Common Challenges CROs and GTM Leaders Face with Buyer-Facing Teams Affecting Revenue and Pipeline

·Mar 04, 2026 03:22 PM·

Hey all….been a while since I”ve been here and have a very broad question for the group. I’m trying to get a handle on the largest problems CROs/GTM leaders struggle with, when it comes to buyer-facing professionals (sales, sales dev, CS, AM, etc.). Of course, it’s lack of revenue & pipeline….but what contributing factors could be attributed to how their buyer-facing professionals act, speak, think, understand, etc? Thanks in advance!

5 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Paul B.
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Jon Selig I have two perspectives, one as a CRO actually seeing these problems up close ... but also as a founder selling to CROs (specifically, offering a sales enablement solution for better conversation roleplay). Some of the things I'm seeing across both:
Buyers are less and less amenable to sales reps engaging upstream; it's lack of trust, lack of time, perception that sales reps aren't strategic partners
Weak discovery - buyers who show up open-minded are routinely underwhelmed by how little the reps are investing in preparation
For sales dev, growing fatigue as the noise/signal ratio gets worse - we all want "personalization" but increasingly this is harder to pull off without a face to face engagement (irony notwithstanding)
Objection handling is still a litmus test that most reps are failing - responses sound too much like marketing communications. This is usually just lack of practice/prep time (which is why they call us)
Hope it's helpful - happy to chat further if you'd like!
🙌2
Jon Selig
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Paul B. Thanks so much! This is gold!
👍1
Jared R.
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Yoooooo he's back!!!
😬1
Vincent
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Jon Selig based on my career and experience building teams across software vendors what Paul B. said above makes sense but the largest underlying problem in my opinion is the lack of true product knowledge and competencies to positionunswratna the real problem prospects/clients face and being able to provide the best value driven and relevant answer to those problems. This is where too SDRs, AEs or CSMs succeed the most because they become product/vale proposition fluent even more so when they have industry specific knowledge too Why? Because most res are early in their career, change 3/4 times companies in the space of 5 years and therefore lack deep product and industry knowledge. So when they negotiate with buyers who have lived and breathed their industry for 15+ years they are not able to hit the nail one the head as to why they product solves their problem. Connecting the dot between the challenges and the value prop is the key to better performance We actually run a webinar with demo on how we solve that using Clay and Ai agents so let me know if you're interested to watch it. Hope that helps
🙌1
Jon Selig
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Vincent - VERY helpful. Thanks…..and yes, I’d like to check out the webinar.

Paul B.
·
·
Jon Selig I have two perspectives, one as a CRO actually seeing these problems up close ... but also as a founder selling to CROs (specifically, offering a sales enablement solution for better conversation roleplay). Some of the things I'm seeing across both:
Buyers are less and less amenable to sales reps engaging upstream; it's lack of trust, lack of time, perception that sales reps aren't strategic partners
Weak discovery - buyers who show up open-minded are routinely underwhelmed by how little the reps are investing in preparation
For sales dev, growing fatigue as the noise/signal ratio gets worse - we all want "personalization" but increasingly this is harder to pull off without a face to face engagement (irony notwithstanding)
Objection handling is still a litmus test that most reps are failing - responses sound too much like marketing communications. This is usually just lack of practice/prep time (which is why they call us)
Hope it's helpful - happy to chat further if you'd like!
🙌2
Jon Selig
·
·
Paul B. Thanks so much! This is gold!
👍1
Jared R.
·
·
Yoooooo he's back!!!
😬1
Vincent
·
·
Jon Selig based on my career and experience building teams across software vendors what Paul B. said above makes sense but the largest underlying problem in my opinion is the lack of true product knowledge and competencies to positionunswratna the real problem prospects/clients face and being able to provide the best value driven and relevant answer to those problems. This is where too SDRs, AEs or CSMs succeed the most because they become product/vale proposition fluent even more so when they have industry specific knowledge too Why? Because most res are early in their career, change 3/4 times companies in the space of 5 years and therefore lack deep product and industry knowledge. So when they negotiate with buyers who have lived and breathed their industry for 15+ years they are not able to hit the nail one the head as to why they product solves their problem. Connecting the dot between the challenges and the value prop is the key to better performance We actually run a webinar with demo on how we solve that using Clay and Ai agents so let me know if you're interested to watch it. Hope that helps
🙌1
Jon Selig
·
·
Vincent - VERY helpful. Thanks…..and yes, I’d like to check out the webinar.