In this note
- Why the order matters
- The seven questions, and how brands fail them
- It's not one buyer, it's six
- What the stages are not
- Do this this week
- Questions people ask
Most brands think they lose deals at the end. The proposal was too expensive, the timing was wrong, a rival undercut them. Sometimes that's true. More often the deal was lost weeks earlier, at a stage nobody was watching, and the proposal was just where the loss became visible.
Buyers don't choose once. They move through a sequence of small decisions, and each decision is a chance to keep you or drop you. We call them the seven stages: Known, Found, Answered, Believed, Preferred, Bought and Kept. Each one comes with a single question the buyer is trying to answer. This is the first Field Note, so it starts with the map everything else in this series hangs on.
Why the order matters
The stages run in order, and that's the point. A buyer who has never heard of you can't find you. A buyer who can't find you never gets a straight answer from you. A buyer who doesn't believe you won't prefer you, however good your offer is.
So a brand is only as strong as its weakest stage. You can have the best onboarding in your category and still lose, because nobody believed the claims on your website long enough to sign. That's why we don't start with whatever feels most urgent. We start by finding the stage where buyers are dropping you, and we fix that first.
The seven questions, and how brands fail them
1. Known: "Who comes to mind?"
Before a buyer is in the market, they already carry a short list in their head. If you're not on it, you start every deal from behind. Brands fail here when they only show up once someone is actively searching, and never leave a memory before that.
2. Found: "Who shows up when I search, or ask AI?"
When the need arrives, the buyer goes looking. More and more, that means typing or speaking a question to an AI assistant rather than scanning a page of links. Brands fail here when they're not named in the answer, or when they're buried where nobody looks. You can be well known and still not be found.
3. Answered: "Do they answer what I actually need?"
This is where many considered purchases quietly die. The buyer wants to know what it costs, how long it takes, what could go wrong, and whether it's right for someone like them. Brands fail when they hide the price, skip the risks or bury the timeline. The buyer doesn't complain. They just go quiet.
4. Believed: "Can I trust them?"
Claims are cheap, and buyers know it. Brands fail at Believed when they make promises with no proof, or when the website says one thing, the sales deck says another and the reviews say a third. Machines notice the inconsistency too.
5. Preferred: "Why them, over the rest, or over nothing?"
Now the buyer has a shortlist of brands that all seem capable. Brands fail here when there's no reason to choose them that a buyer could repeat to their boss in one sentence. When nothing separates the shortlist, price decides, or the buyer decides to do nothing at all.
6. Bought: "Is it easy and safe to say yes?"
Even a buyer who prefers you can stall at the last step. Brands fail at Bought when the first commitment is big and scary, the paperwork is confusing, or there's no clear way out if it goes wrong. A small, safe first step often matters more than a discount.
7. Kept: "Am I glad I chose them?"
The last stage is the one most marketing forgets. Brands fail at Kept when the relationship goes quiet the day after the invoice. A buyer who isn't glad they chose you won't come back, and won't recommend you to the next buyer at Known.
A brand is only as strong as the stage where buyers drop it.
It's not one buyer, it's six
There's a second axis that makes this more useful. Most considered purchases involve more than one person, and each of them moves through all seven stages. We work with six buyer types: the champion who wants it, the money who signs off, the user who has to live with it, the sceptic looking for a reason to say no, the boss who has the final word, and the adviser whose opinion they all trust.
Six buyer types across seven stages gives you 42 selection moments. The champion at Found is a different moment from the sceptic at Believed, with different questions and different ways to fail. Most marketing is built for one or two of those 42. We'll come back to the sceptic in particular next week, because they decide more deals than most brands think.
What the stages are not
The stages aren't a funnel diagram to put in a strategy deck and forget. They're a way of asking better questions about real evidence: where are buyers dropping us, which buyer, and what were they trying to find out when they did?
They're also not a reason to fix everything at once. Seven stages and six buyer types can feel like 42 problems. In practice one or two moments are usually doing most of the damage. Find those, fix them, measure, then move to the next. That rhythm is the whole method in miniature.
Do this this week
You can get a rough picture of your weakest stage in about an hour, with nothing more than a spreadsheet and some honesty.
- Write the seven questions down. One row per stage, using the buyer's own words from above.
- Answer each one as a buyer would. For each stage, write where a buyer would go to answer it today: your website, a review site, an AI assistant, a salesperson. Be specific.
- Check it, don't guess it. Actually go there. Ask the AI assistant. Open the pricing page. Read your three most recent reviews. Note what a buyer would find.
- Score each stage 1 to 3. One means a buyer would be cut here, two means they'd scrape through, three means you'd be chosen here. Circle the lowest. That's your first fix.
Questions people ask
What are the seven stages of being chosen?
Known, Found, Answered, Believed, Preferred, Bought and Kept. Each stage has one buyer question: who comes to mind, who shows up when I search or ask AI, do they answer what I need, can I trust them, why them, is it easy and safe to say yes, and am I glad I chose them.
Do the stages always happen in order?
Broadly, yes. A buyer can move quickly through some stages, and a referral can skip a buyer straight to Believed, but they can't prefer a brand they don't trust or find a brand they've never heard of. That's why the weakest stage limits everything after it.
How is this different from a marketing funnel?
A funnel tracks how many people move from one step to the next. The seven stages focus on the question a buyer is trying to answer at each step, and they're applied to six different buyer types, which gives 42 moments where you can be chosen or cut.