State of Sales 2025

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In a conversation hosted by Flow State Sales, a panel of leading sales thinkers gathered to discuss how AI is reshaping the profession, the evolution of buyer behaviour, and what top-performing sellers are doing differently in 2025. The panel featured Matt Dixon, co-author of The Challenger Sale and The Activator Advantage; Jen Allen-Knuth, founder of DemandJen; Dave Brock, author of The Sales Manager Survival Guide; and Dr. Howard Dover, Director of the Center for Professional Sales at UT Dallas. Moderated by Aaron Evans, co-founder of Flow State Sales, the discussion unpacked hard truths and hopeful innovations defining modern selling.

The Promise and Pitfalls of AI

A key thread throughout the conversation was the rapid infiltration of AI into the sales process. Rather than ushering in a golden era of intelligent selling, AI appears to have exacerbated existing dysfunctions in many sales organisations.

“We’re using [AI] for the efficiency versus the effectiveness play,” said Dr. Howard Dover. “The behaviour shift that occurred because of the poor use of technology before is just exacerbated with AI.”

Matt Dixon agreed, suggesting that many companies are simply adopting AI to keep pace rather than to gain competitive edge: “It feels like an arms race. Very few companies are actually making money on AI. They’re layering it in to keep up with the Joneses.”

Yet, there were also hopeful signs. Dave Brock outlined a more constructive application of AI—enhancing strategic thinking. “We’re not using it for answers. We’re using it to help us think,” he said. Brock described his own GPT tool, ‘Kitchen Table Advisory Board’, which he uses to simulate brainstorming sessions with the likes of Clay Christensen and Jim Collins. It’s not about replacing human input, but about catalysing better questions and sharper thinking.

Jen Allen-Knuth, initially a sceptic, has embraced AI as a research assistant. “Now if I prompt it with ‘what are the latest interviews with the CEO of this company?’, I can get digestible, insightful answers in seconds. That allows me to enter conversations talking about their business instead of pitching mine.”

The Decline of Outbound Quality

The panel unanimously agreed that outbound prospecting has deteriorated into a volume-driven, brand-eroding exercise.

“We just love to smash the easy button,” said Allen-Knuth. “Outbound is the movie trailer to the customer, but we’ve started treating it like low-value admin work.”

Evans added, “Sellers used to start from a position of minus one. They’re starting from about minus ten now.”

AI is enabling mass outreach, but not meaningful outreach. Dave Brock recounted a recent example where Matt Dixon received a cold email referencing the webinar he was speaking on, as if he were merely attending. The message closed with, “We help companies with AI-powered outreach to schedule you.” As Dixon dryly noted, “This is the help you offer?”

Lavender data shared by Allen-Knuth showed that personalised outreach is becoming dramatically more effective precisely because it’s so rare. “In 2022, a well-written personalised email improved reply rates by 100%. In 2023, it was 1,200%.”

She routinely works with clients struggling to build pipeline and uncovers the root cause: “Emails written like 12th grade essays, filled with academic language, and zero commercial insight. We’ve lost the ability to get to the damn point.”

Buyer Behaviour in the Age of AI

Buyers have more information, more tools, and more expectations than ever. But ironically, this abundance is making decisions harder, not easier.

“One of the big drivers of indecision is information overload,” said Dixon. “And AI makes that worse. Every stakeholder shows up with their own AI-generated opinion. It’s a mess.”

The shift is reflected in the numbers. Dover cited data showing outbound costs have increased by 60% year-over-year. Yet, Gartner’s latest figures suggest a rebound in the perceived value of human sales interaction: rep-free buying has dropped below 70%.

Dover offered one explanation: “We laid off a lot of bad sellers. Now, the ones left are having more meaningful conversations.”

The buying committee itself is changing. Dixon noted that when he started researching The Challenger Sale, the average buying group was 5.4 people. Now, it’s upwards of 20. And many of those stakeholders are strangers to one another—joining demos and calls armed with their own ChatGPT queries.

Jen Allen-Knuth pointed out that AI is now the top tool buyers use to shortlist vendors—ranking above review sites, vendor pages, or peer recommendations. “Ask ChatGPT ‘who’s the best at X?’ and see who shows up. That’s now your competitive set.”

The Rise of the Activator

Matt Dixon’s latest research in The Activator Advantage profiles a new breed of seller—the Activator—who treats value creation as a pre-sale activity.

“Activators build trust before the first invoice,” he explained. “The most predictive variable was: ‘My clients think of me even when we’re not engaged in paid work.'”

Allen-Knuth put it succinctly: “You’re not waiting to be useful. You’re just useful.”

Dixon described how top partners in professional services treat LinkedIn not as a broadcast tool but as a listening post. “They use it like the world’s biggest conference. They’re not pushing content—they’re joining conversations, making introductions, adding value.”

Dave Brock emphasised that this approach isn’t tactical—it’s cultural. “It’s a mindset. Activators don’t think in terms of beginning and end. They’re always creating value, always staying close.”

Leadership and the Performance Gap

The discussion turned sharply toward sales leadership. The view was damning: sales teams are often misaligned with buyer expectations not because reps are lazy, but because leaders are stuck in outdated thinking.

“The leaders we have today were trained in a world of cheap money,” said Dover. “They’re now grossly underperforming their potential.”

He outlined a common problem in his university programme: many sales reps don’t even understand basic business terms. “Ask them what a 10-K is. What’s an IPO? What’s the difference between a public and private company? Many can’t answer. And that’s not their fault—it’s the system’s.”

To remedy this, Dover’s curriculum focuses on developing business acumen and curiosity before product training. Students conduct multiple in-depth discovery interviews with leaders in their target vertical, not to pitch but to learn. The results are dramatic: reps become fluent in buyer language and more confident in the commercial conversation.

He cited one graduate who had been average in training but went on to hit 1000%, 2000%, and then 345% of quota in her first three months in the field.

“We’re not short of talent,” said Evans. “We’re short of environments that know how to develop it.”

The message was clear: selling in 2025 is no longer about scale, scripts, or spam. It’s about insight, acumen, and trust.

AI can be an incredible enabler—but only if used to think better, not just do faster. The modern seller is not a task executor. They’re a guide. A translator. A strategic partner.

And in the words of Dave Brock: “I’m greedy. I look at all the missed opportunity out there and think—God, we could win that. But only if we start thinking differently.”