

When sales owns the narrative, they can shape the buying conversation before it begins.

5. Establish a Pre-Engagement Metric

Most sales organisations measure closed deals. Some measure sales activity. Few measure influence.

It’s time to change that.

Actions:

• Track views, comments, and shares on salespeople’s content.
• Measure engagement levels with named accounts over time.
• Set quarterly goals for thought leadership visibility per salesperson.

If it matters, measure it. Pre-funnel influence needs to be treated like a pipeline priority, not a side hustle.

Leadership Matters: This Won’t Work Without You

Sales leaders, here’s the tough love.

If you aren’t coaching, recognising, and incentivising these behaviours, they won’t stick. You can’t just send a “start posting on LinkedIn” memo and expect results.

This shift takes time, coaching, and reinforcement. But the payoff is significant. Salespeople who win the invisible sale build trust, compress the sales cycle, and close higher-quality deals.

Final Thoughts: The New Competitive Advantage

In a world where buyers are drowning in content and overwhelmed with choice, influence is your edge.

If you show up late, you’re competing on price. If you show up early, you’re shaping the problem, the solution, and the selection criteria.

The best sales teams don’t just pitch. They educate, inspire, and guide.

That’s how you win the invisible sale.

PS I have helped over a thousand sales professionals to become more proficient at social selling. If you need help, please get in touch.

Subscribe to Simon Hazeldine’s
“More Sales, More Often, More Margin” newsletter.
Simon’s regular newsletter contains powerful and practical sales and negotiation
strategies, tactics, and tips to help you to grow your revenue and bottom-line profits.

About the author

Simon Hazeldine works internationally as a revenue growth and sales performance speaker, consultant, and coach. He empowers his clients to get more sales, more often with more margin.

He has spoken in over thirty countries and his client list includes some of the world’s largest and most successful companies.

Simon has a master’s degree in psychology, is the bestselling author of ten books that have been endorsed by a host of business leaders including multi-billionaire business legend Michael Dell and is co-founder of leading sales podcast “The Sales Chat Show”.

He is the creator of the neuroscience based “Brain Friendly Selling”® methodology.

Simon Hazeldine’s books:

• Neuro-Sell: How Neuroscience Can Power Your Sales Success
• Bare Knuckle Selling
• Bare Knuckle Negotiating
• Bare Knuckle Customer Service
• The Inner Winner
• How To Lead Your Sales Team – Virtually and in Person
• Virtual Selling Success
• How To Manage Your People’s Performance
• How To Create Effective Employee Development Plans
• Virtual Negotiation Success