The Field is a bi-weekly newsletter about how marketing is designed and run in eMobility companies. It's written from the perspective of a fractional CMO working with founders, CMOs, and commercial leaders in the eMobility field.
If you're not on the shortlist, you're not in the deal
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Hi Reader, People do not buy the best solution. They buy the safest choice. And in complex B2B markets, the safest choice is usually the company the buyer already knows. This is where most companies underestimate the problem. They track the deals they lose. They analyse why a proposal did not land, why a prospect chose a competitor, why the price was wrong. They try to fix it in the sales process. But the deals that hurt most are not the ones you lost. They are the ones you never knew existed. A buyer identified a problem. They asked around. They built a shortlist from the names that kept showing up in conversations, in their inbox, at industry events and in their LinkedIn feed. They ran a process. They made a decision. And your company was never part of any of it. You did not lose that deal. You were never in it. What I’m seeingWhen enterprise buyers start looking for a solution, they never start from zero. They start with a shortlist. Names they recognise. Names they trust. Names that feel like the obvious choice before the first conversation even happens. If you are not on that list, you are not in the deal. No matter how strong your product is. The companies I see struggling with this usually have the same diagnosis. Strong product. Competitive pricing. A sales team working hard. But every deal starts from zero. Every conversation begins with explaining who you are and why you matter. Every proposal is compared against a competitor who the buyer already trusts. Sales cannot fix a problem that starts before sales exists. The system underneathLead generation without authority is expensive noise. You can fill the pipeline, but if the prospect does not know your name before they reach out, you are always playing catch-up. You have to prove that you can do something before you can prove what you can do. Authority Marketing is the system that changes this. It is not a campaign. It is not a content calendar. It is a deliberate, consistent effort to own a position in your market so that buyers recognise you, trust you, and put you on the shortlist before sales ever gets involved. When authority is in place, the dynamic shifts. Prospects come to you with context. Sales cycles shorten. Win rates go up. You stop competing on price because you are no longer being compared to the wrong alternatives. You become the obvious choice. Not because you spent more. Because you stayed consistent long enough to own the space. How I’d approach itMost companies overestimate their visibility. They see website traffic, LinkedIn engagement and campaign metrics and assume the market knows who they are. In reality, the only metric that matters is whether buyers think of you when a budget becomes available. If you want to know where your market position really stands, I built the Market Authority Index for exactly that. Eight questions. Two minutes. You get an immediate score and a clear picture of what it is costing you to remain invisible. Your perspectiveHow many deals are you not even aware of right now, because the buyer built their shortlist without ever knowing you existed? Enjoy the weekend, Theo Reichgelt Connect with me on LinkedIn |
The Field
The Field is a bi-weekly newsletter about how marketing is designed and run in eMobility companies. It's written from the perspective of a fractional CMO working with founders, CMOs, and commercial leaders in the eMobility field.
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