The Dirty Little Secret : Most B2B Sales Skills Are Too Low
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Here’s the dirty little secret no one in B2B sales wants to admit: Most B2B Salespeople can’t sell today.
In most manufacturing companies, B2B Sales Skills are low, and sales teams lack the necessary sales skills to be top-performing salespeople. A lack of sales skills is hurting manufacturing revenue growth and profits. It’s time to shed light on a common sales problem that I estimate impacts 85% of B2B salespeople…
B2B salespeople who have not received formal training in sales skills and coaching.
Yes, they know their products. They can rattle off features, benefits, and applications. They’ve been trained on how to enter orders, update CRM fields, and navigate pricing tools. They understand the product and applications so well that many of them could draw a solution diagram on a napkin. However, when asked to conduct a high-quality discovery call, uncover the financial impact, strategically start building a business relationship based on trust and competence, or establish trust with a CFO, many fall short.
The truth is that less than half of B2B salespeople have ever received formal training in sales skills. Instead, they’ve been thrown into the field armed with product knowledge, a cell phone, a laptop, and a quota, expected to “figure it out” or my personal favorite is” just make it happen.)
And that’s a significant reason why many B2B companies today fail to meet their sales growth targets. While they try to figure it out and make it happen, trained competitors are winning orders.
The number of salespeople who achieve quota has been consistently declining since 2016. One report shared that over 70% of B2B salespeople missed their quota in 2024, and it is expected that over 76% will miss their sales quota in 2025. Another report shared that 91% of the B2B sales teams missed quota in 2024.
The top 20% of salespeople deliver 80% of revenue, and they are also experiencing a decline in their numbers.
It’s time to assess the root causes and develop a strategic plan to help sales teams achieve sales and profit growth objectives that their owners and investors need. A key part of our no-smoke-and-mirrors process is gathering data and discussing what matters to drive profitable growth.
Based on my 40 years of experience helping B2B sales teams, I’ve identified the following…
Common root causes of B2B sales teams not meeting their growth plans.
- Salespeople have not received sales skills training
- Their sales managers and leaders have not been trained in coaching skills
- Sales systems, processes, and tools do not support the growth goals
- Outdated sales process
- Outdated value proposition or no value proposition, answering why their company
- Buyers have shifted to self-serve due to poor sales experiences with untrained salespeople
- The team could not operationally fill the orders to meet the promised dates
- Shift away from brand loyalty, increasing customer churn rates
- Salespeople spend less than 20% of their sellable time meeting with customers
- Lack of training on how to develop key large account growth plans
In this post, we will focus on improving the sales skills of B2B salespeople to help your team grow market share, achieve revenue growth targets, and increase the gross profit margin per sale.
Why Product Knowledge Isn’t Enough in B2B Sales Skills
Product training creates experts in “what we do.”
But customers don’t buy products—they buy solutions to their problems. They speak the language of outcomes and impacts, but many B2B salespeople lack training in how to have these conversations.
The best salespeople succeed because they know how to:
- Create conversations, not presentations.
- Earn trust, not just attention.
- Guide buyers through a decision, not just pitch features.
If your sales team can’t do that, you don’t have a selling problem—you have a skills gap problem.
Okay, Mark, my gut has told me for years that my sales team lacks the necessary sales skills to achieve our growth objectives. What do you suggest?
The Top 5 B2B Sales Skills Salespeople Must Master Today
To compete (and win) in today’s B2B sales environment, salespeople must go beyond product knowledge and master these five B2B Sales Skills:
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Discovery and Business Acumen Sales Skills
Success begins with understanding how to identify the underlying business problems, not just surface-level needs. Great discovery means asking layered questions, understanding financial drivers, and framing issues in terms that matter to executives. Discovery should involve building relationships, demonstrating competence, and making sense. In discovery today, we must understand the impact that what we are selling will have on our customers’ organizations, and that requires being able to speak the language of business, possessing business acumen skills.
Without this skill, salespeople become transactional order takers, not trusted advisors.
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Building Trust and Rapport Building Skills
Trust is the new currency of B2B sales. Buyers won’t open up or make a purchase if they don’t trust the salesperson. This requires listening more than talking, reading body language, adapting communication to personality styles, and following through consistently.
Without this skill, buyers ghost salespeople or push them down to procurement.
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Multi-Threading and Stakeholder Engagement in B2B Sales
Buying decisions now involve an average of 6 to 10 stakeholders. Salespeople must build relationships across various functions, including finance, operations, IT, and leadership—not just with their primary contact. As we share in our training, B2B salespeople must strategically develop their relational matrix with customers and prospects. They must speak the language of each decision-making persona.
Without this skill, deals stall because salespeople only have one champion.
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Storytelling and Value Messaging Skills
Top sellers don’t just present slides; they tell compelling stories that link your solution to the buyer’s business outcomes. They make complex ideas simple, memorable, and tied to ROI. They share industry insights and success stories relevant to their decision-makers. Decision-makers must see themselves in the story and develop an emotional attachment to the outcome, understanding why your company is the best solution to give their story a desired ending.
Without this skill, pitches feel like feature and benefit dumps and fail to differentiate.
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B2B Sales Pipeline and Deal Management Skills
Selling is a process, not an event. Salespeople must know how to qualify opportunities, identify potential risks, and effectively manage deals throughout the pipeline. Do you have a sales pipeline you can rely on, or is it just a pipe dream? This isn’t about data entry, it’s about discipline, strategy, and execution. This involves establishing a formal sales process and training your team to follow it, including what to discuss and share at each step.
Without sales skills, forecasts become fiction, and deals slip quarter after quarter.
The Bottom Line for CROs and Sales Leaders Concerning B2B Sales Skills
If less than 50% of your B2B sales team has received formal sales skills training, you’re leaving revenue on the table.
The uncomfortable truth is that many B2B salespeople have never received formal training on how to sell.
Today, our VOC research interviews are sharing that how you sell is more important than what you sell today.
It’s time to address the issue of a lack of sales skills.
Give your B2B sales team the same level of investment in selling skills that you already give them in product, process, and tools. Teach them how to sell, not just what to sell. Because in B2B sales today, product knowledge is table stakes, and Sales skills are the differentiator.
How you sell will become your distinctive competence in a sea of similar products and services.
Do your salespeople have the B2B Sales Skills to deliver your sales plan this year?
Have your B2B salespeople received training in sales skills?
Do you have the right salespeople in the right roles?
Have you designed your formal sales process and trained and coached your sales team on how to follow it?
Take our free Self Sales Effectiveness Sales Assessment to understand your sales effectiveness.
Learn about our B2B sales skills training courses here.
Let’s schedule a call to discuss our process and address the questions you need answered, ensuring your team is well-equipped to meet their sales and profit objectives. In many cases, we can share their strengths and skills gaps in less than ten days, and we will map and prescribe the training they need to be top performers in their industry