Beyond the Dyad: Exploring Sales Interactions Across Multiple Buying-Center Roles in the Professional Imaging Sector

In business-to-business (B2B) markets, the interaction between salespeople and buying organizations has changed markedly (Ahearne et al., 2022); recent studies show that the growing complexity of both selling and buying processes (Jalkala & Salminen, 2010) makes commercial activity increasingly demanding. Despite the extensive interest in B2B selling, two gaps persist. First, literature tends to examine research streams such as salesperson activities, buying centers and business relationships in isolation. Second, it often focuses on dyadic, “one-to-one” interactions or treats the customer firm as a single, homogeneous entity, thereby overlooking the heterogeneous needs of the individual actors who compose today’s buying centers. This study addresses these deficiencies by adopting a Social Network Theory lens—combined with insights from the complex-sales and buying-center literatures—to investigate how salespeople sequentially orchestrate different typologies of interactions (RQ1); which competencies they deploy and adapt along the way (RQ2); how they reallocate time and resources as the process unfolds (RQ3); and how these choices influence overall sales-cycle effectiveness (RQ4), while also identifying the main challenges encountered and the coping strategies employed (RQ5). Evidence comes from an in-depth dyadic case study in the professional-imaging sector, emblematic of complex selling, which serves as the empirical setting for exploring these questions. Results indicate a three-gate choreography—clinician validation, engineering reliability, procurement economics—sustained by modular resource orchestration and the KAM’s positional centrality. Sequencing interactions in this order shortens the negotiation by about one-third, while an “impact × influence” approach mobilizes specialists on demand, shifts the conversation from price to life-cycle value, and resolves role conflicts through a single commercial owner and early service-uptime proofs.