We at N.Rich are launching the Challenger GTM Study 2026 to explore a reality most B2B companies experience but rarely see reflected in go to market strategy.
According to the World Bank, over 90% of businesses worldwide are small and mid sized companies and in SaaS alone, there are now more than 30,000 companies, yet only a small fraction are recognized as category leaders. Most are competing in crowded markets without the advantage of being the default choice.
And as a challenger brand ourselves, like many of you, we wanted to understand how others are navigating their GTM strategies and finding ways to win. So we launched the Challenger Brands survey to hear more stories like ours and share those insights with you.
Research from Gartner shows that B2B buyers spend most of their journey researching independently, often forming strong preferences before ever engaging with a vendor. By the time conversations happen, many decisions are already shaped. At the same time, Forrester reports that buying groups continue to grow, making decisions more complex and harder to influence.
This creates a very different starting point for challenger brands. Many struggle to even make it onto the shortlist, not because of product limitations, but because market leaders are automatically considered. By the time challengers enter the conversation, decision criteria have often already been shaped by competitors. They are forced to compete on rules they did not help define, making it significantly harder to win.
Even when challengers do get into deals, they face a persistent brand awareness gap. Buyers are less likely to engage with vendors they do not recognize, especially in high stakes or complex categories. This creates a situation where even strong products lose out to more familiar names, not because they are worse, but because they feel riskier.
This challenge is often compounded by over reliance on outbound. Many challenger teams invest heavily in SDR and outbound motions, but without brand awareness to support it, conversion rates remain extremely low. Conversations start cold, without context or familiarity, making it difficult to build trust or momentum. By the time sales engages, buyers may already be leaning toward a more established competitor.
In industries where trust plays a critical role, this gap becomes even more pronounced. In sectors like healthcare, fintech, or cybersecurity, buyers tend to default to established vendors because the perceived risk of choosing an unknown provider is simply too high. Even when challengers can demonstrate value, credibility often becomes the deciding factor.
And when challengers do not lose to competitors, they often lose to inaction. Many deals stall or end in no decision because buyers are not confident enough to choose a less familiar option. Instead of switching, they stay with the status quo. This means challenger brands are not just competing against other vendors, but against hesitation and perceived risk.
Across all of these patterns, one theme is clear. Challenger brands are not just competing on product or price. They are competing for visibility, trust, and early influence. And without those, even the best GTM execution can struggle to translate into wins.
Most go to market strategies assume a level of visibility that challenger brands simply do not have. They assume buyers already know your brand, that inbound demand is stable, and that your company is consistently included in buying conversations. But for most B2B companies, that is not the case. According to 6sense, around 70% of the buyer’s journey happens before a buyer ever talks to sales. If your brand is not visible during that stage, it becomes significantly harder to influence the outcome later.
At the same time, internal pressures make it even more difficult to adapt. Data from HubSpot shows that marketing teams are still largely measured on leads and short term outputs. Challenger teams are expected to generate pipeline, build awareness, and compete with larger players while operating with smaller teams and limited budgets. This creates a gap between what teams know they should be doing and what they are actually able to execute.
The Challenger GTM Study 2026 explores how B2B brands are navigating this gap. It looks at how challenger teams approach pipeline generation, where they struggle to gain traction, how they prioritize channels, and what is starting to change in how they compete. More importantly, it captures the patterns behind why some teams manage to break through while others stay stuck despite increasing effort.
This is not a report built around best practices or ideal scenarios. It is grounded in how challenger brands actually operate today, including the constraints they face and the tradeoffs they make. If you have ever felt like your GTM strategy is not matching the reality of how buyers behave, or that you are doing more without seeing better results, this study will give you a clearer view of why.
If you are building pipeline without the advantage of being the default choice, this report was built for you. The Challenger GTM Study 2026 provides a closer look at how B2B brands are competing in today’s market and what is shifting as buying behavior evolves.
Download Challenger GTM Study to explore the insights and see how challenger brands are approaching growth in 2026 and beyond.