Sales & pipeline growth - edition 21

Here is an uncomfortable finding for sales people in 2026. Your pipeline is probably healthier than it was a year ago. Your results probably aren't.

RAIN Group's 2026 Sales Challenges & Priorities study of more than 250 sales leaders found exactly this gap: 47% reported more qualified pipeline than a year ago, yet only 37% said more sellers were hitting quota, and 48% reported longer sales cycles. More opportunities.

Fewer conversions. Slower deals. CEO Scott McDonald's conclusion is blunt: the organisations that improve won't be the ones demanding more activity. They'll be the ones that diagnose where performance actually breaks down and build the capability to convert.

What's really changed

The buyer has changed, so the seller's job has changed. Gartner's May 2026 research found that 69% of B2B buyers now use sales reps specifically to validate AI-generated insights. Not to gather initial information. Read that again. Your seller is no longer the source of information. They are the source of confidence.

And confidence is in short supply, because buying is now a group sport. Recent Gartner-sourced analysis points to buying groups of ten to thirteen people, with roughly three-quarters experiencing unhealthy internal conflict before they reach a decision. The deal doesn't stall because your seller failed to persuade one person. It stalls because a fractured group can't agree with itself.

The architecture that answers it

This is precisely what Insight, Influence and Trust is built for, which I use when delivering sales training programmes on behalf of Imparta. Insight: Observation (what), Motivation (why), and Impact (so what) is how you earn the right to be in the room when the buyer has already done 80% of their research alone. Influence is how you help a divided group build its own case to justify moving forward. And Trust is where deals are won or lost at the Worry and Commit stages of the Customer Buying Cycle, where buyer anxiety is highest.

Trust isn't a feeling. It's an equation. Credibility plus Reliability plus Intimacy, divided by Self-orientation (Maister, Green & Galford, The Trusted Advisor, 2000). Longer cycles and more adversarial buyers punish high self-orientation hardest. The seller chasing their own quarter shows up very differently from the one reducing a buyer's risk.

Last month I set up a room to run SPIN training for Huthwaite International. Before anyone arrived, I laid out the tables, tested the tech, walked the room. Preparation is the silent engine behind almost every success. The sellers who shorten a stalled cycle aren't working harder in the meeting. They've done the thinking before it.

What now

Take one stalled deal this week. Don't ask "how do we push it?" Ask "where exactly is it stuck? Discovery, buyer alignment, or the confidence to act?" Then coach to that, not to activity.

Where are your deals really stalling? And are you treating an effort problem when it's actually a confidence problem?

If you'd like of discuss any of these points I'd be happy to have a chat. Please email me on mark@headsupandfreer.com to set up a call.

The research behind this:

1. RAIN Group, 2026 Sales Challenges & Priorities Study (250+ sales leaders)

2. Gartner, B2B buyers & AI validation: press release, 20 May 2026 (69% use reps to validate)

3. Corporate Visions / Gartner, B2B Buying Behaviour 2026 (buying groups of 10–13; ~74% internal conflict)

Sales Frameworks in focus that I use with clients: 

(1) Insight, Influence, Trust (2) Customer Buying Cycle (3) Trust Equation (Maister et al., 2000)