Client-facing teams in financial services face a quiet shift.
Selling into large firms (whether banks, asset managers, insurers, or service providers) is no longer about persuading one key decision-maker. Buying has become multi-person, multi-stage, and often political.
Research from Forrester shows that over 80% of B2B buying decisions now involve more than five stakeholders, and nearly 60% involve delays due to internal misalignment. In regulated industries like banking, decisions are risk-sensitive and layered with governance.
If your teams are only engaging one or two people in the buying organisation, you are exposed.
The Challenges of the Consensus Buyer
Consensus selling isn’t about groupthink or alignment from the start. In fact, you should expect disagreement. Your success depends on your ability to work within that.
Here are the most common problems we see with client-facing teams in financial services:
Decision-makers are not always visible up front
Influence evolves over the buying process. A stakeholder who seemed passive in early discussions may become central later. Without a stakeholder map and internal alignment, deals stall.
Consensus buyers don’t always agree
Different stakeholders may have competing incentives—legal wants low risk, operations wants ease of implementation, finance wants cost savings. These internal tensions may not be shown openly, but they shape the messages your team hears. You might not be asked to resolve the conflict, but your deal depends on it.
Champions often lack internal support
A client contact who is enthusiastic might struggle to gain traction internally. Without the tools to advocate for your offer—such as a clear business case or common language—they lose momentum. You lose the deal.
Procurement slows things down
Even when the business stakeholders are aligned, procurement can re-open debates about scope, price, or compliance. If consensus wasn’t built beforehand, these late-stage objections derail the deal.
Messaging breaks down across teams
What resonates with a COO rarely moves a Head of Compliance. If the team hasn’t aligned your offer to each persona’s priorities, you are left relying on generic sales decks and inconsistent communication.
Does this sound familiar?
How Alpha Development Equips Client-Facing Teams
We work with global and regional financial firms to prepare their people for complex sales processes—without framing it as “selling.” Instead, we focus on building trust, influence, and internal traction with the client.
We help teams:
To support this, we recommend targeted courses from our Commercial and Client Service Skills curriculum:
Skilful Stakeholder Management – understand how influence shifts and how to stay aligned
Communicating with Impact – create messages that cut through to different audiences
Creating Meaningful Stories – equip internal champions to tell your story for you
Perfecting Your Pitch – tailor the message, not just the delivery
Solution Selling Skills in Financial Services – shift from feature-based to needs-based conversations
Influencing in a Global / Regional Bank – navigate internal politics on both sides of the table
These are not traditional sales courses. They are designed for relationship managers, product leads, business developers, and others who support client growth.
Next Steps
If your client-facing teams are seeing deals slow down, stall, or go dark this is likely why.
They’re not losing to a better product or competitor. They’re losing to internal misalignment within the buyer.
Equip them to work with that. Visit our Commercial Skills page to learn more.
