- Original research
The B2B Sales Landscape Report
Between July 2024 and February 2025 we surveyed 40 B2B sales leaders across 15 countries and six continents. This is what they told us, in full and without a form.
The 2026 survey is now open. It takes five minutes, and everyone who completes it receives their own answers set against the full benchmark.
By Iain Swanston, Klozers · Fieldwork July 2024 to February 2025 · 6 minute read
Klozers surveyed 40 B2B sales leaders across 15 countries between July 2024 and February 2025, covering sales leadership, forecasting and CRM. The central finding was a gap between importance and confidence: 77.5% rated sales forecasting as highly critical to business strategy, while only 20% expressed full confidence in the accuracy of their own forecast.
Key findings
- 77.5% rated forecasting as highly critical. Only 20% were fully confident in its accuracy.
- Half the sample sat in the middle, at five to seven out of ten on confidence.
- 63% now update forecasts monthly or quarterly. Cadence has risen and confidence has not followed it.
- 62.5% reported significant CRM impact, yet only 50% achieved high utilisation.
- Fewer than half of sales leaders would rehire their entire current team.
Forecasting is the priority nobody trusts
Forecasting was rated highly critical to business strategy by 77.5% of respondents. Only 20% reported full confidence in the accuracy of their own forecast.
Half the sample, 50%, sat in the middle at five to seven out of ten.
Self-reported forecast confidence. The majority sit at medium rather than at either extreme, which is a different problem from a minority failing badly.
Forecasting more often does not make a forecast more accurate. It makes it more frequently wrong.
Cadence has increased and confidence has not followed it. 63% now update forecasts monthly or quarterly, which is more often than most organisations managed five years ago.
Buying the technology is not the same as using it
62.5% reported a significant positive impact from their CRM. Only 50% reported high utilisation by their sales teams.
The single largest barrier was not cost, integration or missing features. 22.5% named low user adoption, more than any other challenge.
The pattern will be familiar to anyone who has bought sales training. The tool is sound. The behaviour does not hold.
Reported CRM impact against reported utilisation, with the largest named barrier. Klozers B2B Sales Landscape Report, 40 respondents.
Fewer than half of sales leaders would rehire their entire current team
Reported without further comment, because it does not need any.
Who answered
| Role | |
|---|---|
| Directly manage a sales team | 65% |
| Company size | |
| Ten employees or fewer | 42.5% |
| Between ten and 250 | 35% |
| 250 or more | 22.5% |
| Region | |
| United States | 30% |
| European Union | 22.5% |
| United Kingdom | 17.5% |
| Asia-Pacific | 15% |
| Rest of world | 15% |
Method, and what these numbers are not
Forty responses. This is a qualitative study, not a statistically representative sample of the B2B market. Every figure above is a proportion of forty and should be read and quoted that way.
Fieldwork ran July 2024 to February 2025, through a structured questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative components, across 15 countries and six continents.
The sample skews small. 42.5% of respondents work in organisations of ten people or fewer, which is smaller than the businesses we usually work with. Findings about enterprise sales teams should be read with that in mind.
We are stating all of this because a report that overclaims its sample is worth less than one that does not.
The 2026 survey: the Execution Gap Report
Five minutes. Anonymous. Open to sales leaders and to salespeople in the United Kingdom and Germany, in organisations with 30 or more salespeople.
Why this year's survey asks about one deal
Most sales research asks about the organisation. How mature is your qualification process, how confident are you in your data, how well does your team perform. The answers are opinions, and opinions about your own function are generous.
The 2026 survey asks about one deal. The one you are working on right now.
Who approves the spend?
Not the job title. The person.
Whose targets suffer if it is not solved?
Often a different person, and often the one nobody has spoken to.
What has the buyer actually done?
An action you could name, a meeting in the diary, or nothing.
Those are answerable facts rather than opinions. And because we ask sales leaders to estimate what their team could answer, and salespeople to answer it themselves, the gap between the two becomes visible for the first time.
What you get for taking part
Published free
- The full aggregate findings, on this page
- No form, no gate, free to quote and reference
- The method and the sample, stated openly
Sent to respondents only
- Your own answers placed against the benchmark
- Where you sit, not only where the market sits
- Delivered by email when the report is published
Using these findings
The 2024/5 findings are free to quote and reference. If you use a figure, please cite it as a Klozers survey of 40 B2B sales leaders across 15 countries, and name the fieldwork period of July 2024 to February 2025.
The sample matters. A percentage quoted without it says more than the data supports.
Forecasts are not inaccurate because salespeople are dishonest.
If forecasting confidence is the problem
They are inaccurate because there is no agreed standard for what admits a deal to a stage, so every person applies their own. That is a governance problem rather than a training one.