Understanding Sales Trends And Insights

The anatomy of a sales call has changed dramatically. Last week, I shadowed some of HubSpot’s top reps and what struck me was how differently the best sellers work today. They’re using AI at every stage: before, during, and after the call. And the results are real. The brain: before the call. AI does the heavy research — scanning 10Ks, news, emails, and past calls to surface the insights that matter most. Tools like Breeze Assistant can prep a full company overview in seconds. According to our State of Sales Report, 74% of sellers say buyers are showing up to calls more informed than ever before. Salespeople need to be just as ready. The heart: during the call. AI notetakers capture everything: next steps, budget mentions, open questions, so reps can focus on listening, not typing or scribbling notes on the side.  Also, AI assistants surface the right case study or testimonial in real time, making every answer sharper and every example more relevant. That means as a sales rep you are more engaged and relevant. The muscle: after the call. AI follows through fast. It drafts personalized follow-up emails in your own voice, outlines next steps, and flags what needs attention. More time with customers and less time writing emails. The result: sellers who prepare better, connect deeper, and close faster. The anatomy of a great sales call used to be manual effort and hustle. Now, it’s human connection powered by intelligence.

Every sales leader I talk to at the moment is struggling with some version of the same issue. The symptoms are different, but the underlying cause is the same. - Sales cycles elongating - Deal slippage - Prospects not showing up to meetings - An uptick in ghosting - Poor forecast accuracy - A drop in deal volumes - A drop in conversion rates What's actually happening out there in Buyer land? I've been delivering win-loss reviews for B2B companies around the world since 2011 and I'm seeing buyer behaviours I've never observed before... Let me break down some of them quickly for you and share some guidance on how to use these lessons to your advantage: Trend #1: Risk has jumped up the decision tree in order of importance, to the very top of the list for many clients, even more so when it's a new vendor. Action: Go deeper on risk in your discovery conversations, recognise that risk is both organisational and personal...find ways to better manage, mitigate and share risk with your clients...Be the low risk option. Trend #2: Value for Money, Responsiveness and Cost are consistently selected as the most important decision criteria by many clients. Action: Responsiveness should be an easy one to get right, but many sellers are stretched too thin right now...do less, but do it better. Trend #3: Change in Strategic Direction is the most frequently cited reason for customers coming to market for a new solution at the moment. Action: Try to reverse engineer this reason, to understanding what caused this change in direction and what it actually means for the business. These are your keys to the kingdom, when building a rock solid business case. Trend #4: Feedback from Peers and Colleagues has emerged as the most trusted information source for almost all respondents. Action: Case studies and customer references are losing their luster...find ways to tap into the trust which prospective clients have in their own peer network, as a way to unlock deeper connections and build trust. Trend #5: Customers are demanding more detail in the proposal documents, tender responses and business cases which they are receiving. Action: Put in the work, avoid the cookie-cutter responses, find your win themes and weave them in, share the detail they need to make an informed decision. I haven't got a crystal ball, so I can't tell you if/when the pendulum will swing back the other way, from a buyer behaviour perspective. What I can tell you with a high degree of certainty is that prospective customers have raised the bar, in terms of their expectations from their vendor partners. It's our job now to to elevate the preparation, patience and professionalism of B2B sellers everywhere, to meet these changing needs and maintain our relevance to the customers we serve.

Wrong data costs demand planners millions. This document shows 7 must-have dashboards to watch: # 1 - Forecast Accuracy Tracker ↳ Automatically calculate forecasting KPIs like MAPE, WMAPE, Bias, and FVA across SKUs, customers, and regions ↳ No more manual checks, performance is updated live with every forecast cycle # 2 - Demand Trend Dashboard ↳ Blend historical sales, promotions, and seasonality data ↳ Spot shifts early like declining core SKUs or sudden spikes in niche products # 3 - Forecast vs Actual Performance Tracker ↳ Compare last cycle’s forecast vs actuals, side-by-side ↳ Helps you explain misses quickly in the Demand Review with visuals # 4 - Promo Impact Analysis Board ↳ Visualize lift vs baseline after each campaign ↳ Identify which promotions actually drive incremental demand, not just volume spikes # 5 - Customer-Level Forecast Accuracy Monitor ↳ Segment forecast accuracy by top accounts or channels ↳ Know which customers consistently overcommit or underorder, and adjust inputs # 6 - Product Lifecycle Tracker ↳ Monitor new launches, phase-outs, and slow movers in one place ↳ Keep your forecast aligned with product life stages # 7 - Exception Dashboard ↳ Highlight SKUs with sudden volume deviations, low coverage, or missing inputs ↳ Start your day knowing where to focus Any others to add?

Two major updates to Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) today: First, the long-awaited 5-year historical purchase data view is now available for everyone. This shows us customer behavior patterns we've never seen before. Here's what I mean: I recently looked at data from a CPG manufacturer: * 1-year window: 37% repeat purchasers, $24 average GMV * 5-year window: 85% repeat purchasers, $185 average GMV The difference is striking. With five years of data, brands can now: * Spot product lifecycles * Map seasonal patterns across multiple years * Track how customers move through product portfolios * Understand actual customer value over time Second announcement - Amazon is removing cost barriers for AMC features. For example, Amazon Insights, which was previously a paid feature, is now available at no cost. These signals allow you to Analyzes custom audience segments to show behavior patterns, media exposure, shopping activity, and purchase trends. This Helps to refine your media strategy by showing what’s resonating with your most valuable audiences and enables advanced segmentation for future targeting or suppression strategies. For anyone wanting to try the 5-year data view, or learn about building AMC audiences, reach out to your AMC tool provider or contact your Amazon Ads PDM.

𝗠𝘆𝘁𝗵 #𝟰 – “𝗦𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹” "We launched a sustainable product, but no one is buying it.” This is one of the most recurring discussions. Let’s unpack this, because in most cases, it’s not the sustainability that’s the problem. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲-𝗢𝗳𝗳 One of the biggest mistakes? Designing a “green” product with the planet in mind… and forgetting the customer. I’m thinking of Nike’s Trash Talk shoe: launched with the best intentions, made entirely from factory waste, a pioneering attempt at circularity. But it flopped. Why? Because, quite frankly, it looked like trash and didn’t perform like a Nike shoe. Fast forward to Nike Flyknit: same ambition, better execution. Engineered from 60% less waste, lightweight, durable, high-performing. It didn’t just meet the bar for a performance shoe, it raised it. And it became one of Nike’s best-selling shoes. 𝙇𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙣? Sustainability is a feature, not an excuse. The best sustainability products elevate the customer experience, they don’t reduce it. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲-𝗢𝗳𝗳 Here’s another hard truth: many sustainable products are simply overpriced. True, oftentimes they are more expensive to produce - but is it really fair to expect the consumer to absorb 𝘢𝘭𝘭 the extra cost? A Kearney study found that most green products are nearly twice (!) the cost of conventional ones. They also found that a simple shift from a relative to a fixed margin pricing could solve the issue. Fair Milk, for example, was introduced so farmers could make a decent living. Instead of applying the typical relative margin across brand owners, wholesalers, and retailers (which would have brought the liter of milk well over €1), they added a fixed 10-cent premium, one that the majority of customers accepted right away. 𝙇𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙣? If you add your sustainability premium to the production cost, all the other profit margins stack up quickly. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲-𝗢𝗳𝗳 And now for the part we don’t talk about enough: sales. Companies have sustainability products in theory, but they never make it into the client conversation. Why? Because your sales team is either not incentivized or not confident enough to sell them. Sometimes it’s structure: bonuses tied to volume, not value. Sometimes it’s discomfort: salespeople feel like they don’t know enough about sustainability to bring it up. And sometimes, they just don’t believe in the story. If your sales team isn’t trained to sell your sustainable offering, they won’t. And that’s not a sales issue, it’s a leadership and communication one. 𝙇𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙣? If sustainability is part of your offer, it needs to be part of your sales muscle. 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: If your sustainable product isn’t selling, chances are it’s not the sustainability that’s broken. It’s the pricing. It’s the performance. It’s your internal incentives. Sustainability doesn’t excuse bad business logic, it demands better.

2 weeks ago, I called one of our longest-tenured sales reps about a deal. In general, I love the chance to phone Gainsters out of the blue and talk to them 1-1. And this teammate was someone with whom I had been in the trenches with for many years. Since I had him on the line, I asked him how he keeps on top of all of the products and roadmap in our portfolio right now. He said (paraphrasing): “That’s not how I approach my role. My first priority is to be there for the client. I’m not the expert on everything at Gainsight, but I’ll get them to the right person. I’ll always be there to listen to them and advocate for them. And they know that when they reach out, I’ll reply right away.” Don’t get me wrong. Sales reps like this one wouldn’t be successful without the support of technical specialists behind the scenes. And if we were still a point product startup, the customer would want the rep to know everything. But to expect a sales professional at a multi-hundred million dollar revenue company to know 5 distinct products in detail isn’t reasonable. I realize this is counter to the trend that many of us thought was inexorable a few years ago - Product-Led Growth. The thinking then was that relationship sellers would go away and that products would sell themselves. Of course, PLG has had a huge impact. Many of us start with dev tools like Cursor or devops products like Datadog in a self-service fashion. But I believe customers still value diligent and consultative account executives - particularly in categories where the product is a solution, versus a tool. Indeed, I think relationship selling will become MORE important in the era of AI and agents. Agentic businesses allow companies to finally sell solutions. Marketing technology companies can provide demand, not email engines. Recruiting software companies can offer candidates versus an “Applicant Tracking System.” And Gainsight can deliver retention-as-a-service. In a world where you are selling a solution, your company becomes more like a consulting firm. And in consulting, human skills are everything. The old aphorism is that “people buy from people that they like.” It's easy to think AI will make that adage seem anachronistic. But in some categories, buyers will value relationships more than ever.

August Revenue is N120 Million..... ❌ That's not how to report revenue. When it comes to closing the month-end, one thing management always wants to know first is: “How did we make money this period?” If you can make management see not only what was earned, but also why it was earned, how it compares to past performance, and where future opportunities lie, then you are not just reporting, you are adding value. My Approach ✔️ Step 1: Start with the headline number Always open your report with the revenue figure for the period. Keep it simple and clear. Example: Our total revenue for August 2025 was N120 million. ✔️ Step 2: Compare with relevant benchmarks A single number means little in isolation, that's why the real insight comes from comparing it against: ▪️ Previous Month (Actual) – Shows short-term growth or decline. ▪️ Budget/Target for the Month – Reveals if the company is on track. ▪️ Previous Year (Same Month/Period) – Shows long-term growth trend. This is where you bring the story alive. Suppose August 2025 revenue was N120 million. ▪️ July 2025 actual revenue was N100 million → Growth of 20% month-on-month. ▪️ Budgeted revenue for August was N125 million → Achieved 96% of target. ▪️ August 2024 revenue was N90 million → Growth of 33% year-on-year. Interpretation: Revenue grew strongly compared to last month and last year, showing an upward trend. However, it fell slightly short of the budget, meaning assumptions on product demand or pricing may have been a little optimistic. ✔️ Step 3: Go Deeper with Product Analysis Management wants to know what is driving the numbers. Break revenue down by product or service line. ▪️ Which products grew the fastest? ▪️ Which ones are underperforming? ▪️ Did price changes, discounts, or promotions affect sales? ▪️ Was the increase driven by volume (more units sold) or by higher prices? Example (for August 2025): ▪️ Product A: N60m revenue (up 25% vs last month):-growth driven by higher sales volume after a new marketing campaign. ▪️ Product B: N40m revenue (flat vs last month):- price discount boosted sales but reduced margins. ▪️ Product C: N20m revenue (down 10% vs last month):- customers switching to competitors due to pricing. Step 4: Highlight Growth Trends and Drivers Your report should explain not just the what, but the why. ▪️ Was growth driven by increased demand, new customers, or higher pricing? ▪️ Were there seasonal factors (festive periods, back-to-school, holidays)? ▪️ Did external factors like exchange rates, inflation, or regulation affect revenue? This helps management make informed decisions, whether to double down on what works or to fix what’s broken. Important! Clear revenue reporting gives management quick insight, supports wise decisions, ensures accountability to budgets, and guides strategic planning. Remember, revenue is not just a number; it’s the heartbeat of a business. I hope this helps.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands had their glory days—but the curtain may be falling on the old, dare I say "legacy," DTC model. Today, #DTC is an essential channel for growth, but the model itself has been tested and found wanting. Consider Allbirds, once the darling of eco-conscious footwear, #IPO dreams, expansion plans… and now, reality checks. Casper, Away, Glossier, Inc., Warby Parker— all rode the high wave of billion-dollar valuations and cheap capital. Yet, some sank: Casper returned to private equity, Outdoor Voices went the same way, and Allbirds shut stores, pivoting to a distributor model to right the ship. Analysts like Simeon Siegel, CFA Siegel at BMO Capital Markets tell it straight: DTC didn’t eliminate the middleman; it became the middleman, bearing all the costs and headaches that come with the territory. With rising customer acquisition costs, thinning venture funds, and waning consumer enthusiasm, DTC brands faced the music. Even mighty brands like @Nike and Peloton —those with rock-solid brand equity—found they couldn’t ditch wholesale partnerships without consequences. As Neil Saunders from GlobalData Plc says, “It’s not where you sell; it’s what you sell.” Brands today aren’t ditching DTC entirely but embracing a hybrid approach, blending wholesale, digital, and brick-and-mortar to reach consumers more effectively - and more profitably. So, to today’s disruptors: Don’t aspire to be a DTC brand. Aspire to be a great brand. Let your products lead, and let the channels follow. #retailing #brands #marketing #businessmodels https://lnkd.in/gqfNYZeA

The State of Tech Sales in 2025 AI and automation are now table stakes. If you are still treating them like a competitive advantage, you are already behind. Everyone has AI cold email tools. Everyone is automating DMs. Everyone is using AI call summaries. Everyone is trying to scale conversations instead of mastering them. That is why most reps are getting worse. They are moving faster while building less trust. They are replacing human connection with efficiency. They are cutting corners on the exact skills that actually close deals. Here is what is working in 2025 1️⃣Human connection. Buyers are overwhelmed with automation. They are craving real conversations with people who can understand their challenges and solve real problems. 2️⃣Unscalable tactics. Physical mailers. In person meetings. Handwritten notes. Live events. These used to be normal. Now they are rare. That is why they work. 3️⃣Critical thinking. AI can give you information. It cannot give you insight. Reps who think deeply and provide new perspectives immediately stand out. 4️⃣Creativity. Copying templates and following the crowd used to be safe. Now it gets you ignored. Reps who bring fresh solutions are getting the meetings and closing the contracts. 5️⃣Consistency. Most reps quit when it gets hard. The ones who keep showing up and refining their craft are taking market share. The reps who will dominate the next five years are not the ones with the fastest automation. They are the ones doing the unsexy work that cannot be automated. Master the fundamentals. Build real relationships. Keep leveling up your business acumen. That is how you win in 2025. — These daily habits helped me create $195m/year in sales (even in ROUGH economies): https://lnkd.in/gbpFye_t

Change is not a trend. It’s the rule. Ignore it, and you lose. BlackBerry once ruled the world of business phones. Their keyboard felt permanent. Their market share was untouchable. Then, in 2007, Steve Jobs launched the iPhone. He didn’t just release a new phone. He changed the rules. Multi-touch screens made physical keyboards look old overnight. BlackBerry didn’t lose because of Apple. They lost because they refused to adapt. They clung to what felt safe. By 2016, their market share crashed from 50% to less than 1%. The world moved on. They stayed behind. Today, sales teams face the same moment. AI is the new touchscreen. It’s not a trend. It’s a shift. The way you sell is changing forever. 61% of high-growth companies already use AI in sales. These teams close deals twice as fast. They know what customers want before the first call. They use data, not guesswork. They move faster, smarter, and with more confidence. Manual sales processes are the new physical keyboard. They feel safe. They feel familiar. But they are holding you back. Companies slow to adopt AI risk losing up to 20% of revenue to faster, smarter competitors. That’s not a small dip. That’s a death sentence in a fast market. Here’s what happens when you embrace AI: → You get instant insights on who’s ready to buy. → Your reps spend more time closing, less time guessing. → Your pipeline is clear, and your targets are real. → Your team works smarter, not harder. → Your customers feel understood and valued. AI is not just a tool. It’s a new way of thinking. It’s the difference between leading and lagging. The difference between growth and decline. Sales teams that cling to old ways will become the next BlackBerry. Sales teams that embrace AI will own the future. You can’t build for 2007 and expect to win in 2025. Evolve or get left behind.