Multi-threading Strategy: Winning Over Technical and Commercial Stakeholders

Henry McIntosh
Sep 10
11 min read

Multi-threading in B2B sales means engaging multiple stakeholders within an organisation instead of relying on a single contact. This approach reduces risks, speeds up decision-making, and increases win rates. On average, B2B buying decisions involve 28 stakeholders, with technical and commercial teams having distinct priorities.

Technical stakeholders focus on security, integration, scalability, and vendor reliability.
Commercial stakeholders prioritise ROI, budget, business alignment, and contract terms.

Engaging at least five stakeholders can boost win rates from 5% to 30%. Success requires tailoring messaging for each group, using tools like CRM systems and account-based marketing, and fostering collaboration between teams. By mapping stakeholders and addressing their concerns, businesses can secure deals and drive growth.

Multi-Threading: Steal this framework to increase win rates by 2-3x

Technical vs Commercial Stakeholder Priorities

When diving into the advantages of multi-threading, it’s crucial to understand that technical and commercial stakeholders approach decisions with very different priorities, criteria, and processes. Recognising these differences is essential to tailoring your approach and ensuring alignment between these groups.

What Technical Stakeholders Care About

For technical stakeholders, the focus is on feasibility, security, and long-term reliability. Their concerns are rooted in ensuring that any new solution integrates seamlessly into their current systems while maintaining high standards.

Security and compliance: Technical teams are laser-focused on ensuring that a solution meets security protocols, regulatory obligations, and data protection standards. They’ll scrutinise how the solution handles encryption, access controls, and compliance with frameworks like GDPR or sector-specific regulations.
Integration capabilities: A solution that doesn’t play well with existing systems is a non-starter. Technical stakeholders need clarity on how the solution integrates with current tools, whether through APIs or data migration, and how it avoids creating unnecessary technical debt.
Scalability and performance: They think beyond the immediate implementation, asking how the solution will handle increased workloads, adapt to future growth, and what kind of maintenance it will require down the line.
Vendor reliability and support: Technical teams evaluate the vendor’s track record for uptime, the quality of their support services, and how quickly they respond to critical issues. These factors weigh heavily in their decision-making.

What Commercial Stakeholders Care About

Commercial stakeholders, on the other hand, are driven by financial outcomes, strategic alignment, and timing. Their priorities revolve around justifying the investment and ensuring the solution aligns with broader business goals.

ROI and financial impact: They need clear, quantifiable projections that show how a solution will save money, boost revenue, or improve efficiency. This is critical for gaining buy-in from senior leadership.
Budget constraints and total cost of ownership: Commercial teams look beyond the initial cost, considering ongoing expenses like licensing, maintenance, training, and any potential productivity losses during implementation.
Business process alignment: They assess whether the solution supports existing workflows, aligns with business objectives, and complements strategic initiatives.
Vendor relationship and contract terms: Pricing structures, service level agreements, contract flexibility, and the vendor’s ability to scale with the business are all key concerns.
Time to value: Commercial stakeholders want to know how quickly the solution will deliver results and how the implementation timeline impacts their planning and resource allocation.

Connecting Technical and Commercial Teams

Bridging the gap between technical and commercial teams is often a challenge. These groups frequently work in silos, speaking different “languages” that can lead to misunderstandings and misalignment.

Communication gaps: Technical teams discuss specifications, integrations, and system requirements, while commercial teams focus on ROI and business outcomes. This disconnect can slow decision-making and create friction.
Timeline conflicts: Commercial stakeholders may push for rapid implementation to realise benefits quickly, whereas technical teams require time for evaluation, testing, and integration. These differing timelines can create tension and jeopardise success.
Risk tolerance differences: Technical teams often lean towards proven, low-risk solutions, while commercial teams may be more open to calculated risks if the potential rewards are compelling.

To overcome these challenges, it’s essential to translate technical advantages into business terms and show how technical requirements align with broader business goals. Facilitating open conversations between these groups helps them understand each other’s perspectives and ensures that solutions address both sets of concerns.

One effective approach is to develop shared evaluation criteria that balance technical and commercial priorities. For instance, combining performance metrics with business impact measurements ensures both groups feel heard and invested in the decision-making process. This alignment not only improves outcomes but also reinforces the broader benefits of multi-threading.

How to Build a Multi-threaded Engagement Strategy

Creating a multi-threaded engagement strategy involves systematically identifying and engaging all key stakeholders within an organisation. By addressing both technical and commercial priorities, this approach ensures no perspective is overlooked, increasing the likelihood of success.

Map Your Stakeholders and Their Roles

The backbone of a successful strategy lies in understanding who holds influence within the target organisation. Stakeholder mapping is the first step, requiring detailed research to uncover everyone who could impact, evaluate, or approve your solution.

Start by analysing the organisation’s structure. Look beyond formal titles to identify both official decision-makers and informal influencers. For example, a senior developer may have significant input on technical decisions, while a finance director might control spending approvals over a certain threshold, such as £50,000.

To organise this information, create a stakeholder matrix. This tool categorises individuals by their level of influence, their role, and their primary concerns. Dive deeper to understand how these stakeholders are interconnected. For instance, technical teams might report to commercial leadership but also collaborate with other departments. Knowing these relationships can help you anticipate how information flows and identify potential bottlenecks.

Once you’ve mapped out the stakeholders, the next step is to craft a coordinated plan that addresses their unique priorities.

Create Your Engagement Plan

With your stakeholders mapped, it’s time to develop an engagement plan that works on two levels: top-down and bottom-up. This dual approach ensures you’re building support across the organisation while avoiding the risk of anyone feeling excluded or bypassed.

For senior commercial stakeholders, focus on strategic messaging. Highlight how your solution aligns with their business goals, improves ROI, and strengthens market positioning. Executive briefings are a great way to show how your proposal ties into their broader strategy without overwhelming them with technical details.

On the other hand, technical stakeholders often need a different approach. They want to see how your solution works in practice. Live demos, proof-of-concepts, and detailed documentation that address integration, security, and operational impact can be highly effective. Offering trial periods or sandbox environments allows them to test your solution hands-on, building trust and confidence.

Timing is crucial. Ensure that all stakeholders receive consistent messaging to avoid confusion. For example, while technical teams are reviewing security features, commercial stakeholders should simultaneously learn about compliance benefits and risk reduction.

Feedback loops are essential to this process. Insights gathered from one group can often inform conversations with another. For instance, concerns from technical teams about implementation timelines can be addressed in commercial discussions about phased rollouts. Likewise, budget constraints raised by commercial stakeholders might shape technical conversations about prioritising features.

Once your engagement plan is in motion, digital tools can help you streamline and scale your outreach.

Use Digital-First Tactics

Modern engagement strategies rely heavily on digital tools to manage multiple stakeholder relationships while maintaining a personal touch. These tools help you coordinate messaging, track interactions, and stay visible across complex networks.

Platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator are invaluable for stakeholder mapping and engagement, particularly for reaching technical stakeholders who might not respond to traditional sales methods but are active in industry discussions and content sharing.

Segmented and personalised email campaigns are another powerful tool. Tailor your content to the audience: technical stakeholders often prefer detailed resources like case studies and technical guides, while commercial stakeholders might favour executive summaries, ROI calculators, and strategic insights. Account-based marketing (ABM) platforms can help you coordinate these campaigns across multiple stakeholders, providing insights into their behaviour and preferences.

Virtual demonstration platforms are excellent for delivering customised presentations. You can host separate sessions for technical and commercial stakeholders, focusing on what matters most to each group. For example, technical demos might dive into system architecture, while commercial presentations emphasise business benefits and timelines.

Integrating your CRM system ensures all stakeholder interactions are logged and accessible to your team. This visibility prevents duplicate outreach, ensures consistent messaging, and allows team members to share critical insights. For instance, if a technical specialist learns about a specific integration requirement, that information can be immediately shared with colleagues engaging with commercial stakeholders who might be concerned about implementation challenges.

How to Tailor Messaging for Different Stakeholders

To build on the multi-threading strategy mentioned earlier, it's essential to shape your messaging to suit each stakeholder group. The key is to use clear, concise language that aligns with a consistent organisational narrative. This ensures technical stakeholders not only feel their expertise is recognised but also see how their concerns fit into the broader sales story.

Messaging for Technical Stakeholders

When addressing technical stakeholders, such as IT professionals or engineers, focus on the aspects they care most about: technical specifications, system compatibility, and integration capabilities [1]. Highlight critical elements like system integration, data security, user management, and administrative controls [1][2][4].

The level of technical detail you provide should depend on your audience. For instance, senior leaders might appreciate a high-level overview of the architecture, while others may require a deeper dive into implementation specifics [2]. Using industry-specific terminology and technical jargon can also help establish credibility and build trust with this group [3].

Tools and Best Practices for Multi-threaded Outreach

Combining the right tools with proven strategies can turn scattered outreach efforts into a seamless, well-coordinated process. When done right, multi-threaded outreach ensures meaningful connections with stakeholders across technical and commercial roles.

Digital Tools for Stakeholder Engagement

For effective stakeholder engagement, digital tools should enable targeted and strategic communication. The best platforms help you navigate complex organisational structures, keep detailed records of past interactions, and visualise relationships between key decision-makers. These tools allow you to personalise communication at scale. For example:

receive in-depth operational data and insights.
get broader strategic overviews and business impact assessments.

By tailoring your approach, these tools ensure each audience receives the information most relevant to their needs, enhancing both engagement and decision-making.

Best Practices for Multi-threaded B2B Marketing

A successful multi-threaded outreach strategy hinges on personalisation and synchronised communication. It’s not just about sending out templates - it’s about understanding the unique priorities of each stakeholder. While technical audiences may prioritise detailed specs and integration details, commercial contacts are more likely to focus on metrics like ROI or competitive positioning.

Timing plays a crucial role. Delivering key messages in a coordinated way ensures that all stakeholders - technical and commercial - receive consistent and relevant information at the right time. Aligning your content with the buyer’s journey is another essential step. Recognise that different groups might move through the journey at varying speeds, and adapt your approach accordingly.

Internal alignment is equally important. Regular team check-ins and account-based measurements can help you maintain consistency across entire target accounts, ensuring you track progress and success holistically rather than focusing on individual leads.

By building on these principles, you can refine your multi-threaded outreach and achieve stronger engagement.

How Twenty One Twelve Marketing Supports Multi-threading

Twenty One Twelve Marketing brings these strategies to life with a precision marketing approach tailored for complex B2B environments. Their expertise lies in navigating industries like financial services and technology, where decision-making processes are often intricate, and technical and commercial stakeholders have distinct priorities.

Their account-based strategies ensure campaigns resonate with multiple stakeholders simultaneously. Through thought-leadership content, they establish credibility by addressing the specific challenges faced by both technical and commercial audiences, showcasing deep industry expertise.

Using a digital-first approach, they create coordinated, multi-channel campaigns. For instance, technical stakeholders can access detailed product information via search engines, while commercial stakeholders engage with strategic insights through professional networks.

On top of that, Twenty One Twelve Marketing builds strategic partnerships to expand reach. These collaborations often uncover additional influencers and decision-makers within target organisations, opening up even more opportunities for coordinated engagement. This multi-layered approach ensures no stakeholder is left out, maximising the impact of every campaign.

Conclusion: Multi-threading for B2B Success

Multi-threading transforms B2B sales by creating multiple connections with both technical and commercial stakeholders. Instead of depending on a single champion within a target account, this approach builds relationships with a range of decision-makers, each bringing their own priorities and insights into the purchasing process.

The key to success lies in tailoring your messages. For example, technical teams are likely to focus on operational details, while commercial teams are more interested in understanding return on investment (ROI). When you deliver content that addresses these specific concerns, engagement improves, and sales cycles often move faster.

Digital tools can help streamline these efforts. With digital-first strategies, you can conduct targeted, multi-channel outreach that sparks natural conversations across various stakeholder groups within the same organisation.

To sustain a multi-threading strategy, focus on delivering consistent value but personalise it for each audience. For instance, technical teams might appreciate in-depth white papers, while commercial leaders may prefer concise executive summaries. While the format and tone may differ, the core value proposition should remain consistent, simply adapted to fit each group's language and priorities.

Account-based strategies further enhance multi-threading by treating entire organisations as markets rather than focusing on individual leads. This broader perspective helps uncover hidden influencers and decision-makers, expanding your network of relationships and increasing the likelihood of closing deals.

For businesses navigating complex B2B environments - such as those in financial services or technology - multi-threading is a critical strategy. It not only speeds up sales cycles but also ensures alignment across departments. By engaging technical and commercial stakeholders simultaneously, organisations can foster the confidence and collaboration needed for successful decision-making and sustained pipeline growth.

FAQs

How can businesses effectively address the unique priorities of technical and commercial stakeholders in a multi-threaded strategy?

To effectively bridge the gap between technical and commercial stakeholders, businesses need to prioritise clear communication and customised engagement. Start by mapping out stakeholders to identify their level of influence and specific interests. This ensures efforts are directed where they matter most.

Craft messaging that speaks directly to each group. For technical stakeholders, focus on providing detailed, data-rich insights and practical applications. On the other hand, for commercial stakeholders, centre the conversation around business outcomes, return on investment (ROI), and strategic benefits.

By aligning messaging to the unique priorities of each group and fostering collaboration, businesses can secure stronger stakeholder support and achieve better outcomes in complex B2B scenarios.

How can businesses improve communication and collaboration between technical and commercial teams during decision-making?

To strengthen communication and teamwork between technical and commercial teams, businesses should prioritise open dialogue. Creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their ideas and concerns is key. Offering regular training in communication skills can also help ensure messages are delivered clearly and professionally.

Introducing clear communication protocols - like standardised formats for updates or decision-making frameworks - can significantly reduce misunderstandings. Digital tools that provide real-time updates and enable progress sharing can enhance transparency and keep everyone on the same page. Additionally, promoting cross-functional collaboration through activities like joint problem-solving sessions or shared objectives can help align technical and commercial priorities.

By adopting these strategies, organisations can foster a culture of collaboration, minimise friction, and make decisions that account for the needs of all stakeholders, ultimately leading to stronger business outcomes.

How can digital tools improve a multi-threaded engagement strategy in B2B sales?

Digital tools have transformed multi-threaded engagement in B2B sales, making it more efficient and precise. They allow sales teams to deliver personalised, data-informed communication to a variety of stakeholders, ensuring every interaction is relevant and impactful.

These tools help identify key decision-makers, automate outreach efforts, and provide real-time insights into the needs and behaviours of stakeholders. This level of detail ensures that messages are customised to align with the distinct priorities of both technical and commercial stakeholders. The result? Fewer missteps, quicker decision-making, and stronger overall engagement.

Additionally, digital tools enhance team collaboration by streamlining processes. This creates a more unified and productive sales approach, where everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.