Reading Time: 5 minutes Selling has never been simple, but in 2025, it feels like the entire process has been rewritten while no one was looking. Buyers are more informed yet harder to reach, data is more abundant yet harder to use, and the friction between sales and marketing persists despite endless talk of ‘alignment.’ Deals take longer, decision-making is more convoluted, and expectations have never been higher. The fundamentals haven’t changed—trust, value, and timing still win deals—but the way those fundamentals play out is radically different. 1. The Decision-Making Maze In the past, a strong champion within a company could shepherd a deal through approval. Now, buying decisions are made by sprawling committees, each member armed with their own priorities and risk aversion. The average B2B deal involves six to ten stakeholders, with conflicting concerns and a natural bias towards inaction. If just one of them hesitates, the whole process stalls. For sales teams, this turns closing into an exercise in diplomacy rather than persuasion. It’s not enough to have one advocate—you need multiple, and they need to be aligned. More than ever, selling is about internal influence: understanding who holds the power, where the resistance is coming from, and what levers to pull to keep the deal moving. A good salesperson today isn’t just a closer but a strategist, mapping out internal politics and countering objections before they become deal-killers. Don’t worry if you’re struggling to read this – Gartner famously created this to show how complicated the buyer journey is 2. Buyer Expectations Are Through the Roof Today’s buyers expect the kind of experience they get in their personal lives—frictionless, hyper-personalised, and available on their terms. They want instant access to information, seamless interactions, and insight-driven conversations. What they don’t want is an aggressive sales pitch or another ‘just checking in’ email cluttering their inbox. A study by Salesforce found that 73% of B2B buyers now expect a fully personalised experience, yet most don’t feel they are getting it. At the same time, only 23% of buyers trust salespeople as a source of information, according to Forrester. The modern buyer doesn’t just want relevance; they expect it, and they have little patience for anything that feels generic or off the mark. The real problem is that while buyers crave relevance, they also resist the obvious hallmarks of automation. Over-reliance on AI-driven personalisation often backfires, making outreach feel artificial. At the same time, the buying process itself has become overwhelming—more choices, more information, more complexity—which means buyers aren’t just looking for a vendor; they’re looking for someone who can help them make sense of it all. The sales teams that succeed will be the ones who position themselves as guides rather than sellers. They’ll be present where the buyer is researching, offering insight rather than interruption. They’ll provide clarity in a sea of competing messages, making the buying process feel easier, not more complicated. 3. Data Overload and the Illusion of Personalisation Sales leaders have never had more data at their disposal, but most of it is noise rather than insight. CRMs are overflowing with half-baked notes, AI-driven outreach is often tone-deaf, and marketing-generated ‘intent data’ frequently misfires. In theory, technology should be making personalisation easier; in reality, it’s creating more work and more guesswork. The issue isn’t that data is useless—it’s that most teams are either drowning in it or misusing it. Too many salespeople spend more time wrestling with their CRM than actually selling. AI-generated messaging lacks the nuance to land effectively. Sales reps are forced to sift through vast amounts of information without a clear sense of what’s actionable. The most effective teams will be those that get ruthless about data hygiene and application. They’ll prioritise clean, relevant information over sheer volume. They’ll sharpen their focus on their Ideal Customer Profile, ensuring that every effort is directed at prospects who are the best fit, not just those who happen to be in the database. Notably, companies with a clear ICP achieve 67% higher win rates (dock.us). They’ll use AI as a tool to augment—not replace—human intuition. They’ll stop treating CRM systems as a box-ticking exercise and start using them as a genuine source of intelligence. 4. The Agony of Long Sales Cycles Deals aren’t just taking longer—they’re stalling altogether. Over half of all B2B sales efforts now end in no decision, meaning months of effort result in nothing at all. Buyers get cold feet, priorities shift, and committees hesitate rather than risk making the wrong call. Economic uncertainty has only made things worse, with CFOs scrutinising every investment more closely than ever. A report from CSO Insights found that only 47% of salespeople are meeting their quotas, down from 53% a few years ago, largely due to extended decision-making cycles and increased budget scrutiny. The same study highlights that 58% of deals that reach late-stage discussions still fail to close, often because buyers lose momentum or internal priorities change. The challenge for sales teams isn’t just progressing deals; it’s knowing when to walk away. Too many pipelines are bloated with opportunities that will never close, giving a false sense of progress while draining time and energy. The best salespeople are the ones who disqualify aggressively, recognising early when a deal isn’t likely to go anywhere. They create urgency without resorting to gimmicks, framing inaction as the bigger risk. Most importantly, they keep adding value at every stage—because in a long sales cycle, the moment you stop being useful is the moment the buyer stops responding. 5. The Never-Ending Sales-Marketing Tug of War In theory, sales and marketing should be seamlessly connected, feeding into one another to drive revenue. In practice, the gap between them remains as wide as ever. Sales teams complain that marketing leads are low quality. Marketing complains that sales ignores the content and insights they produce. The result is wasted effort, misaligned priorities, and a lot of finger-pointing when targets aren’t met. The problem isn’t just process—it’s incentives. Marketing is often measured on leads and engagement, while sales is judged on closed revenue. That disconnect means marketing is incentivised to flood sales with leads, regardless of quality, while sales cherry-picks the best ones and ignores the rest. Fixing this isn’t about another ‘alignment meeting’ but about creating real shared accountability. When both teams are measured on revenue impact, not just activity, the dynamic shifts. Sales has a reason to engage with marketing content, and marketing has a reason to focus on the quality of leads, not just the quantity. The most successful teams will be those that truly integrate, breaking down silos instead of just paying lip service to collaboration. The Future of Selling Belongs to the Adaptable The best sales teams in 2025 won’t be the ones with the most aggressive outreach or the biggest tech stack. They’ll be the ones who understand that selling is now as much about internal navigation as it is about persuasion. They’ll build trust in a market where scepticism is the default. They’ll use data intelligently rather than blindly. They’ll be selective about where they invest their time, refusing to waste months on deals that will never close. Most importantly, they’ll sharpen their focus on their Ideal Customer Profile, ensuring that they’re spending time with the right prospects. Sales has always been about adaptation. In 2025, the difference between winning and losing will come down to how quickly teams adjust to the new rules of the game. The ones who figure it out first won’t just survive the shift—they’ll dominate it. Aaron Evans 3 March 2025 Share : URL has been copied successfully!