Buyer personas without the fluff: a conversation with Łukasz Kosuniak
The buyer persona is one of the most frequently used concepts in marketing. But just as often it is… misunderstood. In many companies it ends with drawing "Mr John", the ideal client from a workshop, who has little to do with the real decision-making process.
I talked to Łukasz Kosuniak, consultant and host of the "B2B przy kawie" (B2B over coffee) podcast, about what a buyer persona really is, how to create one and why in B2B it is a far more complex topic than in B2C.
Watch the conversation (in Polish).
Full episode of the SUURowo o marketingu podcast.
Buyer persona ≠ customer avatar
Łukasz stresses that a buyer persona is not about inventing fictional avatars, but about decoding the decision-making process in client companies. "What matters is what the decision-making process looks like in the companies we sell to. The point is not to make it up, but to reconstruct it based on real conversations with clients."
First step: working with salespeople
In B2B, the buyer persona starts with the salespeople's knowledge. They know who they talk to most often and who actually influences decisions. Łukasz recommends collecting this knowledge in a simple way, e.g. in the CRM, for every closed deal.
The five pillars of a buyer persona
The Buyer Persona Institute method is based on five pillars:
- Trigger: what made the client start thinking about a given solution.
- Expectations: what the client expects from the implementation and which individual problems they want to solve.
- Decision criteria: both official and informal ones ("I need the offer in Excel, not in a PDF").
- Barriers: what made the decision harder or delayed it (internal and external factors).
- The decision path: who took part in the choice and what role they played (including "hidden" decision-makers, such as suppliers of other systems).
How to choose interviewees?
The best data comes from people who actually took part in the decision-making process. They are not always CEOs; more often they are the ones who prepared the recommendations, defended the project and invested their time and reputation in it. Research should also include clients who didn't buy: their perspective is just as valuable.
AI in buyer personas
Łukasz points out that AI can now support the process at two stages: transcribing conversations, which speeds up the work, and analysing clients' language, which lets marketers use their audience's exact words.
For now, however, AI won't replace an analyst who can correctly interpret the nuances of a conversation.
Why is it worth it?
A well-made buyer persona allows marketers to understand how clients really buy, match the value proposition to real expectations, avoid communication mistakes that eliminate us from the process before it even starts and, above all, build a partner position in the company alongside the salespeople.
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