From The Editor | April 15, 2026

Root Cause Analysis When B2B Marketing & Sales Underperform

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By Perry Rearick, Chief Editor, Follow Your Buyer

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When linear, process-driven production issues occur, engineers and scientists conduct root cause analysis to get to and solve the core problem. Underperforming marketing and sales programs often waste time chasing symptoms rather than solving real problems. While well intended, those us in the marketing and sales could use some help.  

The symptoms of underperforming marketing and sales sound like “the leads you’re sending me are not qualified buyers, I cannot tie a sale to a name you gave me. We followed up with everyone and they didn’t respond.” To get beyond these symptoms and identify the “root” of the problem, I advocate going back and that means going back to, you guessed it, the real buyer’s journey.

Underperforming marketing and sales can often be traced back to misalignment: not misalignment between marketing and sales, which may be a problem too, but misalignment of the marketing and sales process with the real buyer’s journey.

The buyer’s journey begins far sooner than many B2B solution providers understand, and even when understood, adoption is often slow and ineffective.  

We know that the early stages of the buyer’s journey are when B2B buyers are learning about the issues they face and developing strategies to overcome them. However, B2B sellers often mark the beginning of the buyer’s journey as when the buyer becomes aware of the solution they are selling. You see the misalignment?

This sort of misalignment creates a lot of issues:

  • marketing communications plans that don’t engage buyers where they are in their journey.
  • ineffective nurturing activities that don’t reach buyers.
  • MQLs & SQLs are poorly defined and so are the transition triggers.
  • follow-up actions are ignored by potential buyers.
  • executive leaders question ROI, and marketing programs are underfunded and eben cancelled.  

Marketing and sales must align the beginning of their engagement activities to the left, in alignment with the beginning of the real buyer’s journey.