Understanding Sales Trends And Insights

What’s the biggest breakthrough in sales in 2025? I asked that question to some of HubSpot’s top sellers this week. The same answer kept coming back: customer conversation data. For years, reps had access to only a sliver of what mattered. Roughly 20% of a deal lived in fields, notes, and CRM updates. The other 80%, the real substance of the conversations, sat in emails, call transcripts, chat threads, and support tickets. That’s where intent shows up. That’s where objections surface. That’s where deals actually turn. Until now, that data was invisible. AI flips the equation. Our top reps and many of our best customers are now pulling signals from every interaction and using it to sell smarter. They can: Capture next steps, objections, risks, and key moments from every call and email Personalize follow-ups based on what buyers actually said, not what reps remembered Spot at-risk deals early, with evidence to back it up And I’m seeing sales managers using it to: Identify what top reps consistently do and replicate it across the team See exactly where deals stall and coach with precision Track which competitors show up most in different segments and regions The shift is simple but profound: Sales teams are finally operating on the full dataset of their customer conversations, not just what made it into the customer record. Data has been the foundation of great selling. What’s new is that the richest data, the messy, unstructured, human data is now accessible and actionable. That’s not just a breakthrough. It’s a fundamental shift in how reps and managers will work in 2026.

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.

I’m not asking my CSMs to resolve support tickets. I’m asking them to leverage them. Support tickets aren’t just a backlog of problems; they’re customer truth bombs waiting to explode. If you’re not mining them for insights, you’re flying blind—and that’s exactly how churn sneaks up on you. Every Customer Success team I’ve ever led has been trained to use Support tickets strategically. Why? Because they’re packed with insights that make us better at our jobs. ✅ We learn more about the product. ✅ We spot trends before they become problems. ✅ We understand our customers’ use cases more deeply. If you’re not tapping into support data, here’s what you’re missing: 🔥 Emerging Pain Points Recurring issues expose friction in the customer journey. Ignore them, and those minor frustrations turn into churn-worthy headaches. 🔥 Product Gaps Customers vote with their tickets. If the same feature requests or usability complaints keep surfacing, your roadmap is practically writing itself. 🔥 Engagement Risks A spike in tickets isn’t just noise—it’s a flare. Users don’t submit tickets when they’re thriving; they do it when they’re stuck, frustrated, or in need of more enablement. Here are a few ways my team and I are using these insights: ✅ Spot & Engage Struggling Users A surge in ticket volume? Proactively reach out before frustration turns into a cancellation. ✅ Create Targeted Content If the same questions keep coming up, turn those insights into help docs, webinars, or office hours. ✅ Surface Expansion Opportunities Seeing frequent feature requests? Build them—or better yet, use them to tee up expansion conversations. ✅ Map Out User Behavior Support tickets tell you who’s onboarding, who’s adopting new features, and who’s stuck. Use that data to drive deeper engagement. ✅ Collaborate with Product Your product team needs this intel. Share support trends regularly to influence meaningful fixes and features. High ticket volume isn’t necessarily a bad thing—but you need to know how to use it to your advantage. Bottom line? CSMs don’t need to fix support tickets. But the best ones know how to use them to drive retention, expansion, and adoption. _____________________________ 📣 If you liked my post, you’ll love my newsletter. Every week I share learnings, advice and strategies from my experience going from CSM to CCO. Join 12k+ subscribers of The Journey and turn insights into action. Sign up on my profile.

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.

When I removed targets from my team, the first question every sales leader asked was... “How did you stop everything turning into chaos?” The answer was simple but not easy. We replaced top down targets with something far more powerful… A personal success blueprint for every rep. If you’ve never used one, here’s exactly what it is and how it works. It's a structured, data informed plan the rep co creates with their manager. It defines the inputs, activity levels & funnel metrics they need to achieve THEIR definition of success. It becomes the foundation for coaching, accountability & weekly 1:1s. Here’s how we built it. Step 1️⃣: Start with what top performers actually do... We pulled the data from our best reps. Things like... Discovery calls per week Discovery to qualified Opps created per month Opps to close Average deal size Sales cycle Etc....you get my point. This became our baseline blueprint. Not a rule, more like a map of effective execution inside our reality. Step 2️⃣: Understand the rep's intrinsic motivators... Because a blueprint only works if the rep is building toward something they care about. But first we needed to model the openness we sought from them. I shared my personal manual for working with me; a meaty guide that included lots of personal info, including my drivers & motivations. Then we found out what drove them... Some wanted a promotion. Some had a clear earning goal. Some wanted to rebuild confidence. Some wanted to be at the top of the leaderboard. Once you uncover the driver, you can build a plan that actually means something. Step 3️⃣: Build their personalised blueprint grounded in data... This is the coaching conversation where real change happens. It sounds like… “If your goal is £X and your deal size is £Y you will need around Z deals…” “Your win rate is X%, top performers sit at Y% percent…where could you realistically get it to?” “With your discovery to qualified at X%, how many discovery calls per week do you need?” The manager questions. The rep thinks. Together they build something ambitious but believable. And everything is rooted in their personal motivator...e.g. a clear path to promotion. The rep signs off. The manager commits to coaching to it. Step 4️⃣: Contract for accountability... This is where most leaders fall. We asked every rep… “When you fall behind, how do you want me to respond?” Some wanted a Slack nudge. Some wanted a short problem solving session. Some wanted it raised in weekly 1:1s Different reps need different triggers. Agreeing this upfront turns accountability into partnership. Step 5️⃣: Use the blueprint every week... Every 1:1 followed the GROW model. Goal, Reality, Options, Will. What’s working, what's not, what options do you see and what will you commit to this week? It keeps the conversation grounded in reality and solution focussed. 5 simple steps but success is driven by the quality of the coaching. That'll be my next post...

10 Reporting Tips I have sent 100s of reports. And overtime I have found what works and what doesn't work. Here are my top 10 tips: 1. Audience Identify Key Stakeholders: Determine the specific individuals or departments who will benefit most from the report. Customize Content: Tailor the report’s content to address the unique needs or interests of different audience segments. Feedback Loop: Regularly solicit feedback from the audience to continuously improve the relevance and effectiveness of the report. 2. Timing Align with Business Cycles: Schedule reports in sync with business cycles, like quarterly financial periods. Anticipate Needs: Proactively adjust the reporting frequency during critical business phases. Automate Reminders: Use scheduling tools to automate the distribution process and ensure timely delivery. 3. Business Data Integrate KPIs: Include key performance indicators relevant to the business operations. Dynamic Data Sources: Use real-time data feeds to enhance the report’s immediacy and relevance. Contextual Analysis: Provide analytical insights, comparing operational data trends over time or against industry benchmarks. 4. Declutter Prioritize Data: Focus on the most critical data points that drive decision-making. Visual Simplicity: Use clean, simple visuals to enhance readability and comprehension. Minimalist Design: Adopt a minimalist design approach to reduce cognitive overload. 5. Reusable Template Design: Develop templates that ensure consistency and ease of adaptation for presentations. Modular Sections: Create the report in modular sections for easy extraction and reuse. Adaptable Formats: Ensure the report can be easily converted into different formats without losing its essence. 6. Format Interactivity in Digital Formats: Utilize interactive elements in digital formats like Excel or web-based reports. Print-Friendly Options: Offer a print-friendly version for those who prefer physical copies. 7. Push vs Pull Automated Alerts: Set up automated alerts for new report availability in pull systems. Customizable Push Options: Allow recipients to customize the frequency and type of reports they receive. Secure Access: Ensure secure, easy access for pull systems, particularly for sensitive financial data. 8. Comments Executive Summaries: Include an executive summary highlighting key insights and decisions. Actionable Recommendations: Offer clear, actionable recommendations based on the report’s findings. 9. Standard Brand Alignment: Ensure the report’s visual elements align with the company’s branding guidelines. 10. Self-Explanatory Infographics: Use infographics to make complex data more understandable. Layered Information: Present information in layers, with summaries leading to detailed analysis. Guided Navigation: Include a table of contents or navigation aids to guide the reader through the report. 👉 What is your best reporting tips?

After 9 hours of research, I discovered the major social media shifts in 2025. Social media is now a young adult, leaving the parents' home—traditional marketing—and carving its own identity—this theme is shared across all trends. 1. Social Media is breaking free from brand identity - Social teams are breaking free from the rigid “stay on brand” rule because it kills creativity. Look at AirAsia's on-trend content or myBurgerLab's quirky customer-centric posts. They don’t look corporate but stick in your audience’s mind. The truth? Social media’s job is to entertain and connect. If your content does that, you win—even if it feels off-brand. 2. Influencer Marketing moved beyond “Can we pay you to post?” Sure, influencer posts can generate awareness, but clicks and conversions? Not so much. Viewers have to jump through too many hoops to reach your product page. The solution? Turn influencer content into ads. Platforms like Shopee and Lazada already do this, letting influencers showcase products directly through shoppable ads. Another example? Brands like Muji Malaysia Sdn Bhd are doubling down on authentic, user-generated content for paid campaigns. The less polished the content, the better it performs—it feels real, unlike an ad. UGC-style content stops the scroll, and the results speak for themselves. 3. Video has been on every trend list for 20 years, right? But in 2025, it’s evolving again. You need a face that is raw and engaging; even LinkedIn is prioritizing the same. This is where Employee-Generated Content (EGC) comes in. Take Tokopedia's employee-led TikToks—simple, fun, and insanely shareable. However, not every brand has willing or camera-ready employees. Enter brand hosts—creators explicitly hired to represent your brand on video. Look at platforms like TikTok, Kumu, or Douyin, where brands do this at scale. 4. Social Shopping—Remember when high-end brands avoided e-commerce giants like Lazada & Amazon? Now, they’re embracing it because the revenue is undeniable. The same shift is happening with TikTok Shop and Shopee Live. Take Dyson, which showcased premium products during TikTok Live sessions for Singles’ Day sales and crushed it. Social shopping isn’t just for low-cost items anymore. It’s for anything—and it’s reaching massive audiences. 5. Live Content - Live isn’t new but more critical than ever heading into 2025. Why? Platforms like Shopee Live, Kumu , and Taobao Marketplace Live drive trends like live shopping and creator monetization. Live streams are proof of authenticity in a world dominated by AI-generated content. Even as AI-generated videos become indistinguishable from real ones, live content will stand out as raw, unfiltered, and honest at least for a while. Final Hot Take: In 2025, social media should be an independent team that doesn't have to be part of branding and marketing. #ravisbook  #socialmedia  #contenstratetgy #2025strategy

There's a new species of prospect showing up in my B2B sales pipeline and nobody's ready for them. I'm calling them the AI-Powered Tyre Kicker. You know the old tyre kicker. They wander onto the lot, asks a dozen questions, no intention of buying. Annoying but manageable. One salesperson can handle a few in a day. The AI-Powered Tyre Kicker is different. They've pointed ChatGPT at your website, your competitors, your pricing page, three Gartner reports and a Reddit thread. They arrive with 47 highly specific questions, each one better researched than the last. They want detailed answers on your architecture, your SOC 2 posture, your pricing tiers compared to five alternatives, and a breakdown of how your product handles an edge case you haven't documented. And they're doing it across ten vendors simultaneously. If the buyer is AI-enabled, your sales team better be too. One human rep cannot out-research a prospect with an AI co-pilot. The question volume alone will flatten them. Response quality expectations have quietly gone through the roof, and the clock on "we'll get back to you next week" has run out. This is a pattern I think we're going to see everywhere, not just sales: 1. AI doesn't shrink the work, it expands it. The promise was "AI will do more with less." The reality is that when one side gets AI, the other side now has to match the throughput. The baseline goes up. 2. Asymmetric AI adoption is brutal. If your buyers have AI and your sellers don't, you lose. If your competitors' analysts have AI and yours don't, you lose. This demand/supply mismatch will drive a bunch of adoption. 3. Volume is the new bottleneck. It's not "can we answer this question" anymore. It's "can we answer 100 questions at the quality an AI-assisted buyer now expects, in the time they expect it." 4. Quality of question has gone up too. These aren't lazy questions. They're sharp, specific, and well-framed. Your generic FAQ page doesn't cut it. Your reps need AI-assisted depth or they'll sound shallower than the prospect. 5. The org chart hasn't caught up. Most sales teams are still sized for a pre-AI world. Same headcount, same process, now drowning. The people screaming for more reps should probably be screaming for AI-enabled reps instead. Everyone talks about AI as a productivity multiplier. Almost nobody talks about it as a workload multiplier from the other side. Your customers, your competitors, your regulators, your candidates in interviews... all of them are getting AI too. The work doesn't go away. It just gets faster and deeper on both sides of every interaction. We're going to have to get a lot better at arming the front line with the same tools the other side is already using. Otherwise the AI-Powered Tyre Kicker doesn't just waste time. They exhaust the team. Have you seen this in your own sales pipeline yet? Sue Barrett are you seeing this? #AI #Sales #B2B #FutureOfWork #GenAI #SalesEnablement

"𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘉2𝘉 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘭." I hear this at least once a week. Then I show them this data. Millennials and Gen Z rank social media as their third most important buying resource - 38% rely on it, nearly double the rate of older generations. What's the message for enterprise leaders? If your business isn't strategically positioned on social, you're invisible to an entire generation of decision-makers who are researching solutions differently than their predecessors. The data isn't just showing a minor trend shift - it's revealing a complete transformation of the B2B buying process. Buyers are 69% of the way through their journey before they begin engaging with sellers. The truth is that social-influenced deals will keep growing. It will continue to be a critical revenue driver. Our enterprise clients embracing social are seeing: → Shortened sales cycles  → Higher quality leads  → Expanded influence in buying decisions Your buyers are making decisions right now based on who shows up in their feeds. The only question left is whether that's you or your competition.

I started my last software evaluation exactly like this “Before we start…here’s how you compare to your top 3 competitors, what we think fair pricing is based on public comps, and the ROI model we’ll use internally. Tell me where we’re wrong.” I wasn’t being arrogant. I was doing what 30-40% of buyers are doing today already and just not telling reps. I built it in 10 minutes with JourneyAI Meanwhile, the rep was probably toggling between LinkedIn and Salesforce like it’s 2018… five minutes before the meeting. Then had prepped a bunch of MEDDPICCDPICAPECIPC qualification questions and was completely unpreapred. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Your buyer often knows more about your product than your rep does. Gen AI made that possible. B2B buyers aren’t “learning from sales” anymore—they’re arriving pre-educated: 70%+ prefer self-serve research before talking to sales 80%+ have mostly defined requirements before the first call They’re showing up with: → competitive comparisons → pricing benchmarks → ROI models → negotiation strategies And it’s not because they’re brilliant. It’s because they have a tireless analyst in their pocket now. The old advantage in sales was information asymmetry. That’s dead. So what’s the new edge? Judgment. Diagnosis. Reframing. Quantifying impact in CFO language. If your seller can’t: quantify the cost of inaction tie value to a CFO-level metric (cash flow, margin, payback period, risk) reframe the problem beyond the buyer’s initial “requirements” …then they’re not leading. They’re just confirming what the buyer already researched. AI is upgrading average buyers every day. Is it upgrading your reps… or exposing them?