A market slowdown is a mirror. 5 actions to take now to keep control

Sales are down. Blaming the market is a natural reflex. But is it the right diagnosis?

I had a call not long ago with the founder of a mid-market B2B software company. Clara had built the business over seven years, grown it to thirty people, a sales team of five, and a product she was genuinely proud of.

She opened with a sentence I've heard more times than I can count. "The market is just really cautious right now. Everyone's waiting to see how the economy settles."

We hear this comment so many times, that I learned not to push back immediately. I asked her a few questions instead.

When had sales started slowing? Who were the last ten deals she'd closed and who in the prospect's organisation had signed off? Are they selling on price or on value? When was the bulk of the sales team hired? During slowdown or during good times? What has changed internally?

Forty minutes later, Clara had answered her own question. Yes, the market had gone tougher. Her buyers had changed. The procurement managers who used to make decisions in six weeks now sat three levels below the people who held budget authority. Legal had become a permanent fixture from the first conversation. Committees had replaced champions.

But internally, not much had changed. Same process, same capabilities, messaging hadn't evolved, sales culture not strengthened etc…

The fundamentals were still there for Clara. A good product, strong differentiator against a tough competitors. But sales cycle had lengthened because the customer profile had quietly shifted - and her team was still selling to the person they used to close - people who no longer held the keys -, in the exact same way, with the same message, the same process, etc.

The market is the easiest thing to blame. It rarely deserves it.

When revenue slows, most leaders go through a predictable sequence. They check the pipeline. They press the sales team. They wait for the macro to improve. They adjust the forecast. And they often keep doing the same thing. Putting their head down, waiting for the storm to pass.

What they rarely do is look inward.

And yet the honest question isn't "what's happening out there?" It's "what has to change in here? Is doing nothing an option or do we have to adapt?" Because the organisations that come out of slowdowns stronger are almost never the ones who waited but the ones who used the pressure as a diagnostic. They found what was broken, or what had become obsolete. And they fixed it while their competitors were busy blaming the economy.

So here are five things worth examining before you conclude the problem is external.

1. Your messaging - Is it about you, or about the problem you solve?

When the market gets more selective, buyers stop being polite about messaging that doesn't land. The pitch that worked when decision-making was faster and easier now meets a more scrutinising room.

The question to ask is a simple one: does your messaging start from the problem your prospect lives with every day, or does it start from what your product does? Those are not the same thing. A busy CFO who just had a bad quarter doesn't want to hear about your platform's features. They want to know if you understand the specific pain that keeps them up at night - and whether solving it is worth the risk of committing to something new.

Even better. They want to be reassured that there are no risk involved…

We've written about this before: the assumption that showing people a compelling case study or a slick demo will move them to action is one of the most persistent traps in B2B sales. Buyers decide emotionally. They justify logically. If your messaging isn't speaking to the emotion first, you're in a long, uphill conversation with someone who isn't convinced you understand their world.

2. Sales capabilities - A new tool won't fix a capability problem

This is the one that costs organisations the most money for the least return. When results disappoint, the instinct is to look at the tech stack. A new CRM. A new sequencing tool. An AI prospecting layer on top of the existing one that wasn't working.

We understand the appeal. It feels like action. It's measurable. It can be presented to the board.

But tools amplify behaviour - they don't fix it. If your team struggles to have a conversation that surfaces real pain, that build rapport, a conversation that throug questions makes people see the world in a different way, an AI tool will help them send more emails that don't land. If your reps avoid tension with a prospect, a new CRM won't teach them to hold it.

What actually changes performance is a robust team - people with the right capabilities, the right beliefs about what selling requires (a list of sales self-limiting beliefs can be downloaded here), and the right coaching to develop both. That sometimes means making difficult decisions about who stays. Not brutal ones. Gradual, deliberate ones. Keeping the people who can grow, investing in their development, and being honest about the ones for whom this environment is no longer the right fit.

Curiosity's sales force analysis exists precisely for this moment - not to validate assumptions, but to surface what's actually there, and what isn't. Turning the invisible into the visible.

3. Sales process - Stop engaging with people who can't decide

Clara's problem had a name. Her team was still spending the majority of their time with the mid-level managers they used to close. These were comfortable conversations with people who were keen to understand everything that they were doing. They were curious but they were not able to make a decision.

Those managers hadn't disappeared. But they had stopped being the people who could say yes. Budget authority had moved up. With more demanding times, committees had formed. Legal, Finance, and sometimes the CEO were now in the room for decisions that previously sat with a single operations lead.

If your process still routes conversations toward the layer of the organisation that manages rather than decides the chances are that you and your team are not selling. You're maintaining relationships with people who can't help you close. If it hasn't incorporated a mechanism to go deep, quickly, you are at risk of being stuck with one person and in a tough market, decision are taken my multiple stakeholders. A robust qualification framework has to include answers to different key questions: do we have genuine access to the person who can commit, is there urgency, is there really a pain to focus on?

When the answer is no - and access has been denied after a genuine attempt to get it - that's a signal, not a reason to persist.

4. Sales management - The lever that multiplies everything else

The sales manager is not a senior rep. That distinction matters more than most organisations realise. One of the competencies we too often find is missing is coaching for example. There are two types of coaching, one is reactive, the other is transformative.

A sales manager who spends their time reviewing pipeline and chasing deal status is managing production. They're keeping the plates spinning and sadly the team doesn't develop their mindset and capabilities. Worst, it remains dependent on the manager's intervention every time a deal gets complicated.

A sales manager who coaches for development uses every deal as a vehicle, not a short term fix. They ask better questions than "where are we with this?" They build the rep's ability to diagnose, qualify, and decide independently. Over time, that compounds. Reps who think better close more without needing rescue.

In a tougher market, the quality of your management rhythm is one of the highest-leverage things you can improve. Weekly coaching conversations with a clear structure. Deal reviews that ask what was learned, not just what happened. A consistent expectation that the team is developing, not just delivering.

5. Vision and leadership - The path is set at the top

This is the one founders are often least comfortable with. Because it's not about the team. It's about them.

We've written about how a CEO's background risk to shape their blind spots around sales. That's natural, we are the product of our past experiences. The challenges is that, for CEO, these past experiences can shape profoundly how the rest of the organisation behaves and thinks.

The technical founder who believes the product should speak for itself. The ex-consultant who assumes a well-structured pitch will move the room. The entrepreneur who used to sell brilliantly but can't understand why the team can't do what they once did. Or the sales founder who can sell but can't see that his team and organisation doesn't have the systems needed to avoid being the hero in the entire team with the biggest revenue.

What all of them share is a filter. A lens built from their own experience, applied to a sales organisation that operates in a different context, with different people, under different conditions.

The leaders who adapt fastest in a changing market are the ones who are willing to examine that filter. Who ask not just "what are we doing wrong?" but "what do I believe about how this should work, and is that belief still serving us?" That kind of intellectual honesty is rarer than it sounds. But it's where real change begins.

Where do you actually stand?

Blaming the market is understandable, it's human. As Tolstoy used to say:

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself"

The questions worth sitting with are simpler than they seem. Is your messaging built around your prospect's problem or your product's features? Is your team capable of the conversations this market now requires - or are you papering over capability gaps with new tools? Are your reps engaging with people who can actually make decisions? Is your management rhythm building the team or just watching it? And are you, as a leader, clear-eyed about the assumptions you're bringing to all of the above?

If you're not sure where you stand on any of these, our self-assessment is a good place to start. It won't take long. And it might tell you something more useful than the next macro forecast. And if you feel that doing nothing isn't an option, then let us know. We're not good for everybody but happy to organise a conversation.