You've made your sales pitch to the chief contact inside the business. He liked what he heard, yet he needs buy-in from others in the organization.

Shouldn't be a problem, right? After all, you're confident that what you have to sell is what they really need.

Don't count on it, based on the results of a study conducted by CEB, a business consultancy and technology company.

CEB says that only 51 percent of customers who might be willing to buy from a supplier are not ready to advocate for them and help them close deals. The reason? They need to follow what can be a difficult internal buying process that involves several stakeholders.

The lesson for solution providers? Get to know your target organization a little better, especially its buying process.

“Willingness to buy is not the same as willingness to advocate; suppliers need customers to advocate and fight for them to get deals done today,” said Brent Adamson, principal executive advisor at Arlington, Va.-based CEB, in a statement. "In order to move past ‘good enough’ and ‘status quo,’ suppliers need to go beyond just understanding how customers interact with them to gaining a thorough understanding of how they work, what is important to them and how they interact with each other.”

Further, business customers are more likely to know what they want before they reach out to a sales representative. On average, they complete 57 percent of their purchasing decisions before they send an email or pick up the phone.

But the buying process is also a struggle, with 39 percent of customers saying they're overwhelmed by the process, which today involves more stakeholders – an average of 6.8, up from 5.4 in 2014 – each of whom brings different, competing objectives, metrics and priorities to the process, according to CEB.

And that can handcuff a solution provider that's trying to land the sale.

Jason Ulm, vice president of sales at Appia Communications, an IT services provider based in Traverse City, Mich., says that happens to his sales staff at times.

"When you're qualifying a prospect or lead," Appia's sales representative tries to determine if the buyer's representative is "the person responsible for a buying a decision," or, how the organization reaches a buying decision, Ulm told IT Best Of Breed.

"It tends to be an issue (in getting to a decision) when you don't know that because you can't take any action," he added.

Gaining insight into a buying company's procurement process is more hit than miss, according to Ulm.

"A good portion of them will let you know what the buying criteria is," but there are also some that are "pretty guarded" on how they push toward a decision, Ulm said. "Those are a crapshoot."

What's the lesson for solution providers' sales forces? Know as much as you can about the customer.

Sellers that take a more consultative approach with their customers may wind up winning the business, the CEB study found. It said sellers that guide customers through the process are 62 percent more likely to close substantial deals.

"With an ever-growing number of customer stakeholders involved in the buying process today, sales organizations need to understand better each of the various stakeholders that impact deals – who they are, how they connect and what motivates them," a summary of the CEB study read.

Members of Ulm's team go beyond merely providing a quote to asking how the business decides and offering to provide additional information if it's needed, Ulm said.

“Great sales organizations make it easy for customers to buy … [through] understanding the anticipated and unanticipated obstacles customers may face throughout the entire purchase process,” CEB's Adamson added in a statement.

Here are three blog posts that also address the sales process:

GROWTHPLAY: Five critical components of a successful sales process

Two of the five directly address reading the customer and aligning your sales process with that of the customer.

HUBSPOT: 14 places to research a prospect before a sales call

Need to know more about your target organization? Learn all you can through the company website, social media, and other sources.

DATANYZE: How to achieve consensus in B2B sales

Geoffrey Walters acknowledges the shift in buying strategy from a single decision-maker to consensus procurement. But it's a change sales professionals can adapt to and adopt.