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December 11, 2025•28 min read

B2B Sales Process Guide: 7-Stage Playbook for 2026

The traditional linear sales funnel is dead.

Sunil Hans
Sunil Hans
B2B Sales Process Guide: 7-Stage Playbook for 2026
B2B Sales ProcessModern Sales ProcessB2B Sales MethodologySales Process StagesRevenue OrganizationPair Selling

The traditional B2B sales process is broken. Buyers complete 83% of their journey before talking to sales. They research online, compare vendors and form opinions long before you get a chance to pitch.

Meanwhile, salespeople spend 72% of their time on non-selling activities. Data entry. Research. Follow-ups. Administrative tasks. The result? Burnout, missed quotas and frustrated teams.

But here's the good news. A new B2B sales process is emerging. It's built for how buyers actually buy today. It uses AI to handle the grind so salespeople can focus on relationships and closing.

This guide gives you the complete playbook for the modern B2B sales process. You'll learn the 7-stage framework that top-performing teams use in 2026. You'll discover how to build a unified revenue organization. And you'll see how Pair Selling combines AI automation with human expertise for better results than either alone.

Key Takeaways

  • The traditional linear sales funnel is dead. B2B buyers now complete 83% of their journey independently. The modern B2B sales process has 7 stages from prospecting to expansion.
  • Unified revenue organizations outperform siloed teams. Sales, marketing and customer success must work as one team with shared goals, shared data and a shared view of the customer.
  • Pair Selling is the future of B2B sales. AI handles prospecting and admin work. Humans focus on relationships and closing. Together, they close more deals.
  • The T-shaped salesperson is the new ideal. Deep expertise in value creation plus broad knowledge of marketing, technology and data. AI augments these professionals; it doesn't replace them.

Why the Traditional B2B Sales Process Is Broken

To build a better sales process, you first need to understand why the old one failed. Two forces broke it: empowered buyers and inefficient sales models.

The Rise of the Empowered Buyer

The internet changed everything. Buyers now have access to unlimited information about your product, your competitors and your industry. This shift shows up in three ways.

Buyers educate themselves. According to Gartner, B2B buyers spend only 17% of their time meeting with suppliers. The rest goes to independent research. They read reviews, consume content and form opinions before talking to you.

Buying committees are complex. The average B2B purchase involves 6 to 10 stakeholders. Each has different priorities, pain points and perspectives. Building consensus among them is a major challenge.

Personalization is expected. Buyers have zero tolerance for generic outreach. They expect you to understand their business, their industry and their specific challenges. They want value at every stage.

The Inefficiency of Traditional Sales

While buyers evolved, most sales teams stayed stuck in the past. Three problems define the traditional model.

Siloed departments. Sales, marketing and customer success operate separately. They have different goals, metrics and systems. This creates fragmented customer experiences.

Volume over quality. The traditional approach is a numbers game. Make more calls. Send more emails. Hope something sticks. This "spray and pray" method creates noise that buyers ignore.

Productivity crisis. Salespeople spend most of their time on non-selling activities. Research shows that reps spend only 28% of their time actually selling. The rest goes to admin work, research and data entry.

The New Reality

These forces create a new B2B buying reality. The journey is no longer linear. Buyers loop back and forth between stages. They use multiple channels. They make decisions on their own timeline.

Old ModelModern Reality
Seller-centricBuyer-centric
Linear funnelNon-linear journey
Single decision-maker6-10 person buying committee
Generic outreachPersonalized value
Siloed departmentsUnified revenue team

The modern B2B sales process must match this reality. It needs to be flexible, intelligent and customer-centric.

The 7-Stage B2B Sales Process Framework

The old sales funnel is dead. In its place, a new framework has emerged. The modern B2B sales process has seven stages. Each builds on the last to guide buyers from first touch to long-term partnership.

Stage 1: Prospecting

Goal: Identify and engage best-fit accounts with relevant, personalized outreach.

This is where your pipeline begins. However, modern prospecting is different from the old approach. It's not about casting a wide net. It's about precision and relevance.

Key activities:

  • Define your ICP: Create a data-driven Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Total Addressable Market (TAM)
  • Select target accounts: Build a prioritized list of accounts that match your ICP
  • Research deeply: Use AI to gather intelligence on target accounts and key stakeholders
  • Execute value-driven outreach: Run coordinated, multi-channel campaigns that provide value, not just pitches

This is where AI-powered automation makes the biggest difference. AI can handle research, list building, email personalization and even phone calls. Platforms like AvairAI execute complete 12-touch campaigns while you focus on qualified opportunities.

What makes modern prospecting different:

Traditional prospecting was a numbers game. Call 100 people, hope 5 respond. Send 1,000 emails, celebrate 10 replies. This approach wastes time and annoys prospects.

Modern prospecting flips the script. It focuses on fewer, better-targeted accounts. It prioritizes relevance over reach. And it uses AI to do the heavy lifting.

For example, instead of manually researching companies, AI scans thousands of data points to identify accounts showing buying signals. Instead of writing generic emails, AI personalizes each message based on the prospect's role, industry and recent activities. Instead of logging calls manually, AI updates your CRM automatically.

The result? More qualified meetings with less effort. Teams using AI-powered prospecting report 3-5x increases in productivity. They book more meetings with smaller prospect lists because every outreach is relevant.

Stage 2: Discovery

Goal: Have deep, consultative conversations to understand the prospect's challenges and goals.

This is arguably the most important stage. The goal isn't to pitch. It's to diagnose pain. Great discovery calls are masterclasses in active listening.

Key activities:

  • Prepare thoroughly: Review all intelligence gathered during prospecting
  • Ask open-ended questions: Encourage prospects to talk about their business challenges
  • Listen actively: Spend more time listening than talking
  • Quantify the pain: Identify specific business problems and calculate their cost

The discovery call framework:

The best discovery calls follow a simple structure. Start with context. Review what you know about the prospect and confirm your understanding. This shows you've done your homework.

Then dig into challenges. Ask questions like: "What's the biggest obstacle to hitting your revenue goals this quarter?" or "Walk me through your current sales process. Where do deals get stuck?" Let them talk. Take notes. Ask follow-up questions.

Next, quantify the impact. If a problem costs $1 million per year, your solution becomes a lot more urgent. Ask: "How much revenue are you leaving on the table because of this issue?" or "What happens if you don't solve this in the next 6 months?"

Finally, establish next steps. If there's a real opportunity, define the path forward. If not, part professionally. Not every prospect is a fit, and that's okay.

Stage 3: Qualification

Goal: Determine if the prospect is a good fit and if there's a real, winnable opportunity.

Not every prospect deserves your time. Qualification helps you focus on deals you can actually win. The best sales teams ruthlessly qualify opportunities because chasing bad-fit deals wastes everyone's time.

Key activities:

  • Use modern frameworks: Apply MEDDPICC or similar frameworks that go beyond basic BANT
  • Map the buying committee: Identify all stakeholders, their roles and their influence
  • Create mutual action plans: Work with prospects to outline steps, timelines and commitments

The MEDDPICC framework explained:

MEDDPICC stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion and Competition. Each element helps you assess deal quality.

Metrics: What measurable results does the prospect expect? If they can't articulate specific outcomes, the deal may not be real.

Economic Buyer: Who has budget authority? You need access to this person, not just their subordinates.

Decision Criteria: What factors will they use to choose a vendor? Understanding this lets you position effectively.

Decision Process: What steps do they follow to make a purchase? How long does it typically take?

Paper Process: What's involved in getting contracts signed? Legal reviews, security audits, procurement hoops?

Identify Pain: What problem are they solving? The pain must be significant enough to justify action.

Champion: Who inside the organization will advocate for your solution? Champions are essential for complex deals.

Competition: Who else are they evaluating? Knowing this helps you differentiate.

Qualification isn't a one-time event. You revisit these questions throughout the sales cycle as you learn more about the opportunity

Stage 4: Solution Design

Goal: Present a tailored solution that directly addresses the prospect's specific pain points.

This stage is often called "the demo." But in the modern B2B sales process, it's much more than a generic product walkthrough. It's a consultative solution design session.

Key activities:

  • Personalize the demo: Focus on the prospect's specific use case and challenges
  • Tell value-based stories: Frame your solution in terms of business outcomes, not features
  • Co-create solutions: Work with the prospect to design the perfect fit for their needs

How to run effective solution presentations:

The worst demos are feature tours. Sales reps click through every screen, explain every button and bore prospects to tears. The best demos are conversations about value.

Start by recapping what you learned in discovery. "Based on our conversation, your biggest challenge is X, and solving it could save you Y per year. Is that still accurate?" This confirms alignment and shows you listened.

Then show only what matters. If the prospect cares about three specific capabilities, show those three. Skip everything else. Resist the urge to show cool features they didn't ask about.

Use real scenarios. Instead of generic sample data, use examples that mirror their business. Talk about their industry, their team size, their workflow. This helps them visualize using your product.

Quantify everything. Instead of saying "this saves time," say "this reduces manual data entry from 2 hours per day to 15 minutes." Specific numbers stick in buyers' minds.

Leave time for questions. A demo that's all presentation and no discussion is a missed opportunity. Encourage prospects to ask questions throughout. Their questions tell you what matters most to them.

Finally, end with clear next steps. What happens after the demo? Another meeting? A trial? A proposal? Never let a demo end without defining what comes next

Stage 5: Consensus

Goal: Build agreement across the entire buying committee and enable your champion to sell internally.

With 6-10 stakeholders involved, winning over one person isn't enough. You need broad consensus for change. This is where many deals die. A single skeptic can derail months of work.

Key activities:

  • Multi-thread relationships: Build connections with multiple stakeholders across the organization
  • Enable your champion: Provide business cases, ROI calculators, security docs and competitive battle cards
  • Handle objections proactively: Identify and address concerns from all key stakeholders before they become blockers

Understanding the buying committee:

Every B2B purchase involves multiple stakeholders with different priorities. Understanding these roles helps you build consensus.

The Champion: Your internal advocate who wants your solution to win. They'll sell for you when you're not in the room. Find your champion early and give them everything they need to succeed.

The Economic Buyer: Controls the budget. Cares about ROI and business outcomes. You must get access to this person, even if just for a brief conversation.

The Technical Evaluator: Assesses whether your solution meets technical requirements. Addresses security, integration, scalability. Prepare detailed documentation for this person.

The End Users: Will actually use your product daily. They care about ease of use and workflow fit. Involve them in demos and trials.

The Skeptic: Every deal has at least one. They raise objections and slow things down. Don't avoid skeptics. Address their concerns directly. Converting a skeptic into a supporter is powerful.

How to enable your champion:

Your champion fights for you in internal meetings you'll never attend. Give them weapons.

Create a one-page executive summary they can share. Build an ROI calculator showing specific business impact. Prepare answers to common objections. Provide customer references from similar companies. Make their job easy, and they'll advocate harder for you

Stage 6: Closing

Goal: Navigate procurement and legal processes to get the contract signed.

This is the final hurdle. Success depends on maintaining momentum through the administrative steps. Many deals stall here because salespeople underestimate the complexity of procurement.

Key activities:

  • Negotiate professionally: Focus on value-based, win-win outcomes
  • Manage procurement: Work with legal and finance to navigate review processes
  • Streamline signing: Use e-signature tools and ensure smooth handoff to customer success

Navigating the procurement maze:

Enterprise deals involve layers of approval. Legal review. Security questionnaires. Vendor assessments. Budget cycles. Each step can delay your deal by weeks.

The best salespeople map this process early. During qualification, ask: "Walk me through what happens after your team decides to move forward. What approvals are needed? How long does each typically take?" This gives you a realistic timeline.

Build relationships beyond your main contact. Know who in procurement handles vendor contracts. Connect with the legal team before they receive your paperwork. When you're a familiar face, reviews move faster.

Prepare for security assessments. Most B2B buyers require SOC 2 compliance, data privacy documentation and security questionnaires. Have these ready before they ask.

Negotiation principles:

Negotiations should create value, not destroy relationships. Focus on outcomes that work for both parties.

Never negotiate against yourself. If they ask for a discount, ask what they need in return. Perhaps longer contract terms, case study rights or expanded scope.

Defend your value. If you've done your job in earlier stages, the prospect understands what your solution is worth. Discounting signals you were overpriced to begin with.

Create urgency thoughtfully. Real deadlines (price increases, end of quarter, budget cycles) can accelerate decisions. Fake urgency damages trust.

Know when to walk away. Not every deal should close. If terms don't work for your business, it's okay to say no

Stage 7: Expansion

Goal: Turn new customers into long-term partners and identify growth opportunities within accounts.

The modern B2B sales process doesn't end at the signature. Your existing customers are your best source of future revenue. It costs 5-7x more to acquire a new customer than to expand an existing one.

Key activities:

  • Align with customer success: Partner closely to ensure successful onboarding and ongoing value
  • Conduct QBRs: Hold regular strategic reviews to assess progress and identify new opportunities
  • Build advocates: Turn satisfied customers into your most powerful marketing channel

The first 90 days matter most:

Customer success starts the moment the contract is signed. The first 90 days determine whether you'll keep and grow the account.

Nail the handoff. Sales should brief customer success on everything: why they bought, what success looks like, who the key stakeholders are, any concerns raised during the sales process. A warm handoff creates continuity.

Define success metrics early. What does "value" mean for this customer? Agree on specific KPIs during onboarding. When you measure success, you can prove it later.

Celebrate early wins. The moment customers see value, reinforce it. Send a summary: "In your first month, you saved 15 hours of admin work." Success breeds more success.

Quarterly business reviews (QBRs):

QBRs are strategic conversations, not status updates. They're opportunities to strengthen relationships and identify expansion opportunities.

Come prepared with data. Show what the customer has achieved. Quantify the value delivered. Compare to goals set during onboarding.

Ask forward-looking questions. "What are your priorities for next quarter? Where do you want to grow? What challenges are emerging?" These questions uncover expansion opportunities naturally.

Don't wait for QBRs to address problems. If something goes wrong, handle it immediately. QBRs should celebrate progress, not firefight issues.

Building customer advocates:

Happy customers are your best marketing. They write reviews. They provide references. They speak at conferences. They refer colleagues.

Ask for referrals systematically. When customers express satisfaction, that's the moment to ask: "Do you know anyone else who might benefit from this?" Make it easy for them to introduce you.

This seven-stage framework adapts to the non-linear reality of modern B2B buying. It's flexible enough to handle buyers who skip stages or loop back. And it focuses on value at every step

Building a Unified Revenue Organization

The modern B2B sales process requires a new organizational structure. Siloed departments won't cut it anymore. To succeed, you need a unified Revenue Organization.

A Revenue Organization brings sales, marketing and customer success together as one team. They share goals. They share data. They share responsibility for the entire customer lifecycle.

The Three Pillars

The Revenue Organization has three core functions. But their roles are different from traditional models.

Marketing: The Storytellers

Modern marketing isn't just about generating leads. It's about telling compelling stories, building brand awareness and creating demand. Marketing architects the customer journey and produces the content that attracts ideal customers.

Sales: The Problem Solvers

Modern sales isn't about high-pressure closing. It's about consultative problem-solving and trusted advising. Sales engages qualified prospects, diagnoses their pain and designs solutions that help them achieve their goals.

Customer Success: The Value Drivers

Modern customer success isn't reactive support. It's proactive value creation and relationship building. Customer success ensures customers get full value from your solution and identifies expansion opportunities.

Four Operating Principles

Creating a unified Revenue Organization means embracing new ways of working.

1. Shared goals and metrics. Everyone works toward the same objectives. Instead of separate MQL targets, sales quotas and churn rates, the team shares KPIs focused on revenue growth and customer lifetime value.

2. Single source of truth. The team operates from one unified view of the customer. A shared CRM provides a 360-degree view of every interaction, from first marketing touch to latest support ticket.

3. Seamless customer journey. Handoffs between marketing, sales and customer success feel invisible to customers. They experience one continuous journey with one unified team.

4. Constant collaboration. Cross-functional communication happens daily. Regular meetings, shared channels and a culture of teamwork break down traditional barriers.

The Role of the CRO

Many Revenue Organizations are led by a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). The CRO owns the entire revenue engine. They ensure marketing, sales and customer success work together in harmony. The rise of the CRO signals the shift from siloed departments to integrated revenue teams.

Skills for the Modern B2B Salesperson

The modern B2B sales process requires a new kind of salesperson. The lone-wolf, "always be closing" model is dead. Today's top performers are strategic, consultative and tech-savvy professionals.

The T-Shaped Model

The best way to think about the modern salesperson is the "T-shaped" model. They have deep expertise in one area (the vertical bar) plus broad knowledge across many disciplines (the horizontal bar).

Deep expertise (the vertical bar)

The modern salesperson's core expertise is problem-solving and value creation. They're not just product experts. They're industry experts and business consultants.

They can:

  • Diagnose complex business problems through consultative discovery
  • Build compelling business cases with clear ROI models
  • Tell stories that connect customer pain to your solution to business value

Broad knowledge (the horizontal bar)

Beyond their core expertise, modern salespeople understand multiple disciplines:

  • Marketing acumen: They know content marketing, SEO and account-based marketing. They partner effectively with marketing teams.
  • Technology savvy: They master their tech stack. CRM, sales engagement platforms, AI tools.
  • Data literacy: They read dashboards, analyze performance and use data to make decisions.
  • Financial literacy: They understand business finance. They speak the language of the CFO.

Essential Skills

Beyond the T-shaped model, several skills are critical for modern B2B salespeople:

Empathy and emotional intelligence. The ability to connect with customers on a human level matters more than ever. In a world of automation, the human touch differentiates you. Empathy means truly understanding your prospect's challenges, not just pretending to care so you can pitch. Buyers can tell the difference.

Curiosity and growth mindset. The landscape changes constantly. Top performers are endlessly curious and committed to continuous learning. They read industry publications. They study their customers' businesses. They learn new technologies. They ask "why" and "how" more than "what."

Collaboration and teamwork. The lone-wolf model is dead. Success requires effective collaboration with marketing, customer success and product teams. The best salespeople share insights freely, ask for help when needed and celebrate team wins over individual glory.

Resilience and adaptability. Modern sales is complex. The ability to bounce back from rejection and adapt to change is essential. Deals fall through. Prospects ghost you. Markets shift. Top performers don't take rejection personally. They learn from it and move forward.

Storytelling ability. Facts don't sell; stories do. The best salespeople craft narratives that connect customer pain to your solution to business outcomes. They paint pictures of a better future. They make abstract benefits concrete and memorable.

Time management. With so many demands on their time, modern salespeople must prioritize ruthlessly. They know which deals deserve attention and which are distractions. They block time for important work instead of reacting to every email and Slack message

The Navigator Role in Pair Selling

The ultimate modern salesperson is the "navigator" in the Pair Selling model. The navigator guides the AI "driver." They're a T-shaped professional with deep expertise in value creation and broad knowledge of strategy, technology and data.

The navigator isn't replaced by AI. They're augmented by it. AI handles prospecting, research, outreach and admin work. The navigator focuses on strategy, relationships and closing.

Think of it like a pilot and autopilot. The autopilot handles routine flying so the pilot can focus on critical decisions. AI handles routine sales tasks so the navigator can focus on high-value human interactions.

What does this look like in practice? The AI researches target accounts, identifies key contacts and gathers relevant intelligence. It crafts personalized emails and sends them at optimal times. It makes follow-up calls and books meetings with interested prospects. The navigator then steps in for discovery calls, demos and negotiations. They bring emotional intelligence, strategic thinking and human connection that AI can't replicate.

This division of labor isn't just efficient. It's better for everyone. Prospects get more thoughtful, personalized interactions. Salespeople enjoy their work more because they focus on what they do best. Companies close more deals with less headcount. Pair Selling isn't about choosing between AI and humans. It's about combining their strengths

B2B Sales Trends for 2026 and Beyond

The pace of change in B2B sales is accelerating. Several trends will reshape the landscape in the coming years.

Trend 1: Autonomous AI Sales Agents

AI-powered sales agents are just the beginning. As technology matures, we'll see truly autonomous agents that handle significant portions of the sales cycle for transactional deals.

This won't replace human salespeople for complex enterprise sales. But it will create a new, highly efficient channel for a large market segment. Sales leaders will shift from managing people to managing portfolios of human and AI agents.

Platforms like AvairAI are already executing complete prospecting campaigns autonomously. They send personalized emails, make AI phone calls and book meetings while salespeople focus on closing.

Trend 2: Hyper-Personalization

The demand for personalization will intensify. We'll move beyond name and company personalization to true one-to-one experiences tailored to each prospect's context, behavior and needs in real-time.

AI will analyze vast data signals to create hyper-personalized interactions at scale. Every touchpoint will feel custom-made for that specific buyer.

Trend 3: Product-Led Growth Convergence

The barrier between sales and product will dissolve. Product-led growth (PLG) will become a dominant go-to-market motion. The product itself will drive customer acquisition and expansion.

Salespeople will shift from selling the product to helping customers extract maximum value from it. This requires deeper product expertise and stronger consultative skills.

Trend 4: The Ethical Imperative

As AI power grows, ethics become critical. The line between personalization and privacy, between automation and spam, will define success.

Organizations built on Ethical Prospecting will win long-term. Trust becomes the most valuable currency. Companies that use technology responsibly and customer-centrically will earn that trust.

What does ethical prospecting look like in practice? It means respecting opt-outs immediately. It means being transparent about using AI. It means providing real value in every interaction, not just pushing for meetings. It means verifying contact data to avoid bothering people who've left companies. And it means complying with regulations like TCPA, which can result in $500-$1,500 penalties per violation.

Trend 5: Revenue Intelligence Platforms

Data will become the foundation of every sales decision. Revenue intelligence platforms aggregate data from calls, emails, CRM entries and third-party sources to provide unprecedented visibility into deal health, forecast accuracy and sales performance.

These platforms use AI to analyze conversation patterns, identify at-risk deals before they slip and surface coaching opportunities. They move sales management from gut feeling to data-driven decision making.

The best sales teams already use revenue intelligence to predict which deals will close and which need intervention. By 2026, this will be table stakes

The Human Element Endures

Amid all this change, one thing remains constant: the power of human connection. Technology strips away inefficiency and drudgery. It frees salespeople to focus on what they do best.

Building relationships. Solving complex problems. Creating genuine value.

The future of B2B sales is more intelligent, more efficient and more data-driven. But it's also more human. The organizations that combine machine power with human wisdom will win.

Getting Started: Your B2B Sales Process Action Plan

Ready to modernize your B2B sales process? Here's a practical roadmap.

Week 1: Assess Your Current State

  • Audit how your team spends time. What percentage goes to selling versus admin work?
  • Map your current sales stages. Where do deals stall or fall out?
  • Evaluate your tech stack. Are tools helping or creating friction?
  • Review team structure. How aligned are sales, marketing and customer success?

Week 2: Define Your 7-Stage Process

  • Document your version of the 7-stage framework
  • Create clear criteria for moving deals between stages
  • Identify key activities and metrics for each stage
  • Build templates for discovery calls, demos and proposals

Week 3-4: Implement AI Automation

  • Identify high-repetition, low-strategy tasks to automate first
  • Evaluate AI-powered prospecting platforms
  • Set up automated research, outreach and follow-up workflows
  • Define the human-AI handoff points in your process

Month 2: Build Your Revenue Organization

  • Align goals across sales, marketing and customer success
  • Establish shared metrics and reporting
  • Create cross-functional communication rhythms
  • Define seamless handoff processes between teams

Ongoing: Measure and Optimize

  • Track stage conversion rates weekly
  • Monitor time spent selling versus admin work
  • Gather feedback from customers on their experience
  • Continuously refine your process based on data

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the modern B2B sales process?

The modern B2B sales process is a 7-stage framework designed for how buyers actually buy today. It starts with prospecting and moves through discovery, qualification, solution design, consensus building, closing and expansion. Unlike the old linear funnel, this process is flexible and adapts to non-linear buyer journeys.

How many stages are in the B2B sales process?

The modern B2B sales process has 7 stages: Prospecting, Discovery, Qualification, Solution Design, Consensus, Closing and Expansion. Each stage has specific goals, activities and success criteria. Deals don't always move linearly; buyers may skip stages or loop back.

What is a unified revenue organization?

A unified revenue organization brings sales, marketing and customer success together as one team. They share goals, metrics and customer data. They work collaboratively across the entire customer lifecycle rather than operating in separate silos. This structure delivers better customer experiences and higher revenue.

How has B2B buying behavior changed?

B2B buyers now complete 83% of their journey before talking to sales. They research independently, consume content and form opinions on their own timeline. Buying decisions involve 6-10 stakeholders on average. Buyers expect personalized, value-driven interactions and have zero tolerance for generic outreach.

What skills do modern salespeople need?

Modern B2B salespeople need the "T-shaped" skill set: deep expertise in problem-solving and value creation, plus broad knowledge of marketing, technology and data. Essential skills include empathy, curiosity, collaboration and resilience. The best salespeople are strategic advisors, not high-pressure closers.

How does AI fit into the B2B sales process?

AI handles the repetitive, time-consuming parts of the B2B sales process. This includes research, list building, email personalization, follow-ups and even phone calls. The Pair Selling approach pairs AI agents with human salespeople. AI handles prospecting. Humans focus on relationships and closing. Together, they're more effective than either alone.

Conclusion: Build Your Modern B2B Sales Process

The traditional B2B sales process is obsolete. Empowered buyers, complex buying committees and the productivity crisis have rendered it ineffective.

The modern B2B sales process offers a better path forward. It's a 7-stage journey from prospecting to expansion. It's executed by unified revenue organizations, not siloed departments. It's powered by AI and guided by T-shaped sales professionals.

What we've covered:

  • The traditional sales process broke because buyers changed and the model didn't adapt
  • The modern B2B sales process has 7 stages designed for non-linear buyer journeys
  • Unified revenue organizations outperform siloed teams
  • T-shaped salespeople combine deep expertise with broad business knowledge
  • AI and humans work best together through Pair Selling

The tools exist. The methodology is proven. The question is whether you'll embrace change or watch competitors pull ahead.

Stop forcing salespeople to do robot work. Let AI handle research, outreach and admin tasks. Let your people focus on relationships and closing.

See how AvairAI can help you build a modern B2B sales process.

Sunil Hans

About Sunil Hans

Sunil Hans LinkedIn page.

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