Most buyer personas are basically paper dolls with job titles. They look nice. They’re well-behaved. They sit politely in a Google Doc. And they do absolutely nothing when it’s time to win a deal.
If you’ve ever read a persona like “Mary, 42, enjoys lattes and collaboration,” congratulations: you’ve met the problem. We’ve spent years creating fictional people instead of tactical tools that help us sell. Personas were supposed to be power tools. Somewhere along the way, we turned them into scrapbooking journals.
When you build personas with truth, tension, and the way real decisions get made, everything sharpens. Messaging tightens. Sales calls get clearer. Deals move faster.
Here is how to create personas your team will actually use.
1. Stop writing characters and start naming roles.
A persona is not a personality. It is a seat at the decision table. Most B2B purchases revolve around a few predictable roles.
- The Founder or CEO thinks in the future state and buys transformation.
- The Marketing Leader thinks in performance and buys competence.
- The COO thinks in terms of stability and buys control.
- The CFO thinks in economics and buys risk reduction.
Different lenses. Different motivations. If your personas blur them together, nothing that follows will land.
2. Lead with fear, not goals.
People move faster to avoid pain than to chase desire.
The CEO wants growth but fears losing their position.
The Marketing Leader wants support but fears blame.
The COO wants efficiency but fears collapse.
The CFO wants returns but fears paying for progress that would have happened anyway.
If your persona doesn’t clearly identify:
- Their #1 fear
- Their political risk
- What gets them fired
- What gets them promoted
…it’s not a persona. It’s a brochure.
The moment you understand someone’s fear, you understand their buying behavior.
3. Find the moment they start shopping.
Every role has a moment that pushes them from fine to frustrated.
Examples:
- CEO: sees a weaker competitor steal their positioning.
- CMO: loses another weekend to execution work.
- COO: a backlog that breaks their onboarding process.
- CFO: CAC spikes and nothing explains it.
Document these moments, and your marketing starts feeling eerily well-timed.
4. Name their internal battles (not just internal needs).
B2B decisions do not fall apart because of price. They fall apart because of politics.
A strong persona should show you who they must convince, what objections they will face, who will slow the deal, and the story they need to tell to justify the investment.
If you can see their battlefield, you can help them win it.
5. Capture their “Yes” moment.
This is the shift where you stop being a cost and become a lever.
It’s specific:
- CEOs say yes when they realize your work increases their valuation multiple.
- CMOs say yes when they see you’ll give them back their time and their political capital.
- COOs say yes when you show that marketing can actually stabilize the business.
- CFOs say yes when you prove the CAC arbitrage.
Your persona needs this moment written clearly and simply.
6. Put it all on one practical page.
A persona is only valuable if your team can use it. They should be short enough for a salesperson to memorize and sharp enough to change how they run a call.
One page.
No fluff.
No hobbies.
No lattes.
No “likes long walks on the beach.”
Just:
- What they want
- What they fear
- What triggers buying
- What blocks buying
- How they define success
- What language they use
- The Yes Moment
- Your winning angle
Now you have a persona that actually helps you close deals, not decorate strategy decks.
Final thought
Personas should feel like X-ray vision. They should shape messaging, guide conversations, and help your team predict how decisions will unfold.
Build them with psychology, pressure, and clarity. You will stop guessing and start operating with intention.
