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Tag: B2B Sales

Cup of Tea with a BDE: Joel vs The Great Cold Call Debate

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

The great cold call debate is a tale as old as time. LinkedIn warriors take to their keyboards to proclaim “COLD CALLING IS DEAD!” – and then usually promote a tool that can generate 2x your pipeline in four weeks without ever speaking to a prospect.

But the question remains – is cold calling really dead? Have we stopped valuing real human conversation?

We can’t deny that digital tools and AI are brilliant co-workers when it comes to efficiency. But our Business Development Executive, Joel Pugh, is living proof that we can’t afford to lose our voice in the sales journey.

Over the past quarter, Joel’s median target achievement has reached 264%+ across five separate client campaigns. He hasn’t missed a single target – in fact, he’s exceeded every one by a considerable margin.

Joel joined Air just over a year ago, fresh out of college, with no prior sales experience but a genuine thirst to learn the art of prospecting.

“I came to Air knowing I wanted to get into sales. I’ve always had a clear drive and goal to work in business, and the BDE role was the entry point for me to start that journey. I wanted to learn the basics and gain experience so I can progress in the future.”

Over the past year, Joel has become a consistent top performer and now works closely with his teammates to help them achieve similar results. But how exactly does he do it? We sat down with him – and a cup of tea – to find out how he continues to excel in a market that’s telling SDRs to avoid the phone…

What’s something you’ve learnt from your peers that helps you to succeed?

“Don’t say sorry for doing your job – that’s something a lot of people do when they start in sales because they feel like a nuisance. But my peers helped me see that it’s our job, and we’re here to help. Don’t apologise for that.”

If you were a BDE starting from scratch, what would your top tip be?

“Get used to rejection – embrace it. That was probably one of the first things I realised in this job. You can’t let rejection stop you. You’ve got to be OK with it.”

What traits make a good salesperson?

“Competitiveness. I’m a competitive person – not in a nasty way – but that competitive edge is needed in sales. I enjoy the banter with my mates; it helps us push harder.”

When you’re facing a tough day or week as a BDE, how do you turn it around?

“I make promises to myself. I was having a bad week recently, and my Team Manager asked if the workload was getting too much. I said, ‘No mate, I want to be doing all this work.’ I told myself that tomorrow would be make or break – either I’d have a great day or I’d be finished, retired!

I ended up getting seven fresh leads the next day and won the all-in-day incentive. It’s about not dwelling too much on the day before. That’s important. No dwelling on the past – it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Is cold calling dead?

“Cold calling is king – and I think it always will be. One of the reasons I got into sales is because I don’t fear AI replacing my job. People want to be taught and spoken to by people, not computers or robots. They want to hear a human voice – someone who’s confident and skilled. That’s always going to win.”

So, the answer to the great cold call debate? It’s simple – cold calling isn’t dead. It just takes grit.

There’s no shortcut to pipeline generation. Be like Joel: dedicated to your craft, resilient in the face of adversity, and confident in the power of real human connection.

 

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Cup of Tea with a BDE: Joel vs The Great Cold Call Debate

How to Choose the Right Outsourced Sales Agency in the UK

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

Why UK B2B Companies Are Turning to Outsourced Sales

More and more B2B businesses are outsourcing sales to gain agility, control costs and reach markets faster. But one truth stands out: the difference between average and exceptional results lies in choosing a partner who can deliver measurable pipeline and integrate seamlessly with your team. This guide helps you make that choice with confidence.

What to Consider Before Partnering with an Outsourced Sales Agency

Before you start reviewing agencies, get your own house in order. Clarity on your needs will help you separate good from great. Consider:

  • Your goals. Do you want lead generation, pipeline development, deal closure – or help with a specific stage like outbound outreach or appointment setting?
  • Budget & resources. What’s your budget compared to hiring internally? What internal capacity do you have to manage or support the partnership?
  • Control vs delegation. How much control do you want over messaging, process, and reporting? How much should the agency own?
  • Timeline. When do you need results? Sales cycles take time – lead nurturing, message refinement, and learning curves all matter.
  • Success metrics. Define KPIs such as meetings set, qualified leads, and revenue, and agree on how they’ll be tracked.

Key Qualities of a High-Performing Outsourced Sales Partner

The strongest outsourced sales partners combine proven sales processes with target-market expertise, ensuring they can reach and convert the right people, not just understand your sector.

Choose a partner who is a true sales architect – someone who doesn’t merely execute outreach but engineers results. These are experts who live and breathe sales, blending strategy, discipline and creativity drawn from years of building and running top-tier sales operations.

Look for an agency that offers:

  • Multi-market reach and sector fluency – the ability to tailor outreach for different buyer profiles, seniorities, and geographies, supported by case studies and references that show measurable results.
  • Plug-and-play outbound capability – a ready-built sales engine that integrates quickly and delivers momentum without a long ramp-up.
  • Precision cadences and messaging – carefully designed touchpoints and curated messaging that transform technical features into commercial conversations and lift contact and conversion rates.
  • Specialist SDRs and ongoing coaching – a team trained to speak the language of senior decision-makers, supported by continual coaching to keep dialogue sharp and value-driven.
  • Intelligent data and TAM mapping – sophisticated data segmentation and total addressable market analysis to reach the right buyers every time and uncover scalable growth opportunities.
  • Insight-driven forecasting and reporting – accurate pipeline forecasting and transparent performance dashboards, so every decision is backed by data and revenue visibility is never in doubt.
  • Scalability and flexibility – the ability to adjust team size, cadence or targeting as your needs evolve, without disruption.
  • Cultural and brand alignment – a partner whose tone, values and quality standards reflect your own.
  • Technology and compliance strength – from CRM integration to GDPR adherence, ensuring efficiency and peace of mind.

This combination of sales mastery and market expertise ensures an agency isn’t just familiar with what you sell – they know who to sell to and how to move opportunities faster, whether that’s C-suite leaders in enterprise tech, procurement heads in manufacturing, or fast-moving SMBs in emerging sectors.

Essential Questions to Ask an Outsourced B2B Sales Agency

When speaking with potential partners, probe with questions like:

  1. “How do you adapt outreach for different market segments or seniorities?”
  2. “What’s your approach to TAM mapping and data segmentation?”
  3. “How do you ensure messaging reflects our technical and commercial value?”
  4. “Can you share case studies where you scaled outbound rapidly while maintaining quality?”
  5. “What reporting will give us confidence in pipeline accuracy and revenue forecasting?”

Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Outsourcing Sales

Beware of agencies that:

  • Promise instant high-volume results without a clear process or onboarding plan
  • Can’t explain how they source or segment data
  • Provide vague reporting with little insight into conversions or ROI
  • Lock you into inflexible contracts without room to pivot

How to Build a Long-Term Partnership With Your Outsourced Sales Team

The strongest outsourced sales agencies become an extension of your team. They’ll bring fresh ideas, challenge your assumptions, and collaborate on strategy – not simply “deliver calls”.

Keep communication frequent and two-way. The most productive partnerships involve ongoing iteration as markets shift and data informs better decisions.

Choosing the right outsourced sales agency is about more than sector familiarity. The best partners are true sales architects – professionals who live and breathe sales, blending strategy, discipline and creativity to engineer results. With market-specific insight and advanced processes, they make every conversation sharper, every campaign smarter, and every opportunity move faster.


The Air Marketing Approach

At Air, we partner with B2B businesses who need to strengthen sales performance without the burden of permanent headcount. Whether you need extra capacity to support your team, or a fully outsourced sales engine to drive pipeline, we deliver measurable results that prove value fast.

Explore Outsourced Sales With Air Marketing

The Outbound Sales Playbook That Works: Proven Scripts to Grow Your Pipeline

Posted on by Hannah Sanders
Outbound Sales Playbook - Proven Scripts to Grow Your Pipeline by Air Marketing

Outbound is one of the toughest channels to crack in B2B sales – but it doesn’t have to be guesswork. The right words, timing, and approach can mean the difference between unanswered calls and booked meetings. That’s why we’ve built The Outbound Sales Playbook That Works – a free, practical guide packed with proven scripts and frameworks designed to help sales teams grow pipeline faster.

What’s Inside the Playbook:

  • Cold call scripts that cut through and spark real conversations

  • Email templates that drive replies (not just opens)

  • Messaging frameworks tailored to B2B decision-makers

  • Proven approaches to objection handling and follow-up

  • Strategies to build consistency and scale outbound success

Why Download It?
This playbook isn’t theory – it’s built on the strategies our team use every day to help clients book more meetings, convert prospects, and grow revenue. Whether you’re a Sales Director, SDR, or founder building pipeline, this resource will sharpen your outbound game.

Complete the form below to download your free copy and start using scripts that actually work.

Inbound Plateaued? Here’s How Outbound Can Restart Your Growth Curve

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

Inbound has had a good run.

It’s consistent, measurable, and when it works, it works well. But for many B2B businesses, especially in competitive markets, the growth curve eventually starts to flatten. Content takes longer to convert. SEO rankings stabilise. Paid campaigns become less efficient. And despite best efforts, pipeline momentum begins to stall.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. We speak to growth-focused leaders every week who tell us, “We’ve hit a ceiling with inbound.”

So what’s the next move?

It might be time to take outbound seriously.

Why outbound — and why now?

Outbound today is a different beast. It’s not about scripted calls or generic outreach. When done properly, it’s a scalable, insight-led growth channel that drives proactive pipeline. It targets the right personas at the right time with the right message.

Crucially, outbound doesn’t replace inbound. It enhances it. When layered into your demand engine, it turns inconsistent interest into consistent opportunity.

1. Outbound gives you control

Inbound relies on timing. Buyers need to be looking for your solution when they find you. Outbound changes that. It lets you choose who to target and when, based on strategic priorities rather than search traffic.

You’re not waiting for the right leads to come to you. You’re going to them.

2. It builds predictable pipeline

With outbound, you can model volumes, track conversions, and forecast with far greater precision. This makes it much easier to report with confidence, plan with clarity, and justify investment.

It also speeds up pipeline generation. You’re not reliant on how well a blog performs or whether this month’s paid campaign hits.

3. It complements inbound, not competes with it

Some of your best-fit prospects may never engage with inbound. They’re not searching for your solution. They’re not reading your whitepapers. Outbound lets you reach these audiences directly and spark commercial conversations earlier.

In many cases, outbound turns passive prospects into active pipeline.

4. When it’s informed by insight, it works

Modern outbound is powered by data — intent signals, firmographics, technographics, and buyer behaviour. This allows for highly relevant messaging that feels timely rather than intrusive.

When it lands well, it doesn’t feel like a cold outreach. It feels like you’ve read the room.

5. It tightens the sales and marketing loop

Outbound brings marketing and sales closer together. Sales teams benefit from the awareness marketing has already built. Marketing gets real-time feedback on what messages are landing with decision-makers.

This insight makes every part of your demand strategy sharper.

Time to restart your growth curve?

If your inbound activity is no longer moving the needle, outbound can help you break the plateau. It brings structure, accountability, and commercial urgency into your pipeline strategy.

But outbound only works when it’s done properly:

  • Dedicated, experienced resource

  • Accurate, segmented data

  • Sharp, pain-led messaging

  • Consistent, multi-touch follow-up

  • Continuous testing and refinement

That’s exactly what we deliver at Air.

If your current approach isn’t cutting it, let’s build one that does. Talk to us today.

Take Control of Your Sales Pipeline

Your pipeline shouldn’t depend on who finds you.

At Air, we help businesses reignite growth by designing and executing outbound strategies that work in the real world. We uncover where opportunity is being missed — whether that’s in targeting, messaging, cadence or conversion — and build outbound engines that generate consistent, qualified pipeline.

Our approach surfaces what’s holding you back and unlocks faster, more predictable revenue.

TALK TO US TODAY

Is Your Sales Process Quietly Costing You Revenue?

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

Your sales team might be putting in the hours. The effort might be there. But if your sales process is misaligned, outdated, or poorly defined, that effort could be going to waste—and costing you serious revenue.

Misfires in the sales process rarely make noise. They don’t show up as flashing red alerts. Instead, they creep in: through inconsistent deal progression, disjointed messaging, underused tech, or a growing reliance on top performers just to hit target. Left unchecked, they compound into missed opportunities, inefficiencies, and eventually, stagnation.

So how do you spot the silent killers, and what can you do to fix them?

The Hidden Ways Your Sales Process Is Undermining Performance

Let’s start with the telltale signs we see most often in underperforming or plateaued sales teams.

1. Reps Are Working Hard, But Not Effectively

Without a clear, modern framework to follow, reps default to personal preference. Some chase leads aggressively, others take a consultative approach—neither necessarily wrong, but without structure, it’s inconsistent. Messaging varies. Follow-up slips. Deal cycles stretch out unnecessarily.

2. Deals Stall—And No One Knows Why

A process without well-defined stages, exit criteria or qualification standards leads to unpredictable pipelines. Opportunities linger indefinitely. Forecasting becomes guesswork. Leadership loses visibility, and the business pays the price.

3. Your Tech Stack Isn’t Working For You

You may have invested in CRM, automation, and sales enablement tools, but if they’re not fully embedded into your process, they’ll be underused or misused. Reps avoid clunky systems. Data becomes patchy. And automation? That becomes an opportunity missed, not maximised.

4. Discovery Is Shallow—and It Shows

Great discovery should uncover pain points, motivations, buying dynamics and urgency. But too often, teams still run through surface-level questions and lead with features. This results in generic proposals that fail to resonate, and a much higher likelihood of deals going cold.

5. No One Can Define What ‘Good’ Looks Like

If high performance in your team is anecdotal rather than systematic, you have a scalability problem. Without a shared understanding of best practice—supported by data, benchmarks, and coaching—you’re relying on a handful of stars, rather than building a strong, repeatable machine.

6. Sales and Marketing Aren’t Pulling in the Same Direction

A misaligned sales process can disconnect your GTM engine. If marketing is generating leads that sales doesn’t know how to convert, you’ll see friction, finger-pointing, and funnel leakage. The buyer experiences inconsistency, and conversion suffers.

7. Top Reps Are Getting Frustrated

If your strongest performers are weighed down by admin, inefficient processes, or inflexible tools, they’ll disengage. Worse, they might leave altogether. Talent retention isn’t just about culture, it’s about whether they can do their best work.

8. Coaching Becomes Firefighting

When there’s no clarity or visibility into what’s working (and what’s not), managers are left reacting to missed targets, rather than proactively supporting their teams. Coaching becomes inconsistent. Underperformance becomes harder to diagnose, and even harder to turn around.

How to Know If Your Sales Process Needs an Intervention

You don’t need a full-blown pipeline collapse to know something’s wrong. Look for these early indicators:

  • Inconsistent win rates across reps or teams

  • Low adoption of CRM or sales tools

  • Too many prospects ending in “no decision”

  • Stalled deals with unclear next steps

  • Difficulty forecasting or hitting targets

  • High rep turnover or disengagement

  • A vague understanding of your ICP or sales playbook

  • A culture of ‘gut feel’ over data-driven decisions

The Fix: Clarity, Consistency and Commercial Focus

At Air Marketing, we work with B2B sales leaders to remove the guesswork. Our Sales Process Assessment & Audit gives you a clear picture of how your sales process is performing: what’s working, what’s not, and what’s costing you deals.

We analyse:

  • Process design and deal stages

  • Sales-to-marketing alignment

  • Discovery and qualification techniques

  • CRM structure and adoption

  • Use (and misuse) of sales tools

  • Rep productivity and coaching cadence

Then we deliver practical recommendations to help you build a sales operation that works at scale—grounded in data, driven by best practice, and built to convert.

Sales Process Assessment & Audit Artwork Featuring Shaun Weston at Air Marketing

Ready to stop the silent revenue drain?

At Air, we specialise in helping businesses optimise their sales performance through a detailed review of their sales and marketing processes.

Our assessment highlights strengths, uncovers gaps, and identifies opportunities for improvement, enhancing conversion rates, shortening sales cycles, and driving sustainable growth. 

 

LEARN MORE

Your MQLs Aren’t the Problem – Your Follow-Up Is

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

It’s a common gripe between sales and marketing teams: “The leads aren’t good enough.” But let’s get one thing straight — most of the time, the problem isn’t the leads. It’s what happens next.

Marketers are measured on MQLs. Sales teams are measured on revenue. The disconnect between the two creates friction, but what’s often overlooked is this: the leads you’re generating *are* qualified — they’re just not being followed up in a way that converts.

Here’s what’s really going wrong:

Slow response times

Responding to leads within the first five minutes makes you *21x more likely* to qualify them — yet only 7% of companies respond within that window. Most B2B teams take hours, if not days.

Source: Lead Response Management Study

One-and-done outreach

It takes an average of *8 touches* to get a response from a prospect. Many sales reps stop after just 2.

Source: Rain Group – “Top Performance in Sales Prospecting”

Generic follow-ups

72% of buyers expect B2B companies to personalise outreach based on their previous interactions. Templated, non-contextual follow-ups simply don’t make the cut.

Source: Salesforce – State of the Connected Customer, 5th Edition

Poor sales/marketing alignment

Only 46% of B2B organisations report having a formal definition of an MQL agreed upon by both teams. When there’s no shared understanding, the follow-up is inconsistent and ineffective.

Source: Demand Gen Report – 2023 Lead Nurturing & Acceleration Benchmark Survey

So what does good MQL follow-up look like?

🔹 Fast and personalised: Respond while intent is high and reference the specific asset or page they engaged with.

🔹 Multi-channel: Don’t rely on just email. Use LinkedIn, phone, and remarketing to stay top of mind.

🔹 Structured and consistent: Build follow-up cadences that include a minimum of 6-8 touches across 10+ days.

🔹 Context-rich: Arm your sales team with the right messaging, content hooks, and background on the lead’s journey.

🔹 Shared accountability: MQLs should be a shared metric. If marketing delivers them, sales should be ready to follow through — and vice versa.

👉 Here are 5 key marketing metrics every team should be monitoring to connect activity to actual pipeline impact.

Don’t let good leads go cold

At Air Marketing, we work with B2B teams who are tired of the blame game. We don’t just generate MQLs — we help our clients build intelligent follow-up frameworks that turn those leads into real pipeline. Whether it’s implementing structured nurture workflows, training BDRs to follow up effectively, or taking on the outreach ourselves, we help bridge the gap between interest and impact.

So before you question the quality of your leads — ask yourself: what happens after the form is filled?

📞 Book a quick call and learn how we can help.

How to Fix Your Reactive Pipeline Before It’s Too Late

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

Sales leaders often don’t realise their pipeline is reactive until it’s already hurting performance. Deals start slipping, forecasts become fiction, and the team is stuck in a cycle of chasing rather than closing.

By the time most sales teams acknowledge there’s a problem, it’s already critical. And while quick fixes might keep things afloat in the short term, they won’t build predictable revenue.

If your pipeline relies on luck, last-minute heroics, or one or two key accounts coming in ‘just in time’, you’re already at risk.

The good news? It’s fixable – if you act fast.

First: Do you have a reactive pipeline?

Here are five warning signs:

  1. Peaks and troughs in monthly pipeline value

  2. Inbound-heavy strategies with minimal outbound activity

  3. Late-stage pressure to “find” deals before quarter-end

  4. No structured prospecting rhythm across the team

  5. Sales forecasts based on gut feel, not verified data

If any of these feel familiar, your pipeline isn’t futureproof – and it’s time to take control.

Why reactive pipelines happen

Most reactive pipelines are the result of one thing: neglecting top-of-funnel activity. When prospecting is inconsistent or deprioritised, pipeline coverage becomes patchy. Add in over-reliance on marketing or referrals, and you’ve got a pipeline vulnerable to external market shifts.

There’s also a cultural factor. Sales teams often fall into ‘delivery mode’ – focused on closing or servicing existing deals, rather than fuelling the funnel for future months. By the time attention returns to new business generation, it’s already too late.

Fixing it: A practical playbook for regaining control

Diagnose the gaps

  • Analyse your pipeline by source, stage, and age.
  • Look for bottlenecks, drop-offs, or channels delivering diminishing returns.

Reset the prospecting culture

  • Daily outbound activity must be non-negotiable, not optional.
  • Equip the team with clear messaging, targeted data, and accountability frameworks.

Build an outbound motion that scales

  • Relying on individual effort alone won’t cut it.
  • Invest in a systematic outbound engine combining automation, personalisation, and multi-channel outreach.

Rebuild forecasting from the ground up

  • Start with pipeline coverage and conversion rates – not wishful thinking.
  • Hold regular, realistic pipeline reviews that focus on progression, not just volume.

Align sales and marketing on pipeline goals

  • Marketing should be focused on generating demand, not just leads.
  • Shared ownership over pipeline health drives consistency across channels.

The mindset shift: from reactive to repeatable

Fixing a reactive pipeline isn’t about finding a silver bullet. It’s about building a machine – one that prioritises daily pipeline activity, empowers your team with the right tools and insight, and aligns every effort to a consistent revenue rhythm.

Don’t wait for the next dry month to take action. The earlier you fix the foundation, the sooner you gain predictability – and the confidence that comes with it.

Ready to futureproof your pipeline?

Discover how Air Marketing helps sales leaders build sustainable, repeatable outbound strategies that deliver results.

Explore our sales services.

Sales team working on strategy to fix sales pipeline

How to Sell EV Charging to Businesses That Don’t See the Financial Benefits (Yet)

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

It’s easy to assume that selling EV charging into businesses should be straightforward. The market’s growing. The need is rising. The future is electric. But here’s the reality: if the financial case isn’t immediately obvious, most businesses won’t move.

And for many, it still isn’t.

That’s the challenge sales teams are up against. You’re not selling an EV charger. You’re selling future value – in a market where short-term pressures dominate decision-making. So how do you get through to a business that doesn’t yet see EV charging as commercially viable?

Reframing the Conversation

The problem isn’t that they don’t care. It’s that they’re not connecting the dots between EV charging and business impact. Your job is to reframe the narrative – from a ‘green tick box’ to a commercial lever. That starts with repositioning the value in ways that resonate with your buyer’s priorities.

🔹 Talk in commercial language, not carbon
If your buyer is measured on cost, revenue, or operational efficiency, lead with that – not emissions. Show how EV charging can reduce fleet fuel costs, increase footfall, or open new revenue streams.

🔹 Make the intangible, tangible
Sustainability might not sit on a P&L, but reputation does. Position EV charging as a signal of innovation and leadership that attracts top talent, investors, and customers alike.

🔹 Anchor to data, not hype
Generic trends won’t cut it. Use sector-specific stats, real case studies, and ROI models tailored to their environment. Help them see themselves in the opportunity.

🔹 Get ahead of regulation
If they’re not feeling pressure now, they will. Build urgency by highlighting upcoming legislation and market shifts – then position them as a first mover, not a late adopter.

🔹 Sell simplicity, not complexity
The tech might be clever, but your pitch shouldn’t be. Break down the operational lift, make the rollout feel doable, and remove any perceived barriers.

Sales is About Translating Vision Into Value

At its core, this is about connecting future-facing solutions with present-day business pressures. That requires empathy, commercial insight, and the confidence to challenge assumptions.

You don’t need your prospect to become an EV evangelist overnight. You just need them to see that this isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s an investment – in efficiency, differentiation, and future readiness.

And with the right approach, that’s a far easier sell than it looks.

Need support converting cautious prospects into confident buyers?

At Air Marketing, we help growth-focused EV brands build high-performance sales strategies that cut through hesitation and accelerate adoption.

Get in touch and let’s talk about your sales goals.

The Power Pitch Pack: Proven Scripts to Win More B2B Contracts in the Utilities Sector

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

Struggling to break into the utilities sector? This free pack delivers proven cold outreach scripts, objection handling techniques, and follow-up strategies – built specifically to help B2B sales teams accelerate results, secure meetings, and close more deals in a complex market.

Contents:

  1. Cold Email Template
  2. Cold Call Script
  3. Follow-Up Email Sequence
  4. Objection Handling Cheat Sheet
Get your FREE copy of the The Power Pitch Pack by completing the form below.

Why Traditional Sales Approaches No Longer Work in Utilities – And What to Do Instead

Posted on by Hannah Sanders

“The best salespeople today act more like consultants than traditional reps.”

For years, the utilities sector has been powered by tried-and-tested sales tactics: cold calls, bulk mailers, and lengthy procurement cycles that move at the speed of a slow-charging EV battery. But times have changed. Customers are savvier, markets are evolving, and the old-school playbook is no longer fit for purpose.

So, if traditional sales approaches no longer work, what should utilities companies do instead? Let’s take a closer look at why the shift is happening – and how forward-thinking firms can adapt.

The Problem with Traditional Sales in Utilities

  1. Customers Have More Control

Once upon a time, utilities companies could dictate terms. Now, digital platforms have put power (literally and figuratively) in the hands of customers. Whether it’s comparing energy providers or choosing a new smart home solution, today’s buyers expect transparency, speed, and self-service options. If they have to jump through hoops to get information, they’ll simply go elsewhere.

  1. Procurement is No Longer a Slow Game

Historically, sales in the utilities sector involved long RFPs (Request for Proposal), multiple stakeholder approvals, and decisions that took months, if not years. But automation and AI-powered procurement tools have sped things up. Customers don’t have time for drawn-out pitches and old-school sales cycles.

  1. The “Push” Model is Dead

Hard-selling tactics and aggressive pitches feel out of place in today’s utilities market. Customers don’t want to be “sold to” – they want to be educated, advised, and empowered to make their own choices. The companies that focus on value, rather than just selling, will win the race.

The New Sales Playbook: What to Do Instead

  1. Shift to a Consultative Approach

Modern sales isn’t about convincing someone to buy; it’s about guiding them to the right decision. Utilities firms should act as advisors, helping customers navigate options, regulatory changes, and emerging technologies. Whether it’s sustainability, efficiency, or cost-saving strategies, the best salespeople today act more like consultants than traditional reps.

  1. Embrace Digital-First Sales

If customers are searching for solutions online, why are so many sales teams still relying on cold calls alone? Digital marketing, content strategies, and self-service portals allow buyers to do their own research before ever speaking to a salesperson. However, a well-timed, strategic cold call can still be an effective tool to engage decision-makers, clarify needs, and drive meaningful conversations. Companies that integrate digital-first sales strategies alongside personalised outreach will be the ones capturing demand, rather than chasing it.

  1. Focus on Personalisation

No one wants a one-size-fits-all pitch. With AI-driven insights and customer data analytics, utilities companies can personalise their outreach, ensuring customers receive relevant recommendations based on their specific needs. Whether it’s a tailored energy efficiency report or a predictive maintenance schedule, personalisation makes sales efforts more effective.

  1. Build Trust, Not Just Pipelines

The utilities sector is built on trust. Customers aren’t just buying a service – they’re making a long-term commitment. Sales teams need to focus on credibility, transparency, and customer education rather than quick wins. By offering valuable insights, engaging in thought leadership, and being upfront about costs and benefits, utilities firms can foster stronger, longer-lasting relationships.

The Bottom Line

Traditional sales methods in utilities are fading fast. Customers now expect seamless, digital-first interactions, personalised recommendations, and value-driven conversations. Utilities companies that shift away from outdated sales tactics and embrace a more consultative, tech-enabled approach will be the ones that thrive.

The future of sales in utilities isn’t about pushing harder – it’s about making it easier for customers to buy.

Now, who’s ready to rethink their sales strategy? Our sales and marketing experts can help. Speak to us on 07884 185911, or enquire here.

Business owner declining services over the phone