The Biggest Challenge Facing Sales in 2025

The title should have been “The biggest challenge facing sales in 2025—and what to do about it.” But I don’t have that much space.

Sales is Changing, but Some Challenges Haven’t Changed

I’ve been in and around sales for more than 50 years. It’s changed. A lot. Unfortunately, it hasn’t changed fast enough in some sectors. Because we continue to have bad examples, Just say no to bad sales tactics.

Salespeople today face challenges I couldn’t have imagined in 1970: navigating CRM systems, content management, keeping up with ever-changing products, and following the lead cycle. Sales challenges vary by industry, geography, and target market. An organization’s approach to sales impacts the challenges to be faced, as do recruiting, onboarding, and continuous training. However, the challenge below is universal to sales regardless of product or approach.

The Biggest Challenge Facing Sales in 2025Finding the Time to Do the Job

Systems have become more efficient yet more complicated. Too often, salespeople spend more time following up with production and delivering products and services than they do in the field selling.

How to Give Your Sales Team More Time Selling

According to this Hub Spot Infographic, salespeople spend less than one-third of their time selling. If the job description of salespeople is to sell, isn’t that how they should spend their time? What are they doing the other two-thirds of the time?

7 Actions Plans for Sales Success Administration

According to several studies, salespeople spend more time completing and following up on paperwork than selling.

Action —  Take away as many administrative duties as possible from sales and delegate them to office personnel. Every administrative task lifted from salespeople is an opportunity to grow the business.

Lead Generation

Lead gen is one of most salespeople’s responsibilities, but it shouldn’t take up the majority of their time. Salespeople should spend time generating leads through add-on sales to existing customers as well as referrals.

Action—The marketing department’s key metric should be lead generation. Whether it’s through email marketing, social media, or traditional forms of advertising, marketing’s first responsibility is to fill the top of the funnel with leads. A salesperson’s job isn’t to provide all the leads—it’s to turn leads into satisfied customers. It isn’t easy to throw the ball and swing the bat.

Production

Every minute a salesperson uses to schedule production, follow up on jobs, or act as a liaison between departments is a minute they aren’t selling.

Action– Limit the responsibility of sales in production by developing production specialists to follow orders. Many CRM systems are automated to follow production and inform customers of progress.

Service

There isn’t anything more important than offering timely and efficient service when customers need help. It may be vital that salespeople stay in the loop with customer service, but it doesn’t mean they should be the primary service contact person.

Action—Delegate customer service to customer service representatives. Part of CSRs’ jobs should be to satisfy customer service needs and update salespeople on service progress.

Distractions

There are so many ways to be distracted in today’s world. One of the biggest distractions is the steady sound of pings.

Action — Turn the pings off. Do not check email, texts, and social media every ten minutes. Set time aside to concentrate on the task at hand without interruptions. Don’t buy into The Multitasking Myth. Don’t get confused by urgent tasks that take salespeople away from the important task of selling.

Travel Time

There will always be a need for travel. While meeting with key clients face-to-face may be more important than anything else, not every meeting needs to be or should be F2F.

Action—Schedule Zoom meetings. Phone calls are becoming old-fashioned and out of style, but they remain an excellent way to stay in touch. Before calling, it may be best to text or email a phone appointment request.

Downtime

The number one reason for downtime is poor planning. For example, when a sales visit is set with a client and no other appointments are scheduled, what happens if that client is unable to make the meeting? In this scenario, scheduling several meetings throughout the day reduces downtime.

Action – Help the sales team get organized by sharing daily and weekly planners.

Is it Time to Take Action?       

Implementing these seven actions, even in a small way, will positively impact sales. Eliminating distractions, reducing downtime, and helping salespeople concentrate on selling will pay off with increased sales, new customers, and more work for the company. How would any business be impacted by reducing non-sales time from 66% to 33%?  It seems reasonable, doesn’t it?

How Can I Help You?

I like to help people and organizations, but I have three criteria I consider before taking an assignment – I believe in what the organization stands for, I know I can help, and it looks like fun. If you have any questions, Contact Me. 

So, does your business have a  management training plan? Because, if not, many organizations, large and small, use my book, The New Manager’s Workbook a crash course in effective management, as the basis for their leadership development program. Check it out.

Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

 

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