Business trends and challenges in sales: what’s changed and how to adapt

My business has changed, and it's only April.

That's not a complaint. It's a reality check. Learning to adapt is what's going to protect your business - and if you get it right, it's what's going to help you thrive.

Starting over after corporate life

After a lifetime in corporate, I set up my business to help people sell more while staying connected to their values. What I didn't anticipate was how much of my credibility had been borrowed from the brands I worked for. The moment I stepped away from them, nobody cared who I was. That was tough on my ego, and honestly, tough on my wellbeing too.

So I started over. I became a student again - reading a book a week, attending sales and marketing conferences, hiring coaches. Two years later, the work started coming in consistently.

Then lockdown happened and everything disappeared overnight.

How LinkedIn training changed everything

Living off government loans was unpleasant. I needed a new direction, and I found one somewhere I wasn't expecting.

A few posts I wrote about loneliness, online dating, and the reality of running a business during a crisis went viral. Within a year I had 20,000 followers, and people started asking for 1:1 coaching - on LinkedIn, on sales, on business. LinkedIn recognised what was happening and gave me an official Top Voice in Sales badge, which I've held onto every year since.

It wasn't the plan. But it opened a door I didn't know existed.

If you want to understand how I use LinkedIn to generate leads and build relationships, the LinkedIn training page covers how I work with teams on exactly that.

Why corporate sales training became the focus

By 2023, I'd spotted something. Businesses don't really have a LinkedIn problem. They have a sales problem. LinkedIn is just where that problem shows up most visibly.

That shift changed how I positioned myself. In 2024, influencer marketing work started coming in from companies like HubSpot, BRITA, and Salesforce. The highlight was Salesforce inviting me to San Francisco to shoot videos on AI and sales - not something I'd have predicted when I was sitting at home during lockdown wondering what came next.

The 1:1 coaching work has always been where I make the biggest impact on individuals. The referrals, the testimonials, the long-term relationships - that all comes from coaching. But corporate sales training started to become the engine of the business, with work coming in from companies in London and across Europe.

I also leaned into something counterintuitive for the influencer work. I positioned myself as the anti-influencer. Over 50, no hair, love handles. The last person you'd picture in that world. It turns out that standing out from the usual polished LinkedIn faces gets you noticed - you can see some of the work I've been doing with ZoomInfo on LinkedIn.

What's happening in the sales market right now

2025 has not been the year I planned.

The 1:1 coaching market for solopreneurs has gone quiet. I'm seeing three things play out repeatedly. People frozen with indecision. People making poor choices with automation and expecting it to do the work that relationships used to do. And people waiting for external conditions to improve before they act. That last one is the most damaging.

Nobody is coming to save your business. The market moves whether you're ready or not.

What's been busy is the corporate side. I spoke at the Uplift Live conference in Birmingham last month and got the best feedback of my career. I've been on the Salesforce Sales Summit stage talking about AI in sales, and delivered a sales kick-off on Zoom covering soft skills and overcoming objections. Even with companies taking longer than ever to make decisions, the demand for proper sales training hasn't gone away.

What this means if you're running a business right now

The businesses I'm seeing struggle right now are the ones doing the same thing they were doing three years ago and wondering why it isn't working. The ones moving forward are the ones who've accepted that the market has shifted and got on with adapting.

That might mean rethinking who you're selling to. It might mean getting serious about how your team handles objections and follow-up. It might mean accepting that LinkedIn activity alone isn't a sales strategy.

If your sales results aren't where they need to be, it's worth having an honest conversation about why. You can find out more about how the group sales training works, or if you'd rather just talk it through, get in touch directly.

Things are moving fast. The best time to act is before you feel like you have to.