Why CROs are struggling to close deals in 2026

Getting a room full of CROs together is no small feat, and the conversations happening across the industry right now are some of the most interesting I've heard in years.

There's probably hundreds of years of collective sales leadership experience in any given room, but here's the thing worth sitting with: none of us has sold in 2026 before. Everything is changing.

So, let's talk about what's actually happening to deals, why fewer are closing, and what you can do about it.

The numbers tell a difficult story

Every year, we produce a benchmark report, and the most recent one analyzed over 650,000 opportunities across B2B technology and SaaS markets. The findings are sobering.

Quotas have dropped. We've been looking after sellers, reducing their numbers across the board, and quotas have come down by over 13%. And yet, three-quarters of sellers are still missing their numbers. That's simply not sustainable.

Growth has slowed, too. The average growth level now sits at just 5%. There are extremes on either side of that, but on average, that's where most businesses are landing.

When I talk to customers, there are two data points I lean into more than any others: sales efficiency and the sales velocity delta.

Sales efficiency dropped by just over 12% this year.

If you're not already using sales efficiency to measure how the business is operating quarter to quarter, I'd encourage you to start.

The calculation is straightforward. Take your average deal value (going up or down), multiply it by your win rate (going up or down), and divide it by your sales cycle.

That tells you whether you're getting more or less efficient at closing deals. It's particularly useful when you're trying to compare apples and oranges across different go-to-market motions.

Sales velocity is the other one. The delta between top performers and the rest of the sales team now sits at over 10x. Completely unacceptable.

Top performers are working on nearly three times as many deals as average sellers. Their average ACVs are nearly 76% higher. Their win rates are 43% higher. And their sales cycles are shorter. Bring all of that together, and you get a 10x velocity gap.

How do you close that gap? Through consistency. You need to better understand what your top performers are doing and replicate it across the team. Sales is a data-driven business, and the more visibility you have over that data, the more consistent you can be, and the less room there is for what I call the "blah blah."

The rise of the full-cycle seller

One of the bigger changes we've seen this year is the move toward full-cycle sellers. Sellers are increasingly taking on at least some responsibility for top-of-funnel activity, and they continue to play a role after the customer signs the initial contract.