Talking about growth is almost as common as talking about metrics or funnels in B2B. We all seek it, we all yearn for it, but not all of us achieve it sustainably. In our experience working with multiple technology, industrial, and professional services companies, we have observed that many organizations stagnate not because of a lack of talent or resources, but because of strategic mistakes that are repeated over and over again.
The paradox? Often, the more we grow, the more we expose ourselves to what we call B2B growth hurdles. It’s not just a matter of scaling processes, hiring more equipment, or automating tasks. It’s about understanding what’s holding us back. According to a McKinsey study, only 28% of B2B companies manage to scale profitably after their initial growth phase. The rest remain in a no-man’s land: neither startups nor large companies, trapped between initial momentum and maturity that does not come.
This article is not intended to provide magic formulas. We want, rather, to share concrete, structured, and applicable learnings, based on real data and cases. If there is one thing we have learned as an agency specializing in B2B demand generation, it is that the mistakes that slow down growth are, in the end, avoidable. And there’s one in particular that makes the difference between moving forward or stagnating.
Obstacles to B2B growth: strategic scope
In our experience working with B2B companies at different stages of maturity, strategic obstacles are the most difficult to detect at first glance and, at the same time, the ones that have the greatest impact on growth. When an organization is unclear about its strategic direction, every tactic becomes a frameless experiment, and the results, while they may appear positive in the short term, are rarely sustained.
Below, we explore five strategic obstacles that we have identified as critical to the development of B2B growth.
Failure to define the ideal customer profile
The Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is much more than a demographic card. It is a strategic construct that defines what type of company we should target, why, and how to tailor our message to connect with it. Without a defined ICP, marketing becomes generic, the sales team loses focus and the message is diluted.
We have encountered companies targeting “growing SMEs” without knowing whether that implies a company of 10 employees or 250. That ambiguity generates ineffective campaigns, and worse, disqualified opportunities that demotivate the sales team. According to SaaStr, companies with a well-defined ICP have a 68% higher lead conversion than those that work without a clear focus.
ICP is not static. It evolves with the business, the market, and technology. It is key to constantly validate whether what we think of as our ideal customer is still profitable, achievable, and sustainable. Designing a good ICP involves analyzing customer long-term value (CLTV), cost of acquisition (CAC), buying cycle, and ease of scaling.
Premature product or service diversification
In many cases, when a solution begins to gain traction, the temptation to diversify arises. We want to launch new product lines, serve new segments or expand into other geographic markets. However, if this expansion does not respond to a clear strategy, it becomes a silent enemy of growth.
As Michael Porter warns in his theory on competitive strategy, “The worst strategy is to try to serve everyone”. Diversifying before consolidating a core product leads to dispersing efforts, increasing operational complexity, and diluting positioning. This is a phenomenon we have seen in many technology companies that, by trying to be “all-in-one platforms“, end up being mediocre at everything and excellent at nothing.
The solution is to prioritize deepening over expansion. Consolidating the core product, dominating a specific niche, and building a solid base of satisfied customers are more valuable than having a suite of partially functional products.
Poor differentiation from the competition
The B2B market is increasingly competitive and saturated. If we do not have a differentiated value proposition, we fall into a price war, where there will always be someone willing to sell cheaper. Differentiation does not always have to be in the product; it can be in the experience, in the service model, in the sector specialization, or even in the consultative approach of the sales team.
The worrying thing is that many companies believe they are differentiated when in fact they are not. Phrases such as “personalized attention” or “customized solutions” no longer communicate value; they are commodities in the B2B discourse. As April Dunford states in her book Obviously Awesome, “if you don’t actively position your product, the market will do it for you… and not always in the most favorable way”.
Differentiating ourselves involves taking an honest look at what we do better than others, what our customers truly value, and how to communicate that. A competitive positioning matrix, interviews with current customers, and analysis of competitive propositions can help us build that clarity.
Misalignment between the value proposition and the target market.
This strategic mistake is often at the root of many conversion and retention problems. It happens when what we promise doesn’t resonate with what the market needs. Sometimes it’s a matter of language; sometimes it’s a matter of pricing model, functionality, or business priorities.
A company that develops technology solutions for logistics, for example, may talk about “artificial intelligence and predictive algorithms,” while its audience – operations managers – is looking for something as basic as “fewer errors in warehouse management.” When we don’t understand the customer’s context, our value proposition loses meaning, no matter how innovative it may be.
To solve this, we must listen more and assume less. Qualitative customer interviews, customer journey analysis, and message testing in pilot campaigns allow us to adjust the language and approach to what drives the purchase decision. As the product-market fit principle says: “better to have a message that fits the market than a perfect product that is poorly communicated“.
Over-reliance on a single acquisition channel.
In B2B, it is common for a company to have grown thanks to a dominant channel —referrals, trade shows, commercial outbound— and to have neglected the development of new channels. This generates a false sense of security. But when that channel becomes saturated, changes, or disappears (as happened with trade shows during the pandemic), the company goes into crisis.
We have worked with companies that, after years of growing by word of mouth, try to make the digital leap and find themselves with no infrastructure, no brand, and no strategy. The problem is not the channel itself, but the imbalance. The lack of a multichannel approach limits scalability and makes growth dependent on uncontrollable external factors.
The solution is to build a balanced acquisition strategy. It doesn’t mean being everywhere, but testing, measuring, and optimizing different channels: inbound, outbound, events, partnerships, content, SEO, and social media, among others. As the HubSpot B2B attribution model suggests, the most effective thing to do is to combine actions that work together, not to expect one channel to solve everything.
Obstacles to B2B growth: operational scope
On the road to B2B growth, it’s not enough to have a clear strategy: we also need the execution to match. Operational hurdles are often invisible from the outside, but they have a devastating effect on efficiency, scalability, and customer experience.
We have seen companies with a powerful value proposition and a well-thought-out strategy, but fail to grow because their business operations are poorly meshed. As with any system, operational errors multiply if not corrected in time. Below, we explore five of the most frequent ones.
Inefficient or non-standardized sales processes.
One of the most common symptoms of B2B stagnation is a lack of consistency in sales processes. When each sales rep follows his or her method, results become unpredictable, sales cycles are unnecessarily lengthened and it is almost impossible to identify what works and what does not.
A clear example was seen in a professional services firm with eight salespeople: some followed up after three days, others after two weeks, and there were no common criteria for classifying opportunities. This variability led to confusion and missed opportunities. As the MEDDIC methodology suggests, standardization is not limiting, it is enabling: everyone must have clear guidance, replicable processes, and checkpoints.
An efficient sales process includes defined stages, objective progress criteria, templates for mailings and calls, automation of follow-ups, and constant coordination with marketing. The goal is not to robotize, but to free up time and energy for what matters: generating customer value in every interaction.
CRM poorly implemented or not used strategically
CRM should be the operational heart of a B2B company. However, in practice, it often becomes a simple repository of contacts. Whether due to poor implementation, lack of training, or lack of leadership, the CRM is not used as a decision-making tool, but as an administrative obligation.
In an audit we conducted for a technology company, we found that 70% of open opportunities in CRM had not been updated in more than 45 days. The result? Unreliable forecasts, uncoordinated follow-up,s and a distorted perception of the pipeline. Without real visibility, it is impossible to scale.
For CRM to be a lever for growth, it must fulfill three key functions: be the center of commercial activity, provide useful information for strategic decisions, and facilitate collaboration between teams. This requires a good tool (HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, etc.), and a consistent culture of use, with clear indicators and assigned managers.
Difficulties in measuring and analyzing relevant KPIs.
“What you don’t measure, you can’t improve”, said Peter Drucker. However, many B2B organizations have metrics that are poorly connected to the business or an overload of data that prevents them from seeing what is important. Worse, they often confuse activity metrics (visits, impressions, emails sent)with impact metrics (conversion, customer value, time to close).
An industrial company we collaborated with showed excellent numbers in lead volume and website visits. However when we analyzed their conversion KPIs, we discovered that 85% of the leads did not even remotely qualify as potential buyers. The company was measuring marketing efficiency, but not its actual effectiveness.
The key is to build an operational scorecard with indicators aligned to the B2B funnel: conversion rate per stage, average speed of progress, cost per real opportunity, closing rate per vertical, etc. In addition, it is advisable to establish periodic review cycles to adjust and debug. It is not a matter of measuring more, but of measuring better.
Low quality in lead generation
The famous “quantity vs. quality” dilemma is especially sensitive in B2B. Generating many leads is not synonymous with success if those leads have no fit, are not ready to buy or do not pass the first commercial filter. Low-quality leads generate a chain of problems: inflated funnels, frustrated SDRs, salespeople busy with unsuitable prospects and, ultimately, lost sales.
This obstacle often originates from poorly segmented campaigns, inaccurate messaging or a lack of alignment between marketing and sales. We’ve seen LinkedIn Ads campaigns that generated hundreds of forms, but with profiles far removed from the ICP. In those cases, money is lost, but more importantly, time is lost.
The solution starts with lead scoring redesign and qualification from the first contact. Including key questions in forms, using intent data tools, and establishing clear agreements between marketing and sales (such as an internal SLA) significantly improves lead quality. A good lead is not just someone who leaves their data: it is someone who could become a customer.
Obstacles to B2B growth: the marketing field
In many B2B companies, marketing is still perceived as a “support” area, more aesthetic than strategic. However, in an increasingly competitive digital environment, marketing has become a key lever for scaling a business, differentiating, and educating an increasingly informed buyer.
Marketing obstacles don’t always show up in the numbers right away, but they silently affect lead generation, brand positioning, and business efficiency. Here we address five of the most common mistakes we find when auditing B2B marketing strategies.
Lack of long-term content strategy
Creating content by inertia is one of the most frequent mistakes. Publishing articles, e-books or videos without a clear long-term vision ends up generating noise instead of results. Content, when not guided by a solid strategy, becomes a busy exercise instead of a value investment.
We have seen companies publish weekly without knowing who they are talking to, without knowing what they hope to achieve, or how to measure it. It’s not about quantity but about consistency and alignment with business objectives. A well-designed content strategy considers the buying cycle, the customer’s real questions, the friction points, and the value we can provide at each stage.
As Joe Pulizzi suggests in Epic Content Marketing, “Relevant and consistent content not only attracts customers, it keeps them connected to the brand”. Designing a content strategy involves having an editorial plan, a thematic architecture, a clear taxonomy, and a well-thought-out distribution methodology.
Disconnect between content and buyer journey stages
Another common mistake is to generate content without considering the buyer’s stage. Publishing a technical guide for someone who is just discovering the problem, or sharing a customer story when the prospect doesn’t even understand our service, is shooting without aiming.
The buyer journey in B2B usually has three major phases: discovery, consideration, and decision. Each requires different content: educational articles or infographics for the first; comparatives or webinars for the second; and case studies or demos for the third. The disconnection between content and stage generates a loss of interest, bounces on the web and, most seriously, leads that do not advance.
In one of our projects with a financial software company, we redesigned their content matrix to align it with the buyer’s journey. After six months, the average time on the page increased by 34% and the conversion to MQL grew by 28%. The learning was clear: content must not only inform, it must accompany.
Misallocated or underutilized marketing budget.
In many B2B organizations, the marketing budget is allocated by inertia or perception, not performance. Large amounts are allocated to face-to-face events without measuring ROI, investments are made in paid campaigns without clear objectives, or tools are hired that the team does not know how to use. This misallocation ends up weakening the real impact of the area.
The key is to think of the budget as a strategic instrument, not as an accounting item. How much are we investing in demand generation vs. branding? What percentage is allocated to acquisition vs. retention? Which initiatives have proven returns and which are experimental?
As Philip Kotler points out in Marketing 5.0, “Budgets must be agile and performance-driven, not static and arbitrary.” In a changing context, we must be able to reallocate resources based on what the market and data tell us. That means constantly measuring, prioritizing what works, and having room to experiment without jeopardizing the essentials.
Low digital visibility in key industry channels
One of the biggest challenges in B2B marketing is that our buyers are more informed than ever, but also more exposed to noise. Having a good product is no longer enough if we don’t achieve visibility where it matters: search engines, specialized platforms, technical communities, or professional networks like LinkedIn.
Low digital visibility is usually the result of several combined causes: bad SEO, low investment in organic positioning, lack of knowledge of the platforms most used by the sector, or irrelevant content for user searches. In B2B, it is not about being everywhere, but about being in the right place, with the right message.
An illustrative case was that of an energy solutions company that was barely showing up in key searches related to its product. After a combined strategy of evergreen content, SEO optimization, and participation in specialized media, it managed to increase its organic traffic by 67% in less than eight months. Visibility is not just reach: it is authority and preference.
***
We must be critical of our processes, honest with our data and brave enough to make decisions that take us out of our comfort zone.
***
Conclusions
Obstacles to B2B growth are not inevitable, but they do recur. If there is one thing that all of the above cases share, it is that growth is not achieved by inertia, but by design. It requires a clear strategy, disciplined execution, and a culture that understands the long term.
We must be critical of our processes, honest with our data, and brave enough to make decisions that take us out of our comfort zone. As Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast every morning.” And that especially applies in B2B, where consistency and trust are everything.
At HelloMrLead, we have lived it from the inside. We have accompanied companies that went through moments of stagnation, and we have seen how, with the right adjustments, they could return to sustainable growth. The biggest mistake you can make is to think you are doing it right when in reality you are stuck in a model that no longer works.
The invitation is clear: review your fundamentals, reevaluate your priorities, and have the courage to make changes before the market forces you to do so. Because, as we know from experience, overcoming obstacles in B2B growth is necessary to build businesses that last.
