The B2B sales landscape has undergone significant shifts in the past year. With economic uncertainty, budget constraints, and evolving buyer behaviour, sales teams have faced mounting challenges in hitting their targets. While early 2024 showed signs of recovery, the latter half saw a sharp decline in win rates and an increase in sales cycles, making it more difficult for reps to close deals.

To understand this the Scaled team has conducted qualitative studies with existing clients and the wider sector to unravel some of their challenges and opportunities.

Our findings reveal that top-performing sales reps are pulling far ahead of their peers, relying on refined sales processes, better qualification strategies, and stronger relationship management. Meanwhile, businesses that fail to adapt to these trends risk falling behind.

In this blog post, we’ll break down the key insights from the report, including:
✅ How sales teams performed in 2024 and early 2025
✅ The growing gap between top reps and the rest of the team
✅ The attributes that set high performers apart
✅ Data-driven strategies to improve win rates and revenue

Let’s dive into the insights and what they mean for your sales strategy in 2025.

Market Overview & Challenges

  • 2024 was tough for B2B sales teams, marked by economic uncertainty, budget cuts, and layoffs.
  • Despite early improvements (win rates +7%, deal values +9%), win rates dropped by 18% in the latter half of 2024.
  • Sales cycles increased by 16% in 2024, requiring more effort to close deals.
  • Budgets tightened significantly, making sales conversion more difficult.

Sales Performance & Quotas

  • 69% of sales reps missed quota in 2025 (slightly better than 73% in late 2024).
  • The top 17% of reps generate 81% of revenue, indicating a growing gap between top performers and average reps.
  • Sales teams rely heavily on their best performers, with an 8.9x performance delta between the top and average reps.

Top Sales Attributes of High Performers

  1. Pipeline Generation:
    • Prioritising accounts and personas can improve deal volume by 488%.
    • Partner referrals outperform outbound and paid channels (3.8x velocity).
    • Only 8% of businesses leverage partnerships, despite their high return.
  2. Qualification & Deal Progression:
    • Top performers are 588% more likely to follow a qualification methodology.
    • Reps who effectively qualify leads early are 366% more likely to close deals at the discovery stage.
    • They ensure economic buyers are engaged early, increasing win rates by 307%.
  3. Objection Handling:
    • Top performers are 843% more likely to overcome objections.
    • 77% of slipped opportunities had key objections raised early in the sales process.
    • When economic buyers raise ROI objections late in the process, close rates drop by 79%.
  4. Relationship Management:
    • Engaging key stakeholders early increases deal success.
    • Won deals involve 9+ decision-makers, whereas lost deals engage only 2 contacts.
    • Top performers build trust and connections, rather than relying on aggressive tactics.
  5. Deal Management & Execution:
    • Avoiding discounts until necessary improves win rates (+39%).
    • Deals that skip a stage are 46% less likely to close.
    • Proactively managing the pipeline (weekly updates, clear next steps) increases success.

Strategic Insights for 2025 and beyond

  • The “more equals more” approach is no longer sustainable. Sales teams need to focus on efficiency and effectiveness.
  • AI is a key tool for enhancing productivity but must be used strategically.
  • Sales success is driven by data—companies that leverage insights to refine sales strategies will outperform competitors.

Conclusion

To thrive in 2025, sales teams need to: ✅ Focus on high-value accounts & personas
✅ Strengthen qualification & objection handling
✅ Build stronger relationships with multiple stakeholders
✅ Proactively manage pipeline & avoid rushed deals
✅ Use data-driven insights & AI to enhance performance