April 23, 2025 • 20 mins
In this special episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from the Forrester B2B Summit 2025 marketplace floor, Matt spoke with Rick Bradberry, Executive Partner, Principal Analyst, Forrester.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Heinz (00:15):
All right.
Welcome back.
We are live from themarketplace at B2B Summit.
Thanks to Forrester forletting us be part of this.
When we set up this audio system,Rick, we did not anticipate the
live band component of this.
So if you hear some Fleetwood Mac coversin the background it's part of the
entertainment part of the ambiance.
Today.
It's very good.
It's not bad.
The band's really good.
(00:35):
But excited to be here.
We're here in this episode of SalesPipeline Radio with Rick Bradberry.
He's the principal analyst for Forresterwith some hot off the press research
that I'm super excited to get in.
Today we're gonna talk about theconcept of the sales supercycle.
Yes, sir. You almost wanna saythat with a little bit of an echo.
The supercycle.
It's been a long day.
We're getting a little cheeky.
(00:57):
But Rick, thanks for being here.
Yeah, you bet.
I'm really happy to join.
How's the day been for you?
How's today been?
It's
Rick Bradberry (01:02):
good.
Yeah.
Lots of variety of busy sessions.
Busy.
Yeah.
Lots of hype, lots of buzz.
And
Matt Heinz (01:07):
this is really exciting being right here on the floor.
This is amazing.
Yeah.
Shout out to Amanda and the PRteam for making all this possible.
Thanks.
Shout out to Nick on the AV team forgetting all this equipment together here.
It's been a busy day.
It's been a lot going on here, and it'sbeen exciting to see some of the themes
that have come out of today around.
Like the buying journey, turninginto buying groups and the
(01:27):
diversity of that buying group.
Really interesting to see people talkabout integration across go-to-market
teams and the need for sales, marketing,CS product spend time together.
Lots of AI conversation as well.
But I'm excited to talk today about, thefuture of sales and what we're gonna see.
So let's start with that.
Like what do you see in your researchyou've done, this is literally hot off
(01:48):
the press, so excited to talk about it.
What are some of the componentsthat you think are gonna be
key to the future of sales?
Rick Bradberry (01:54):
Yeah.
Alright, let's jump in.
I think part of it here is aroundthe context of selling, right?
Yeah.
Like, when we think about the future,the future's not really something
that sales leaders love to spenda lot of time on because they're
focused on the quarter and theyalways are, and they always will be.
But the context around selling ischanging and there are a handful
of forces that I think really stressthe sales function in the future.
(02:18):
And that's what we wanna get into.
And you mentioned AI earlier.
Mm-hmm.
Like, let's just start with that one.
It's probably
foremost
on everyone's
mind.
Matt Heinz (02:24):
Took us two minutes in this, it's a record for this
podcast, not a record here.
Two minutes to get about to AIhere and Forrester B2B Summit 2025.
You look across all the booths herein the marketplace and it's really
hard to find one that doesn't have ai.
Somewhere.
So clearly it has become now ubiquitous,but let's land the plane a little bit.
When it comes to the future of sales,how do people need to think about
(02:47):
like operating and integrating ai?
Rick Bradberry (02:49):
Yeah, AI is gonna really augment sales productivity.
Yeah.
That's the immediate near term benefit,but let's not make any mistake about it.
AI is a fast moving, really rapid trendthat is really dynamic and it is going to.
Challenge the basics of sales, likeAI plus automation together is really
going to create a different kindof selling environment altogether.
(03:12):
The nature, the speed, andthe quality of sales tasks.
Yeah.
Totally.
New calculus.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Heinz (03:18):
Well, and when I think about ai, I think about automation.
When I think about AI and automationtogether, start thinking about
this concept of buyer self service.
Ooh.
And this has been.
A little bit of a controversialtopic is how I've talked to
you know, go-to-market leaders.
Some see this as inevitable.
Some see this as an existentialthreat to their go-to-market teams.
When you think about the nextdecade of selling, how ubiquitous
(03:42):
is self-service gonna be?
Are we not gonna need salespeopleanymore, or is this part of
a different job to be done?
Rick Bradberry (03:47):
Yeah.
So when people hear
self-service, they often thinkthat final click, the final tap or
document signature that finalizeseverything with the transaction, right?
That's really not whatwe're talking about, right?
With self-service.
Self-service is really about buyerswho can complete tasks on their own.
Yep.
So rewind, go back 10, 15 yearsin order for a buyer to progress.
(04:08):
They had to complete most oftheir buying tasks with a seller.
Right?
That's just how it worked, right?
And that's how most salesteams are set up today.
Generate a lead, generate an opportunity.
Oop, pass it off to sales, we'll workwith you the rest of the journey.
That's not how it works anymore.
So more and more of the buyingjourney is becoming digitized.
Right.
And it's self-service.
Right.
And the real takeaway for salesleaders is that engagement with.
(04:31):
Prospects is now a hybrid motion, right?
So we have to enable buyers to completethose tasks on their own, but then create
natural links where we can have personaland meaningful interactions with them
as we go through the process together.
Matt Heinz (04:46):
And if you were to describe, give that definition
to marketers in this room, they'dbe like, yeah, that's not new.
That's been happening, right?
Like the self-service aroundcontent, self service around demos.
The fact that a lot of companies aregetting rid of forms and saying just
you know, choose your own adventure.
We're gonna watch you, butchoose your own adventure.
That is happening and itis benefiting companies.
It is benefiting marketing teams.
(05:06):
I think now that we arebringing that self-service to
sales, do we need an SDR team?
Do we just have robots do this?
I've seen a lot of companies.
Let go their SDR team andthen hire many of them back.
'cause they realize the ai, at leastfor now, can't yet do that entire job.
So yes to self-service, butto jobs that need to be done
along that complex process.
(05:26):
Right.
Rick Bradberry (05:27):
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
And it creates a differentkind of engagement with
prospects, the real change.
So self-service is not brand new.
That's been happening for 5, 10, 15 years.
Yeah, lots of digitization.
What is happening is that theself-service is spreading to all
buying stages and purchase sizes.
So if you talk to somebody two orfive years ago, they would say,
(05:48):
oh, that's self-service stuff.
That's for small purchases,transactional stuff, right?
SMB type of environment, that'snot really enterprise sales.
Oh, so wrong, right?
Buyers are completing self-servicetasks in all purchase sizes and.
Stages.
That's really new.
When we ask sellers, what do youthink are some of the biggest
challenges out there that you face?
(06:08):
More than a third of them, 37%from Forrester's B2B sales survey.
In 2024, they said, beingslow to recognize and adapt
to changing buyer behaviors.
Is one of the top revenue growthchallenges for their team.
And so it doesn't sound like a hugepercentage, but again, this is more than
a third saying that is the top thing.
(06:30):
Yeah.
It's buyers and their changes andthe self-service is foremost among
them.
Matt Heinz (06:35):
And your ability to adapt to that as an organization in your
process and your culture is not trivial.
Right.
As this really scales and becomes amore material part of the process.
So I've not heard someone before youused it use the phrase sales supercycle.
Right?
And for a lot of organizations thatreally wish and hope that selling
could be easier, streamline, faster,easier, supercycle sounds like
(06:58):
we're going the opposite direction.
I would argue that'san inconvenient truth.
That is a law of physics and selling.
And in B2B markets right now likethat trains out of the station.
But talk about what do you mean bysupercycle and why is that important for.
Go to market leaders to embrace.
Rick Bradberry (07:11):
Yeah.
In the past, the internet, cloud,mobile, all of those technologies
fueled a cycle of macroeconomic growth.
And that was a boon for sellers, right?
Mm-hmm.
You could sell a lot of product basedon those trends, and it was great.
And so what we're seeing is that AIis part of that next cycle of economic
growth, but the super cycle we definehere is both growth, but combined with.
(07:37):
A period of revenuetransformation that goes with it.
Okay.
So even if in the near term, so we seea lot of macroeconomic clouds right now,
you know, just some really bad stuffthat's not best for selling environment.
Yeah.
But regardless of whateconomies are going to do, yeah.
These trends and dynamics inthe supercycle will persist.
Yeah.
So AI is going to continue to transform.
(07:59):
Our sales processes are gonnacontinue to transform, and then what?
And how we sell is allgoing to transform as well.
It's gonna be more AI based.
It's gonna be smarter, more automated.
That is a trend that's just not goingto go away no matter how we define it.
So the sales cycle.
Is that period of growth andtransformation that will hit
the sales function in ways thatwe've not seen in the past.
Matt Heinz (08:22):
Is this exclusive to net new sales and customer
acquisition, or does this apply tocustomer expansion efforts as well?
Rick Bradberry (08:28):
Yeah, no, it's the whole.
The whole thing.
Think about your routes to market.
Yep.
Routes to market.
So we're not just talkingabout a direct sales team.
Yeah.
But what we're thinking about is thecomposition of how revenue is attained.
Yep.
So routes to market, equal routesto revenue, that's one thing.
Another theme is reallyaround direct versus indirect.
One is around Pipeline ordeals that are net new versus
(08:52):
post-sale, like you mentioned.
All of that is changing.
Yeah.
So the post-sale is going to bemore important, Matt, in the future.
Matt Heinz (09:00):
Right.
So the way that this is straight fromthe description of your session coming
up, it's like, to succeed in the future,sales leaders will have to learn or
maybe in case relearn much of whathas made them successful in the past.
What do you mean by that?
Yeah,
Rick Bradberry (09:12):
relearning.
That's great.
So the dynamics of this new supercycleare, here's some characteristics.
The future will be moreintelligent for sales.
Yep.
AI agents and automation.
We'll be accelerated.
So it's just faster.
Yeah.
This new world, we're gonnabe in the next decade.
Right?
It's a disruptive decade.
Yep.
Fast, frequent improvements willbe needed from the sales team.
(09:33):
Yep.
A lot more.
Around that.
Number three, characteristic adaptive.
So agile, customer-centric adjustments.
We can't continue to sellthe same way we have before.
Let's be real honest.
Yeah, real honest, like, brutal, honest.
For your listeners, most of sales, mostof demand gen, it's, here's secret, I'm
gonna whisper it into the microphone.
(09:54):
It's all built for sellers.
Yes.
It's not actually builtfor customers, right?
And so in this new future, Idon't think we can get away
with that for very much longer.
Like it's adaptive, it'sgotta be customer focused.
Number four, for sales leaderscharacteristic, integrated.
So roles, technologies, processes.
Yeah.
Like we used to have these reallydefined roles, responsibilities,
(10:18):
silos, these functional areas.
That were really nice and tidy,well guess what's happening?
All of that gets a little murkier.
What is a demand team?
What SDRs, you mentioned SDRs.
Yeah.
Where do they report, right?
Is that a marketing function?
Is that a sales function?
In every organization you will see that.
All over the map.
So more integrated is what toexpect in the new Supercycle.
(10:40):
And then lastly, it'sgoing to be more networked.
So you mentioned some of the themescoming out of the B2B summit here.
One of them is around buying networks.
So buyers don't just buy as a group,but they use the entire set of people.
Assets and resources that areavailable in their network to
go through the purchase process.
(11:01):
And they too will be using AI fortheir purchases in the future.
Matt Heinz (11:07):
Talk today the live at Forrester, B2B Summit on the
marketplace floor with Rick Bradberry.
He's the principal analyst at Forrester.
There will be a testlater on those five areas.
Hopefully you're keepingtrack of those at home.
I was really excited to see themore network component bear out in
a lot of the content in the keynotesearlier today, and to recognize that
the internal buying committee is notsufficient, that you have to engage
(11:30):
the ecosystem around buyers as well.
Yes, that increases complexity, butwhen you think about the analysts,
you think about influences, youthink about partners, you think about
other customers that are either haverelationships with your prospects
and other peer customers as well.
How you orchestrate thoserelationships together really matters.
And even as AI and technology growsin importance, I think it's those
(11:52):
relationships amongst people in thoseecosystems that is going to give companies
a competitive advantage moving forward.
Rick Bradberry (11:57):
Yeah, A real secret too.
Another secret, revenue happens innetworks, happens in buying networks.
Revenue happens in yourselling network internally.
How you get to market and get things done.
Revenue happens in your partnernetwork, your ecosystem overall
of how you are getting out tomarket and selling your product.
Matt Heinz (12:15):
So your content in your report is really focused
on the next decade of selling.
But I think if someone sits down andlistens to all this, it'd be really easy
to get intimidated by how much changeis coming, how much change is here.
What do you recommend of salesleaders think about and do
in the next six to 12 months?
So that if we're sitting here next year,10% into that next decade of selling.
(12:37):
What are the things sales leaders needto have already spent time mastering
and integrating into their teams?
Yeah.
Rick Bradberry (12:43):
Let's hit a few and in no particular order, and I think
this first one will surprise you.
Income and employment insecurityamong sellers yes, will rise.
And so sellers live with a higherdegree of that to begin with.
But in the future, it willlook a little bit different.
In Forrester's future of work surveylast year, 60%, six 0% of B2B employees
(13:06):
say they fear losing their job dueto automation in the next 10 years.
So in this next decade, same timeperiod, 60% are like, Hey, I'm already
fearful that my job is gonna disappear.
I'm gonna lose it.
Right?
That number is probablyheightened for sellers.
So for sales leaders,the takeaway there is.
Look, there's probably anemerging wellness crisis going
(13:29):
to be brewing among your sellers.
You better get on topof that ahead of time.
So that's number one.
Number two, and we've hit on thisAI theme, but it's gonna change the
composition of how sales leaders allocatetheir budgets and their resources.
And it is gonna become difficultbecause sales leaders tend to be
pretty tight with their sales team.
(13:49):
And now they're faced with thisdecision of, Hey, I have to start
introducing more automation, more ai.
I have less head count.
And some of these composition questionsmight become agonizingly difficult as
sales leaders are forced to automateinto and engineer into this new calculus.
So sales agents will be onboarded.
(14:12):
And train to co-sell with sellers.
Yeah.
Don't know what that looks like.
Exactly.
Yeah.
No one does.
They may say they have an ideabut we're gonna figure that out.
Co-selling with ai agents will bekind of the new norm for sales.
Those are two.
Matt Heinz (14:28):
Yeah.
There's a guy by the name of PascalFinette, I dunno if you know this guy.
He's a futurist and he talks about thisconcept called the innovation paradox.
And what he says is, the innovationhas happened in the past, now appears
far shallower than it actually was.
You think about like 15 years ago whenthe iPhone barely existed and now we
have this supercomputer in our pocket.
We are recording these programsthe last couple days on an SD card.
(14:50):
It is barely the size ofjust the surface of my thumb.
It holds a quarter of a terabyte ofdata like that would've filled this
conference room not that long ago, right?
So his point is like the innovationthat's happened in the past was much
steeper than it now feels and appears.
The innovation in the futurelooks far steeper than it will be.
So everything from AI to mobile tothe advances in computing, it is
(15:14):
all coming and without understandingit today, it may seem scary.
But we are really good as humansat adapting to new normal.
Yeah,
and I think if you're a go-tomarket leader thinking about this
future of selling in the super salescycles, this will be different.
You pointed out areas where it'sdifferent, where it could feel scary.
My job security feels a little scary,but go into this eyes wide open, go into
(15:37):
this, seeing this as an opportunity,not a threat, and there will be
a new normal that will be better.
Rick Bradberry (15:43):
Yeah.
You know, I think there's somegood news in it for sales managers.
Okay.
We haven't talked a whole lot about them.
We've been talking about sales reps.But for managers like their job, if
they do it well, is to be a great coach.
And what we know is that most salesleaders don't spend enough time on that.
And when they do, they'renot really that good.
And let's face it, humans have biases andit's sometimes really hard to get to that
(16:07):
level of trust with a sales manager toreally drive outsized results with AI.
In the future, you will probably havean AI agent, be your sales coach, that
is your new coach, your primary coach.
Listen in on all your calls.
Your manager can't do that.
They're too busy.
Record 'em all.
Summarize them all.
(16:27):
Put the next steps in there, give youcontextually relevant prompts on what
to do, what to say next on what thenext step is, and then to give you
feedback on what other sellers in theorganization are doing that are successful
and are tied to deals that are one.
And correlated to those factors.
Can your sales manager do that today?
No.
(16:47):
No, no.
No.
Cannot.
And so the sales manager role is reallygoing to be from first line sales coaching
to first line sales Orchestrating, yeah.
Really looking more holistically atthis people process technology equation.
And how to make sure that reps aregetting all of the resources they
need to sell at the top of their game.
(17:07):
Part of that is automated.
Part of it is a differentproductivity equation as well.
That is really what the emerging roleof the first line sales manager will
probably look like in this next decade.
Matt Heinz (17:19):
You keep describing a future that feels better.
You keep describing a futurethat feels more efficient, more
productive, more beneficial tothe people, the humans involved.
It might be a little messy getting therebecause we don't have that clear path.
We don't know exactlywhat that looks like.
And I think, you know, ashumans we don't like change.
We like things that are known.
(17:40):
We wanna know what that clearpath is gonna look like.
It's why attribution continues tobe a real challenge in the industry.
We wanna know, we wanna know exactlywhat's working, exactly what to do next.
And it frustrates us when we don't know.
Right.
But I think this guidance you'vegot here in some of these areas of
focus again going eyes wide openand really for everyone listening,
for everyone that's a part of thisto really be part of identifying
(18:01):
what's gonna work to be part of.
Testing and learning, and then sharingthat back in communities like this,
so we all continue to get better.
Rick Bradberry (18:07):
That's right.
And we probably wouldn't normallyassociate these words with the sales
function, test, iterate, deploy, you know?
Right.
Get out there and really experimentwith technology and deployment, but
that is exactly what needs to happen.
I was chatting with somebodyearlier on the floor, we were
talking about this very subject.
And they said, you know, Ithink the marketing organization
is a little farther along.
(18:28):
And they sort of said it with a wink.
Like, you know, sales iskind of a laggard here.
And I said, look, the quarterlysales attainment and bookings
attainment focus is just gonna drivewhere leaders spend their time.
That's how their goal,that's how they're measured.
Yep.
They're not measured on long-termchange and transformation,
right, or technology deployments.
That would be a pretty rare typeof thing from a sales leader.
(18:49):
We are gonna see fits and starts, butthe real, like, I think there's some
tension here, and that is, if you look attransformation in the go to market scheme
broadly, the sales function is behindand they have a backlog of transformation
initiatives that they should have beenworking on all along that they haven't.
So they're starting from a pointalready that is behind the curve and
(19:12):
now they're faced with the futurethat is faster, more intelligent and
requires like immediate deployment.
With this kind of stuff, it's gonna reacha really uncomfortable point for sales
leaders because they have to arrive atthat conclusion right there in the moment.
Oh my gosh, my job has changed.
Yep.
Let me go back to the CEO.
(19:33):
Lemme go back to my boss and belike, look, the world is totally
different in the next six to 12 months.
It's even like moreradical in the next decade.
Let's talk about what that meansfor sales and how sales and the rest
of the go-to-market machine reallyorganize differently for the customer.
Matt Heinz (19:51):
I love it.
Rick Bradberry.
Where can people who are listeningto this say like, this is great.
I want to dig in on this further.
Where can they go look?
Where should they learn for these topics?
Yeah.
Rick Bradberry (19:59):
Yeah.
Well, Forrester's always a greatsource and you know, I think there
are some really interesting points inhere that I really haven't seen yet.
So it took a group of analysts.
To come together to find these points.
And if you're a Forrestersubscriber and you have access
to this report, take a look.
Because it's more thanjust the future of sales.
It's really the entire context aroundwhat the future of the go-to-market
(20:23):
machine looks like in the next decade.
Matt Heinz (20:25):
Awesome.
Love it.
Rick.
Thanks for being here.
Enjoy the rest of the day.
I know we're doing this at theend of a very long day, but
thanks for making this a priority.
Rick Bradberry (20:30):
Great.
Likewise.
Great to be here.
Matt Heinz (20:32):
Thank you.
We'll see you next time.
Rick Bradberry (20:33):
You bet.
All right.
Welcome back.
We are live from themarketplace at B2B Summit.
Thanks to Forrester forletting us be part of this.
When we set up this audio system,Rick, we did not anticipate the
live band component of this.
So if you hear some Fleetwood Mac coversin the background it's part of the
entertainment part of the ambiance.
Today.
It's very good.
It's not bad.
The band's really good.
(00:35):
But excited to be here.
We're here in this episode of SalesPipeline Radio with Rick Bradberry.
He's the principal analyst for Forresterwith some hot off the press research
that I'm super excited to get in.
Today we're gonna talk about theconcept of the sales supercycle.
Yes, sir. You almost wanna saythat with a little bit of an echo.
The supercycle.
It's been a long day.
We're getting a little cheeky.
(00:57):
But Rick, thanks for being here.
Yeah, you bet.
I'm really happy to join.
How's the day been for you?
How's today been?
It's
Rick Bradberry (01:02):
good.
Yeah.
Lots of variety of busy sessions.
Busy.
Yeah.
Lots of hype, lots of buzz.
And
Matt Heinz (01:07):
this is really exciting being right here on the floor.
This is amazing.
Yeah.
Shout out to Amanda and the PRteam for making all this possible.
Thanks.
Shout out to Nick on the AV team forgetting all this equipment together here.
It's been a busy day.
It's been a lot going on here, and it'sbeen exciting to see some of the themes
that have come out of today around.
Like the buying journey, turninginto buying groups and the
(01:27):
diversity of that buying group.
Really interesting to see people talkabout integration across go-to-market
teams and the need for sales, marketing,CS product spend time together.
Lots of AI conversation as well.
But I'm excited to talk today about, thefuture of sales and what we're gonna see.
So let's start with that.
Like what do you see in your researchyou've done, this is literally hot off
(01:48):
the press, so excited to talk about it.
What are some of the componentsthat you think are gonna be
key to the future of sales?
Rick Bradberry (01:54):
Yeah.
Alright, let's jump in.
I think part of it here is aroundthe context of selling, right?
Yeah.
Like, when we think about the future,the future's not really something
that sales leaders love to spenda lot of time on because they're
focused on the quarter and theyalways are, and they always will be.
But the context around selling ischanging and there are a handful
of forces that I think really stressthe sales function in the future.
(02:18):
And that's what we wanna get into.
And you mentioned AI earlier.
Mm-hmm.
Like, let's just start with that one.
It's probably
foremost
on everyone's
mind.
Matt Heinz (02:24):
Took us two minutes in this, it's a record for this
podcast, not a record here.
Two minutes to get about to AIhere and Forrester B2B Summit 2025.
You look across all the booths herein the marketplace and it's really
hard to find one that doesn't have ai.
Somewhere.
So clearly it has become now ubiquitous,but let's land the plane a little bit.
When it comes to the future of sales,how do people need to think about
(02:47):
like operating and integrating ai?
Rick Bradberry (02:49):
Yeah, AI is gonna really augment sales productivity.
Yeah.
That's the immediate near term benefit,but let's not make any mistake about it.
AI is a fast moving, really rapid trendthat is really dynamic and it is going to.
Challenge the basics of sales, likeAI plus automation together is really
going to create a different kindof selling environment altogether.
(03:12):
The nature, the speed, andthe quality of sales tasks.
Yeah.
Totally.
New calculus.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Heinz (03:18):
Well, and when I think about ai, I think about automation.
When I think about AI and automationtogether, start thinking about
this concept of buyer self service.
Ooh.
And this has been.
A little bit of a controversialtopic is how I've talked to
you know, go-to-market leaders.
Some see this as inevitable.
Some see this as an existentialthreat to their go-to-market teams.
When you think about the nextdecade of selling, how ubiquitous
(03:42):
is self-service gonna be?
Are we not gonna need salespeopleanymore, or is this part of
a different job to be done?
Rick Bradberry (03:47):
Yeah.
So when people hear
self-service, they often thinkthat final click, the final tap or
document signature that finalizeseverything with the transaction, right?
That's really not whatwe're talking about, right?
With self-service.
Self-service is really about buyerswho can complete tasks on their own.
Yep.
So rewind, go back 10, 15 yearsin order for a buyer to progress.
(04:08):
They had to complete most oftheir buying tasks with a seller.
Right?
That's just how it worked, right?
And that's how most salesteams are set up today.
Generate a lead, generate an opportunity.
Oop, pass it off to sales, we'll workwith you the rest of the journey.
That's not how it works anymore.
So more and more of the buyingjourney is becoming digitized.
Right.
And it's self-service.
Right.
And the real takeaway for salesleaders is that engagement with.
(04:31):
Prospects is now a hybrid motion, right?
So we have to enable buyers to completethose tasks on their own, but then create
natural links where we can have personaland meaningful interactions with them
as we go through the process together.
Matt Heinz (04:46):
And if you were to describe, give that definition
to marketers in this room, they'dbe like, yeah, that's not new.
That's been happening, right?
Like the self-service aroundcontent, self service around demos.
The fact that a lot of companies aregetting rid of forms and saying just
you know, choose your own adventure.
We're gonna watch you, butchoose your own adventure.
That is happening and itis benefiting companies.
It is benefiting marketing teams.
(05:06):
I think now that we arebringing that self-service to
sales, do we need an SDR team?
Do we just have robots do this?
I've seen a lot of companies.
Let go their SDR team andthen hire many of them back.
'cause they realize the ai, at leastfor now, can't yet do that entire job.
So yes to self-service, butto jobs that need to be done
along that complex process.
(05:26):
Right.
Rick Bradberry (05:27):
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
And it creates a differentkind of engagement with
prospects, the real change.
So self-service is not brand new.
That's been happening for 5, 10, 15 years.
Yeah, lots of digitization.
What is happening is that theself-service is spreading to all
buying stages and purchase sizes.
So if you talk to somebody two orfive years ago, they would say,
(05:48):
oh, that's self-service stuff.
That's for small purchases,transactional stuff, right?
SMB type of environment, that'snot really enterprise sales.
Oh, so wrong, right?
Buyers are completing self-servicetasks in all purchase sizes and.
Stages.
That's really new.
When we ask sellers, what do youthink are some of the biggest
challenges out there that you face?
(06:08):
More than a third of them, 37%from Forrester's B2B sales survey.
In 2024, they said, beingslow to recognize and adapt
to changing buyer behaviors.
Is one of the top revenue growthchallenges for their team.
And so it doesn't sound like a hugepercentage, but again, this is more than
a third saying that is the top thing.
(06:30):
Yeah.
It's buyers and their changes andthe self-service is foremost among
them.
Matt Heinz (06:35):
And your ability to adapt to that as an organization in your
process and your culture is not trivial.
Right.
As this really scales and becomes amore material part of the process.
So I've not heard someone before youused it use the phrase sales supercycle.
Right?
And for a lot of organizations thatreally wish and hope that selling
could be easier, streamline, faster,easier, supercycle sounds like
(06:58):
we're going the opposite direction.
I would argue that'san inconvenient truth.
That is a law of physics and selling.
And in B2B markets right now likethat trains out of the station.
But talk about what do you mean bysupercycle and why is that important for.
Go to market leaders to embrace.
Rick Bradberry (07:11):
Yeah.
In the past, the internet, cloud,mobile, all of those technologies
fueled a cycle of macroeconomic growth.
And that was a boon for sellers, right?
Mm-hmm.
You could sell a lot of product basedon those trends, and it was great.
And so what we're seeing is that AIis part of that next cycle of economic
growth, but the super cycle we definehere is both growth, but combined with.
(07:37):
A period of revenuetransformation that goes with it.
Okay.
So even if in the near term, so we seea lot of macroeconomic clouds right now,
you know, just some really bad stuffthat's not best for selling environment.
Yeah.
But regardless of whateconomies are going to do, yeah.
These trends and dynamics inthe supercycle will persist.
Yeah.
So AI is going to continue to transform.
(07:59):
Our sales processes are gonnacontinue to transform, and then what?
And how we sell is allgoing to transform as well.
It's gonna be more AI based.
It's gonna be smarter, more automated.
That is a trend that's just not goingto go away no matter how we define it.
So the sales cycle.
Is that period of growth andtransformation that will hit
the sales function in ways thatwe've not seen in the past.
Matt Heinz (08:22):
Is this exclusive to net new sales and customer
acquisition, or does this apply tocustomer expansion efforts as well?
Rick Bradberry (08:28):
Yeah, no, it's the whole.
The whole thing.
Think about your routes to market.
Yep.
Routes to market.
So we're not just talkingabout a direct sales team.
Yeah.
But what we're thinking about is thecomposition of how revenue is attained.
Yep.
So routes to market, equal routesto revenue, that's one thing.
Another theme is reallyaround direct versus indirect.
One is around Pipeline ordeals that are net new versus
(08:52):
post-sale, like you mentioned.
All of that is changing.
Yeah.
So the post-sale is going to bemore important, Matt, in the future.
Matt Heinz (09:00):
Right.
So the way that this is straight fromthe description of your session coming
up, it's like, to succeed in the future,sales leaders will have to learn or
maybe in case relearn much of whathas made them successful in the past.
What do you mean by that?
Yeah,
Rick Bradberry (09:12):
relearning.
That's great.
So the dynamics of this new supercycleare, here's some characteristics.
The future will be moreintelligent for sales.
Yep.
AI agents and automation.
We'll be accelerated.
So it's just faster.
Yeah.
This new world, we're gonnabe in the next decade.
Right?
It's a disruptive decade.
Yep.
Fast, frequent improvements willbe needed from the sales team.
(09:33):
Yep.
A lot more.
Around that.
Number three, characteristic adaptive.
So agile, customer-centric adjustments.
We can't continue to sellthe same way we have before.
Let's be real honest.
Yeah, real honest, like, brutal, honest.
For your listeners, most of sales, mostof demand gen, it's, here's secret, I'm
gonna whisper it into the microphone.
(09:54):
It's all built for sellers.
Yes.
It's not actually builtfor customers, right?
And so in this new future, Idon't think we can get away
with that for very much longer.
Like it's adaptive, it'sgotta be customer focused.
Number four, for sales leaderscharacteristic, integrated.
So roles, technologies, processes.
Yeah.
Like we used to have these reallydefined roles, responsibilities,
(10:18):
silos, these functional areas.
That were really nice and tidy,well guess what's happening?
All of that gets a little murkier.
What is a demand team?
What SDRs, you mentioned SDRs.
Yeah.
Where do they report, right?
Is that a marketing function?
Is that a sales function?
In every organization you will see that.
All over the map.
So more integrated is what toexpect in the new Supercycle.
(10:40):
And then lastly, it'sgoing to be more networked.
So you mentioned some of the themescoming out of the B2B summit here.
One of them is around buying networks.
So buyers don't just buy as a group,but they use the entire set of people.
Assets and resources that areavailable in their network to
go through the purchase process.
(11:01):
And they too will be using AI fortheir purchases in the future.
Matt Heinz (11:07):
Talk today the live at Forrester, B2B Summit on the
marketplace floor with Rick Bradberry.
He's the principal analyst at Forrester.
There will be a testlater on those five areas.
Hopefully you're keepingtrack of those at home.
I was really excited to see themore network component bear out in
a lot of the content in the keynotesearlier today, and to recognize that
the internal buying committee is notsufficient, that you have to engage
(11:30):
the ecosystem around buyers as well.
Yes, that increases complexity, butwhen you think about the analysts,
you think about influences, youthink about partners, you think about
other customers that are either haverelationships with your prospects
and other peer customers as well.
How you orchestrate thoserelationships together really matters.
And even as AI and technology growsin importance, I think it's those
(11:52):
relationships amongst people in thoseecosystems that is going to give companies
a competitive advantage moving forward.
Rick Bradberry (11:57):
Yeah, A real secret too.
Another secret, revenue happens innetworks, happens in buying networks.
Revenue happens in yourselling network internally.
How you get to market and get things done.
Revenue happens in your partnernetwork, your ecosystem overall
of how you are getting out tomarket and selling your product.
Matt Heinz (12:15):
So your content in your report is really focused
on the next decade of selling.
But I think if someone sits down andlistens to all this, it'd be really easy
to get intimidated by how much changeis coming, how much change is here.
What do you recommend of salesleaders think about and do
in the next six to 12 months?
So that if we're sitting here next year,10% into that next decade of selling.
(12:37):
What are the things sales leaders needto have already spent time mastering
and integrating into their teams?
Yeah.
Rick Bradberry (12:43):
Let's hit a few and in no particular order, and I think
this first one will surprise you.
Income and employment insecurityamong sellers yes, will rise.
And so sellers live with a higherdegree of that to begin with.
But in the future, it willlook a little bit different.
In Forrester's future of work surveylast year, 60%, six 0% of B2B employees
(13:06):
say they fear losing their job dueto automation in the next 10 years.
So in this next decade, same timeperiod, 60% are like, Hey, I'm already
fearful that my job is gonna disappear.
I'm gonna lose it.
Right?
That number is probablyheightened for sellers.
So for sales leaders,the takeaway there is.
Look, there's probably anemerging wellness crisis going
(13:29):
to be brewing among your sellers.
You better get on topof that ahead of time.
So that's number one.
Number two, and we've hit on thisAI theme, but it's gonna change the
composition of how sales leaders allocatetheir budgets and their resources.
And it is gonna become difficultbecause sales leaders tend to be
pretty tight with their sales team.
(13:49):
And now they're faced with thisdecision of, Hey, I have to start
introducing more automation, more ai.
I have less head count.
And some of these composition questionsmight become agonizingly difficult as
sales leaders are forced to automateinto and engineer into this new calculus.
So sales agents will be onboarded.
(14:12):
And train to co-sell with sellers.
Yeah.
Don't know what that looks like.
Exactly.
Yeah.
No one does.
They may say they have an ideabut we're gonna figure that out.
Co-selling with ai agents will bekind of the new norm for sales.
Those are two.
Matt Heinz (14:28):
Yeah.
There's a guy by the name of PascalFinette, I dunno if you know this guy.
He's a futurist and he talks about thisconcept called the innovation paradox.
And what he says is, the innovationhas happened in the past, now appears
far shallower than it actually was.
You think about like 15 years ago whenthe iPhone barely existed and now we
have this supercomputer in our pocket.
We are recording these programsthe last couple days on an SD card.
(14:50):
It is barely the size ofjust the surface of my thumb.
It holds a quarter of a terabyte ofdata like that would've filled this
conference room not that long ago, right?
So his point is like the innovationthat's happened in the past was much
steeper than it now feels and appears.
The innovation in the futurelooks far steeper than it will be.
So everything from AI to mobile tothe advances in computing, it is
(15:14):
all coming and without understandingit today, it may seem scary.
But we are really good as humansat adapting to new normal.
Yeah,
and I think if you're a go-tomarket leader thinking about this
future of selling in the super salescycles, this will be different.
You pointed out areas where it'sdifferent, where it could feel scary.
My job security feels a little scary,but go into this eyes wide open, go into
(15:37):
this, seeing this as an opportunity,not a threat, and there will be
a new normal that will be better.
Rick Bradberry (15:43):
Yeah.
You know, I think there's somegood news in it for sales managers.
Okay.
We haven't talked a whole lot about them.
We've been talking about sales reps.But for managers like their job, if
they do it well, is to be a great coach.
And what we know is that most salesleaders don't spend enough time on that.
And when they do, they'renot really that good.
And let's face it, humans have biases andit's sometimes really hard to get to that
(16:07):
level of trust with a sales manager toreally drive outsized results with AI.
In the future, you will probably havean AI agent, be your sales coach, that
is your new coach, your primary coach.
Listen in on all your calls.
Your manager can't do that.
They're too busy.
Record 'em all.
Summarize them all.
(16:27):
Put the next steps in there, give youcontextually relevant prompts on what
to do, what to say next on what thenext step is, and then to give you
feedback on what other sellers in theorganization are doing that are successful
and are tied to deals that are one.
And correlated to those factors.
Can your sales manager do that today?
No.
(16:47):
No, no.
No.
Cannot.
And so the sales manager role is reallygoing to be from first line sales coaching
to first line sales Orchestrating, yeah.
Really looking more holistically atthis people process technology equation.
And how to make sure that reps aregetting all of the resources they
need to sell at the top of their game.
(17:07):
Part of that is automated.
Part of it is a differentproductivity equation as well.
That is really what the emerging roleof the first line sales manager will
probably look like in this next decade.
Matt Heinz (17:19):
You keep describing a future that feels better.
You keep describing a futurethat feels more efficient, more
productive, more beneficial tothe people, the humans involved.
It might be a little messy getting therebecause we don't have that clear path.
We don't know exactlywhat that looks like.
And I think, you know, ashumans we don't like change.
We like things that are known.
(17:40):
We wanna know what that clearpath is gonna look like.
It's why attribution continues tobe a real challenge in the industry.
We wanna know, we wanna know exactlywhat's working, exactly what to do next.
And it frustrates us when we don't know.
Right.
But I think this guidance you'vegot here in some of these areas of
focus again going eyes wide openand really for everyone listening,
for everyone that's a part of thisto really be part of identifying
(18:01):
what's gonna work to be part of.
Testing and learning, and then sharingthat back in communities like this,
so we all continue to get better.
Rick Bradberry (18:07):
That's right.
And we probably wouldn't normallyassociate these words with the sales
function, test, iterate, deploy, you know?
Right.
Get out there and really experimentwith technology and deployment, but
that is exactly what needs to happen.
I was chatting with somebodyearlier on the floor, we were
talking about this very subject.
And they said, you know, Ithink the marketing organization
is a little farther along.
(18:28):
And they sort of said it with a wink.
Like, you know, sales iskind of a laggard here.
And I said, look, the quarterlysales attainment and bookings
attainment focus is just gonna drivewhere leaders spend their time.
That's how their goal,that's how they're measured.
Yep.
They're not measured on long-termchange and transformation,
right, or technology deployments.
That would be a pretty rare typeof thing from a sales leader.
(18:49):
We are gonna see fits and starts, butthe real, like, I think there's some
tension here, and that is, if you look attransformation in the go to market scheme
broadly, the sales function is behindand they have a backlog of transformation
initiatives that they should have beenworking on all along that they haven't.
So they're starting from a pointalready that is behind the curve and
(19:12):
now they're faced with the futurethat is faster, more intelligent and
requires like immediate deployment.
With this kind of stuff, it's gonna reacha really uncomfortable point for sales
leaders because they have to arrive atthat conclusion right there in the moment.
Oh my gosh, my job has changed.
Yep.
Let me go back to the CEO.
(19:33):
Lemme go back to my boss and belike, look, the world is totally
different in the next six to 12 months.
It's even like moreradical in the next decade.
Let's talk about what that meansfor sales and how sales and the rest
of the go-to-market machine reallyorganize differently for the customer.
Matt Heinz (19:51):
I love it.
Rick Bradberry.
Where can people who are listeningto this say like, this is great.
I want to dig in on this further.
Where can they go look?
Where should they learn for these topics?
Yeah.
Rick Bradberry (19:59):
Yeah.
Well, Forrester's always a greatsource and you know, I think there
are some really interesting points inhere that I really haven't seen yet.
So it took a group of analysts.
To come together to find these points.
And if you're a Forrestersubscriber and you have access
to this report, take a look.
Because it's more thanjust the future of sales.
It's really the entire context aroundwhat the future of the go-to-market
(20:23):
machine looks like in the next decade.
Matt Heinz (20:25):
Awesome.
Love it.
Rick.
Thanks for being here.
Enjoy the rest of the day.
I know we're doing this at theend of a very long day, but
thanks for making this a priority.
Rick Bradberry (20:30):
Great.
Likewise.
Great to be here.
Matt Heinz (20:32):
Thank you.
We'll see you next time.
Rick Bradberry (20:33):
You bet.
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