Founder-Led Marketing Statistics 2026: Trust and Buyer Data

Buyers decide before they talk to sales: 6sense found first contact happens 61% of the way through the B2B buying journey, and the winner was on the Day One shortlist 95% of the time. Thought leadership is what reaches them in that silent phase, with 95% of hidden buyers in the 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn study saying strong thought leadership makes them more receptive to outreach. Founders also start from a trust advantage, since 66% of employees trust their own CEO compared with 54% who trust CEOs in general, according to the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer.

This page collects 49 statistics on founder-led marketing, CEO visibility, LinkedIn and B2B buying. Each figure was checked against the original study or the publisher's own release on 15 October 2026. Where a number comes from a news report of a study, the bullet says so.

#Key numbers

#Trust in CEOs and executives

The Edelman Trust Barometer surveys close to 34,000 people in 28 countries each year. The 2026 edition was fielded in October and November 2025.

• 78% of employees trust "my employer," the highest score of any institution in the 2026 survey (Edelman, January 2026).
• 64% of the general population trust business, 14 points below trust in their own employer (Edelman, January 2026).
• 66% of respondents trust "my CEO" to do what is right (Edelman Trust Barometer CEO Insights, April 2026).
• 54% trust CEOs in general to do what is right, 12 points below trust in their own CEO (Edelman Trust Barometer CEO Insights, April 2026).
• 73% say CEOs are obligated to bridge divides and help build trust (Edelman Trust Barometer CEO Insights, April 2026).
• 44% say CEOs are doing well at bridging divides, a gap of 29 points against expectations (Edelman Trust Barometer CEO Insights, April 2026).
• Nearly 7 in 10 respondents fear institutional leaders are deliberately misleading the public (Edelman, January 2026).

#Thought leadership and B2B buying decisions

The Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report is the longest-running study of how executives consume thought leadership. The 2025 edition surveyed nearly 2,000 professionals and focused on "hidden buyers," the people who shape a purchase without talking to sales. The 2024 edition surveyed 3,484 executives in seven markets.

• 95% of hidden buyers say strong thought leadership makes them more receptive to sales and marketing outreach (Edelman, June 2025).
• 71% of hidden buyers say they have little or no interaction with sales teams (Edelman, June 2025).
• 71% of hidden buyers say thought leadership is more effective than traditional marketing or sales materials (Edelman, June 2025).
• 64% of hidden buyers trust thought leadership more than product sheets or brochures when assessing a supplier's capabilities (Edelman, June 2025).
• 63% of hidden buyers spend more than an hour per week consuming thought leadership (Edelman, June 2025).
• 79% of hidden buyers say they are more likely to advocate for a proposal during an RFP if the vendor publishes quality thought leadership (Edelman, June 2025).
• 35% of hidden buyers say a senior executive has encouraged them to consider a vendor (Edelman, June 2025).
• 73% of decision-makers say an organization's thought leadership is a more trustworthy basis for judging its capabilities than its marketing materials (Edelman-LinkedIn, February 2024).
• 86% of decision-makers say they are moderately or very likely to invite a firm that produces consistently high-quality thought leadership into an RFP process (Edelman-LinkedIn, February 2024).
• 60% say good thought leadership makes them willing to pay a premium to work with that organization (Edelman-LinkedIn, February 2024).

#Executive social media presence

Brunswick Group's Connected Leadership research is the main recurring survey on how employees and financial readers judge CEOs who use social media. Its most recent public figures date from 2021 and 2022, so treat them as older benchmarks.

• 73% of employees and 86% of financial readers rated it somewhat or very important for business leaders to use social media to communicate about their companies (Fortune reporting Brunswick, May 2022).
• 4 to 1 is the ratio by which employees would rather work for a CEO who uses social media than one who does not, all else equal (Fortune reporting Brunswick, May 2022).
• 3 to 1 was the US ratio for the same preference, up from 2 to 1 in 2019 (Fortune reporting Brunswick, May 2022).
• 60% of employees considering joining a company say they will research the CEO's social media accounts (Brunswick, January 2021).
• 9 to 1 is the margin by which financial readers trust a CEO who uses social media as part of their work over one who does not (Brunswick, January 2021).

#The B2B buying journey

The 6sense 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report drew on nearly 4,000 buyers, with a minimum purchase size of $25,000. Gartner and Forrester add data on rep-free buying and the size of buying groups.

• 61% of the way through the buying journey is when buyers first contact a seller, down from 69% in earlier editions (6sense, November 2025).
• 95% of the time, the winning vendor was already on the buyer's Day One shortlist, up from 85% (6sense, November 2025).
• 79% of first contacts are initiated by the buyer rather than the seller (6sense, November 2025).
• 10.1 months was the average B2B buying cycle in 2025, down from 11.3 months in 2024 (6sense, November 2025).
• 61% of B2B buyers prefer an overall rep-free buying experience (Gartner, June 2025).
• 73% of B2B buyers actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach (Gartner, June 2025).
• 13 internal stakeholders and 9 external influencers are involved in a typical business buying decision (Forrester, January 2026).

#LinkedIn reach and employee advocacy

• 1.3 billion+ members are on LinkedIn, according to the company's own statistics page (LinkedIn, 2026).
• About 12x is how much larger employees' combined networks are than a company's own LinkedIn following, according to LinkedIn data (Social Media Today reporting LinkedIn, February 2026).
• Nearly 6 in 10 buyers say they discover new brands through creator content (Social Media Today reporting LinkedIn, February 2026).
• Nearly half of buyers report visiting a vendor's website after engaging with creator content (Social Media Today reporting LinkedIn, February 2026).
• 77% of B2B marketing leaders say buyers still rely on their networks to vet brands, in a Censuswide survey for LinkedIn across 14 markets (Mediaweek reporting LinkedIn, September 2025).

#Founder-led sales and early-stage GTM

No large public survey currently measures founder-led sales directly. The figures below cover the conditions founders sell into: more solo founders, harder quotas, and buyers who pick vendors they already know.

• 36.3% of new startups had a solo founder in the first half of 2025, up from 23.7% in 2019 (Carta, December 2025).
• 30% of startups founded in 2024 were solo-led, but they received 14.7% of cash raised in priced equity rounds that year (Carta, December 2025).
• 75% of B2B buyers in the survey said they personally knew sellers (6sense, November 2025).
• 85% of buyers had prior experience with the vendor that won the deal (6sense, November 2025).
• 58% was average account executive quota attainment at software companies in 2025 year to date, compared with 59% in 2024 (ICONIQ, 2025).

#Content measurement and pipeline attribution

The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn study also surveyed the people who produce thought leadership. Their answers show how weakly most companies connect content to revenue.

• 29% of thought leadership producers can link sales leads back to specific pieces of content (Edelman-LinkedIn, February 2024).
• 42% of producers measure effectiveness by website and social media traffic (Edelman-LinkedIn, February 2024).
• 19% of producers say they have no process for measuring effectiveness at all (Edelman-LinkedIn, February 2024).
• 30% of producers say their organization does not know how to use thought leadership as a sales or marketing tool (Edelman-LinkedIn, February 2024).
• 53% of more than 125 US-focused B2B marketing leaders surveyed by Factors.ai use LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads to amplify organic posts (Factors.ai, August 2026).

#AI content and authenticity

• 81.2% of 5,000 public long-form LinkedIn posts sampled in July 2026 were classified as likely AI-generated, up from roughly half in late 2024 (Originality.ai, July 2026).
• 94% of B2B buyers used large language models during their buying process (6sense, November 2025).
• 67% want future business leaders who speak directly without editing, against 33% who prefer words reviewed and edited by staff (Edelman Trust Barometer CEO Insights, April 2026).
• 37% name the growing use of generative AI platforms as a key shaper of their trust over the past five years (Edelman, January 2026).
• 81% of marketing leaders say authentic voices matter more than ever (Mediaweek reporting LinkedIn, September 2025).

#How to use these numbers

• Publish before the buyer calls. Buyers make first contact 61% of the way in and the winner is usually on the Day One shortlist, so a founder's posts, essays and talks have to do the persuading before any sales call, especially since 71% of hidden buyers have little or no interaction with sales teams.
• Write in your own voice and keep it specific. With 81.2% of sampled long-form LinkedIn posts flagged as likely AI and 67% of people preferring leaders who speak without staff edits, a founder's real opinions, numbers and customer stories are the clearest signal of a human behind the account.
• Measure content against pipeline, not traffic. Only 29% of thought leadership producers can tie leads to specific pieces, so tag self-reported attribution ("how did you hear about us?") in your CRM and track which founder posts show up in won deals.

#Methodology

Every statistic on this page was last checked on 15 October 2026 against the original report, the publisher's press release or, where noted, a named news report of the study. Figures are quoted as published, without rounding or combining numbers from different studies. Each bullet states the publication month of its source. Survey dates differ from publication dates in several cases: the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer was fielded from October to November 2025, the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn report from November to December 2023, and Gartner's rep-free survey of 632 buyers from August to September 2024.

Older figures from Brunswick (2021 and 2022) are included because no newer public edition of that research was found. Statistics were excluded when no original study could be located, when only a third-party blog cited them, or when the source was more than five years old with no recurring update. Commonly repeated claims about personal profiles getting several hundred percent more reach than company pages were left out for that reason.

#Sources

1. Edelman, "2026 Edelman Trust Barometer: Society Slides Into Insularity," January 2026. https://www.edelman.com/index.php/news-awards/2026-edelman-trust-barometer-society-slides-into-insularity
2. Edelman, "2026 Edelman Trust Barometer CEO Insights," April 2026. https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2026-04/2026%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20CEO%20Insights.pdf
3. Edelman, "The Rise of the Hidden Buyer" (2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report), June 2025. https://www.edelman.com/insights/hidden-buyer-b2b
4. Edelman and LinkedIn, "2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report," February 2024. https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2024-02/_2024%20Edelman-LinkedIn%20B2B%20Thought%20Leadership%20Impact%20Report%20Final.pdf
5. Fortune, "CEO Daily" (Brunswick Connected Leadership survey), May 2022. https://fortune.com/2022/05/19/social-media-good-or-bad-ceo-daily
6. Brunswick Group, "2021 Connected Leadership Research," January 2021. https://www.brunswickgroup.com/perspectives/connected-leadership/2021-connected-leadership-research/
7. 6sense, "2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report," November 2025. https://6sense.com/?p=607322
8. Gartner, "Gartner Sales Survey Finds 61% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Buying Experience," June 2025. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-06-25-gartner-sales-survey-finds-61-percent-of-b2b-buyers-prefer-a-rep-free-buying-experience
9. Forrester, "The State of Business Buying, 2026" press release, January 2026. https://www.forrester.com/press-newsroom/forrester-2026-the-state-of-business-buying/
10. LinkedIn, "About Us: Statistics," 2026. https://news.linkedin.com/about-us#Statistics
11. Social Media Today, "LinkedIn Shares Key Trends in B2B Marketing," February 2026. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-shares-key-trends-in-b2b-marketing/811257/
12. Mediaweek, "LinkedIn research confirms the value of trusted voices as AI floods the internet," September 2025. https://mediaweek.com.au/linkedin-research-confirms-the-value-of-trusted-voices-as-ai-floods-the-internet
13. Carta, "Solo Founders Report 2025," December 2025. https://carta.com/data/solo-founders-report
14. ICONIQ, "The State of Go-to-Market 2025," 2025. https://www.iconiq.com/growth/reports/state-of-go-to-market-2025
15. Factors.ai, "LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads," August 2026. https://www.factors.ai/blog/linkedin-thought-leader-ads
16. Originality.ai, "LinkedIn AI Content Study: 81% of Long-Form Posts Are Likely AI," July 2026. https://originality.ai/blog/ai-content-published-linkedin