The study deepens our understanding of business marketing by looking beyond the individual choices of business actors to the role of consent between interacting actors. Based on an empirical investigation of manufacturers and retailers in Germany and drawing from previous research on business relationships, the paper develops a theoretical structure for the analysis of consent in business marketing. The paper argues for a shift from a view of individual choice as the basis of business marketing towards the idea of choice being part of an evolutionary discursive practice of consent. The study detects the mediating role of consent at four levels: 1) as a stratifying process, 2) as recursive practice, 3) as energizing interaction, and 4) as economizing activities, resources and actors; it elaborates significant theoretical implications and highlights managerial lessons.