It’s the end of the world…revisited

𝐆𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫...67% 𝐨𝐟 𝐁2𝐁 𝐛𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐧𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐩 𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥.
𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢...𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐬 7.6% 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞.

Buyers need us less, and most of our sellers aren’t the reason anyone buys.
A year ago I gave a keynote in Sydney called It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine). I’ve gone back through it to see what survived the year.
What I got wrong was the speed.

AI has handed enablement the first real capacity windfall it has ever had. Mindtickle asked 30 enablement leaders where that time went. I counted every answer.

Two said diagnosis. Twenty-eight said more coaching, more content, more role plays.
And here’s what sits underneath that spread. Nothing in the Clari data says capability is the problem. It could be territory design. Lead routing. Product fit by segment. Frontline management. A comp plan quietly paying better on the deals you say you don’t want.
Six candidates, six different fixes, and only one of them lands on enablement’s desk.
The methods for telling them apart have been in print since 1970. Almost nobody in this profession was ever taught them.

I’ve written it up two ways. A short version, and a fully referenced long version with the Clari, Gartner and Mindtickle data, Gilbert’s model, and the six-step diagnostic I actually use.
Both below.

Summary

Full Version