Mapping how professionals make complex decisions

Challenge

Illuminating how building professionals make key decisions throughout their project lifecycle to help our client find new ways to engage with them.

A leading building supplies manufacturer was struggling to get into the materials consideration set among decision makers. They weren’t sure how or when professionals even consider the materials they make, let alone what drives their decisions. The goal was to uncover a typical project lifecycle – what professionals are thinking, feeling, and doing as they move through – to identify how to alter their strategy to increase engagement at the right decision points (and in the right ways!).

Approach

This one definitely had to kick off with a series of stakeholder interviews with experts within their walls; no amount of desk research was going to get us up to speed as fast. The professionals we were researching were experts in their own right, so our initial client interviews laid the foundation for a focused discussion guide (and assurance that we got all the acronyms right!).

We engaged 12 professionals across the industrial, commercial, and residential sectors; exploring their design processes, material selection criteria, and brand perceptions. Through these conversations, we uncovered the nuanced factors shaping their choices from compliance standards and durability to ease of integration and supplier support.

Impact

We delivered a detailed journey map of the decision-making process, highlighting the most important moments where the brand could add value or engage in a more meaningful way. These insights were integrated into their sales training, equipping their team to speak confidently to professionals’ needs, building a more strategic, empathetic approach to engagement, as they work to drive credibility.