CEO Insights: Sales Industry Outlook for 2026
Improving win rate
Written by: Ben Taylor, MBA, Content Marketing Manager, Richardson
Published: January 22, 2026
What's Inside
In our brief, "CEO Insights: Sales Industry Outlook for 2026," Richardson CEO, John Elsey, shares insight into the structural challenges that sales leaders must address to sustain growth in the year ahead. He outlines six trends sales leaders must embrace right now to amplify sales performance, including:
- Rebuilding revenue engines for consistency
- Enabling AI for scalable behaviour change
- Recognising proof-of-concept selling as the dominant path to growth
- Simplifying and operationalising sales technology
- Facing buyer confidence as the primary growth constraint
- Managing increased competitive pressure as AI compresses differentiation cycles
In a year where the sales environment will be defined by friction, inconsistency, slower decisions, and fragile forecasts, winning companies are doing something different: building integrated revenue systems and aligning performance to guide buyers and restore their confidence.
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