For many small business owners, the word “sales” can make you cringe. If that’s you, it’s time for a mindset shift. Too many business owners, especially women, view selling as something pushy, awkward, and even sleazy. But the truth is that sales is the lifeblood of your business. Without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no business. Millionaire entrepreneurs embrace sales.

What are the key challenges for B2B marketers in 2025, and how are others looking to overcome them?

That’s the focus of the latest survey report from Sopro, which incorporates responses from more than 400 senior B2B decision-makers, along with data from 97.9 million emails, to provide some key notes and pointers to assist in your outreach strategy.

Your sales are down. You need an influx of new customers. Often the first step is segmenting your prospects into groups, whether by industry, product type, service type, or some other categorization. Then the marketing blitz begins. Maybe you create a special offer on a product. Or a discount for new customers. Or just put up some billboards to build general brand awareness. But the needle doesn’t move that significantly.

A couple of months ago, I visited a well-known establishment in Miami for dinner. Even though it was a regular weeknight — not nearly as busy as a weekend rush — I noticed one of the staff members seemed completely overwhelmed. The table next to me was making endless demands, and the employee was visibly stressed, trying to accommodate them all. Watching this unfold, I couldn't help but think: "Is this really how businesses should operate?"

In the fast-paced world of business, staying ahead of the curve is not just advantageous—it's essential. The market is in a constant state of flux, influenced by technological advancements, shifting consumer behaviors, and evolving competitive landscapes. For businesses, this means that a once-effective sales strategy can quickly become outdated, risking the loss of market share and relevance.

Most of us think great marketing is all about closing the deal, but what if telling people they don’t have to buy is the real secret? Maybe you’ve experienced this too, that moment when someone shares an idea that feels so against your instincts, you want to reject it outright. That’s what happened when my friend, behavioral scientist Nancy Harhut, introduced me to her counterintuitive marketing strategies last year at SXSW.

Value-based selling is an essential skill for sales professionals, especially in markets where price often becomes the determining factor for clients. In many cases, these decisions occur because the products or services appear similar, leaving price as the only differentiator. When this happens, the issue often stems from a failure to effectively communicate the value that goes beyond the cost. Shifting the focus from price to value requires a structured approach. A simple three-step process can help sales professionals present value in a way that resonates with clients.

These days, customers aren't just looking for a great product or service. They want an experience that's smooth, hassle-free, and feels like it was designed just for them. If you're not delivering that, your competitors are ready and waiting to steal them away. Salesforce's "State of the Connected Customer" report makes it clear: 80% of customers say the experience a company offers is just as important as its products or services.

Modern media will have you believe sales motivation is best delivered in the form of an inspirational quote. But, while an inspirational quote can go a long way, it’s simply not going to fix any deep-rooted sales performance issues. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to diagnosing and fixing a performance issue on your sales team. That’s why we’ve created this sales performance checklist. This sales checklist will help even the most seasoned sales leaders pinpoint and correct problems happening on their teams.

Modern Problems…Every sales team I talk to these days seems to have the same mandate: profitable growth. Sales leaders are under pressure to grow revenue in a complex selling environment with static or even reduced headcount and expense budgets.… Require Modern Solutions. AI is transforming B2B sales, unlocking the ability to scale top-performing behaviors across your entire team. But AI is only as powerful as the data and context that fuel it.

Sales and Customer Success (CS) teams are the dual engines of revenue growth, yet too often they operate in silos, each with separate goals. Daisy Chung, Head of Revenue Strategy at Orum, underscores that revenue growth comes from a synchronized approach between these two departments. While specialization in roles, such as Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) and Account Executives (AEs), can boost efficiency, it often creates gaps and communication breakdowns between departments.

Customer success is essential for any startup, at every stage. It’s what ensures customers are engaged, adopting, and gaining value from your product. But many startups get customer success wrong. This is partially due to a lack of understanding about how to design customer success, but also due to a lack of understanding of the goals of your customers. I once asked a startup CEO, What do customers get out of your product?

"Difficult prospects are a fact of sales life, and dealing with a difficult buyer who makes a sale harder than it needs to will always suck — and from time to time, you're bound to deal with an especially difficult buyer who makes a sale especially harder than it needs to be, and that experience will especially suck."

It wasn’t that many years ago when the expected image of a hotel general manager was a tall, most likely white, man sporting a folded handkerchief in the pocket of his perfectly tailored black blazer. Things have come a long way, and quickly, in the hospitality industry since that era. Corinne Heyl has worked at multiple luxury hotels in leadership positions and is now VP of Hotel Operations for The Boca Raton, overseeing four related hotels in South Florida: The Yacht Club, The Tower, The Cloisters, and The Bungalows.

More than a dozen years ago, when I was coaching Little League, I had two boys on my 9-year-old team that never made contact with the ball. It didn’t take much time with them to realize they were both swinging with their eyes closed. I thought that if I could get them to swing with their eyes at least partially open, they might get their hands and bat close enough to the ball so that there was a chance the ball could hit their bats.

More businesses are dealing with longer sales cycles than in the past, and this is piling pressure on Chief Sales Officers (CSOs) to improve team performance. But it’s not just external market forces causing headaches—many sales organizations are struggling internally, too. In fact, a quarter of top sales companies say they’re not fully leveraging data to help with decision-making, Korn Ferry’s 2024 Sales Maturity Survey reveals, and this is impacting both individual and team outcomes.

If your business is like most, you probably use email for internal and external communications in sales, marketing, and even customer service. So if you want higher profitability and customer satisfaction, email response time should be your new key performance indicator (KPI) to measure. Email response time is how quickly your company responds to incoming emails.

Every potential client represents an investment of your most limited resources—time and attention. But not all prospects are created equal. Some will turn into valuable long-term customers, while others will waste your time and never commit. Recognizing early signs of an unreliable client can save you from frustration and ensure you focus your efforts on those who are serious about doing business.

On this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast, we’re joined by Debra Senra, a two-time guest and seasoned sales leader, to discuss the changing landscape of sales proposals in 2024. With a rich sales background and a new venture into entrepreneurship, Debra shares her journey from sales leadership to founding her own company, Hyphenate.

More businesses are dealing with longer sales cycles than in the past, piling pressure on Chief Sales Officers (CSOs) to improve team performance. But it’s not just external market forces causing headaches—many sales organizations are struggling internally, too. In fact, Korn Ferry's 2024 Sales Maturity Survey reveals that a quarter of top sales companies say they’re not fully leveraging data to help with decision-making, and this is impacting individual and team outcomes.