What 260+ Revenue Organizations Say About the State of Sales in 2023

When reading Salesloft’s 2023 State of Revenue Engagement Benchmark report, featuring learnings from 260 Sales Leaders, one figure stood out to me—median quote achievement for AES is only 50%. While the sample size, with 263 companies participating, is quite small, this is still staggering. The study found that pipeline generation is the biggest challenge to revenue growth in 2023.

Why are so many companies struggling with pipeline generation and closing deals?

Clearly, the economic recession has led to cost-cutting and tighter budgets. A study by Profitwell shows that B2B SaaS companies have an average annualized growth of 10-11% this year, compared to 18-20% last year. According to the Profitwell B2B SaaS Index, this summer companies saw marginally lower subscription activity and high churn compared to previous years.

It is nearly impossible to accurately weigh which factors are contributing to this trend the most. What we can take from these studies is that the game has gotten tougher, and old playbooks on how to win in this market need to be rewritten.

The New Status Quo: A Shift Towards Sustainable Growth

The pre-Covid, low-interest era is over. This means companies won’t have as much money to spend on solutions as in the previous decade. There are no more freebies being handed out. Tools that are seen as "nice-to-have" are likely being cut and proactively left out of the tech stack.

With low quota attainment and stunted SaaS growth, I’m interested to see how we adapt as sellers. There's no doubt that prospects are as skeptical, resource-bound, and well-informed as ever.

While the outlook might seem bleak, it will likely bring about new disruptions in the world of selling. AI is definitely one trend to watch, as it's already having a tangible impact on spotting buying signals, increasing the efficiency of RevOps teams, and lead generation.

Another big trend I see emerging is the rise of social selling and inbound lead generation– bringing value en masse to generate warm to hot leads. While I don't think outbound will die, I believe that inbound leads will take a larger share in conversions compared to years prior.

Ultimately SaaS companies have to tweak their forecasting for sustainable growth, which will ultimately change the way we approach selling.

Many high-growth businesses have gone bust in the week of this downturn, so maybe this is just a natural correction we're seeing here, perhaps a healthy one. I'm not as concerned as many pundits are: what goes  up (COVID Boom) must come down (new era of SaaS). In the meantime, the resilient, flexible and disruptive sales organisations will find ways to stand out and strive.

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