Are you wondering why your competitors win the deals you thought were yours?
Do you suspect it isn’t their products, but their people, that make the difference
If so, you’re in the right place. In this Insight Paper, you’ll discover the 25 competencies that consistently allow rival sales teams to outsell even well-established players. These mindsets and skills are the hidden levers that determine whether you win or lose in complex, high-value B2B sales. By the end, you’ll be able to decide which of these gaps are costing your organisation the most, and where to prioritise development if you want to outsell your competition.
Why Competencies Beat Products and Services
In high-value, complex B2B sales, your biggest threat isn’t usually a better product or service. It’s a better sales team, indecision, or a decision to do the work internally.
Research from Ebsta shows that 78% of sellers are missing quota, and losing to competitors is one of the leading causes.
The uncomfortable truth? It’s rarely the market, the tech, or the economy. It’s that your rivals are systematically stronger in the competencies that matter.
How many of the following 25 does your team truly master?
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The gap is where they beat you.
Winning Mindsets
1. Deep Customer Insight
World-class sellers don’t guess what matters. They go far deeper than a single discovery call, often surfacing issues clients haven’t yet voiced. They mine for value far more broadly and deeply than competitors, which means they:
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Build insights from multiple data sources and stakeholder inputs
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Map agendas, industry pressures, and unspoken needs across the organisation
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Reframe the client’s definition of value before it’s even articulated
Competitors who do this consistently become trusted advisors, while your teams risk missing the drivers that really matter.
2. Strategic Account Development
The strongest sellers treat accounts as long-term assets rather than one-off transactions. They invest consistently in the relationships and structures that make clients feel supported over time, and in practice this shows up when they:
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Apply rigorous account mapping and maintain multi-threaded relationships
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Stay aligned with executives through structured reviews and check-ins
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Proactively identify expansion opportunities and support them with proof points and case studies
Competitors who develop accounts in this way win renewals, referrals and first call on new projects. Sellers who disappear after closing the deal are quickly forgotten.
3. Building and Maintaining Trust
Trust is the ultimate differentiator in complex sales, and top performers create it deliberately. They prove reliability, show empathy, and aren’t afraid of uncomfortable truths, which means they:
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Practise transparency by admitting unknowns or past mistakes, even when it’s uncomfortable
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Follow through on commitments with absolute consistency
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Ask tough questions with genuine care to show they’re on the client’s side
When trust is missing, deals stall and pricing pressure grows. Competitors who build dependable trust become the partner of choice, and once they’re in, clients rarely switch.
4. Creative Problem-Solving
Top sellers don’t stay boxed in by catalogues, rate cards or rigid processes. When faced with unique client challenges, they co-create options and challenge their own delivery teams. In practice, that looks like:
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Pushing internal teams to innovate for the client
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Partnering with external specialists to address complex needs
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Reframing stalled or blocked opportunities into new paths forward
Competitors who thrive in ambiguity convert ‘no decision’ outcomes into wins, while scripted teams lose out.
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5. Curiosity and Continuous Learning
High performers are never satisfied with yesterday’s knowledge. They debrief every win or loss, adjust messaging, and share learnings with peers. They devour industry updates, competitive intelligence, and client insights, then put those lessons to work immediately. You’ll see it when they:
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Absorb new knowledge and share it widely across the team
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Seek out tough feedback and adapt quickly based on what they hear
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Stay alert to emerging trends and disruptors shaping client industries
Competitors who embrace curiosity exploit change faster and move ahead of sellers still relying on the old playbook.
6. Business Acumen and Commercial Awareness
The strongest sellers speak the language of executives. They link their solutions to financial levers like margin, shareholder value, and risk, rather than just product features. You can spot this competency when they:
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Translate solutions into metrics and KPIs executives care about
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Build business cases that cover risk, cost, and upside
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Understand industry economics and competitive dynamics
Competitors with commercial acumen gain executive access and reshape the agenda, while others remain stuck as vendors.
7. Strategic Thinking
Complex sales reward foresight. The best sellers think like chess players, planning several moves ahead and anticipating obstacles before they appear. They demonstrate this by:
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Planning beyond the current deal to position for future opportunities
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Anticipating buyer-side politics, fiscal cycles and market changes
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Developing strategies for whitespace growth and alliances
Competitors who think strategically outmanoeuvre those who only react to RFPs.
8. Ethics and Integrity
Trust built on integrity lasts. Top performers resist the temptation to over-promise or cut corners and instead build reputations that last. You’ll see it in how they:
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Remain transparent, even under competitive pressure
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Admit mistakes and take full responsibility for resolution
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Prioritise long-term outcomes over short-term wins
Competitors known for integrity attract champions and retain clients, particularly when challenges arise.
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9. Resilience and Adaptability
Great sellers treat setbacks as fuel for growth. They stay positive under pressure and pivot quickly when clients, competitors or markets shift. You’ll see this when they:
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Bounce back stronger from losses by learning from them
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Adapt strategy rapidly when conditions change mid-deal
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Maintain energy and focus even in stressful environments
Competitors with resilience sustain long-term performance, while others burn out or give up.
10. Personal Accountability and Motivation
Self-driven sellers are invaluable. They take ownership of their results and constantly raise the bar on themselves. They demonstrate this by:
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Owning their targets, calendars, and mistakes without excuses
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Proactively seeking feedback and using it to improve
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Setting higher standards than quota alone demands
Competitors with this mindset grow faster, adapt quicker and consistently outperform peers who make excuses.
Essential Skills
11. Negotiation Mastery
Strong sellers know negotiation is about protecting value, not just closing quickly. They arrive prepared, anticipate objections and keep the focus on shared outcomes rather than price. You’ll see this in how they:
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Design win/win negotiations with careful preparation and stakeholder mapping
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Use purposeful concessions and creative trade-offs
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Keep relationships positive while defending terms and margins
Competitors who negotiate at this level leave with stronger, more durable agreements, while weaker sellers give away margin and weaken contracts.
12. Active Listening and Empathy
The best sellers don’t just hear words. They listen with intent, allowing them to uncover hidden priorities, adapt in real time, and create a safe space for clients to share. They do this by:
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Actively listening for contradictions and subtle signals beneath the surface
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Asking clarifying and follow-up questions to dig deeper
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Creating psychological safety that encourages honest dialogue
Competitors who master listening earn trust and gain access to stakeholders others never reach.
13. Proactive Prospecting
Pipeline doesn’t build itself. Top sellers take responsibility for creating new opportunities every day, creating momentum by leveraging referrals and data. That shows up when they:
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Prospect consistently across multiple channels, not just inbound
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Personalise outreach and act on trigger events to improve conversion
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Dedicate daily time to generating new opportunities
Competitors who prospect proactively influence the buying journey long before reactive sellers even notice it.
14. Consultative Selling
Trusted advisors don’t rush to pitch. They invest time to diagnose and explore context, pressure points, and motivators before recommending solutions. In practice this means they:
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Explore business implications before introducing offerings
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Ask disruptive questions that challenge client assumptions
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Co-develop requirements in partnership with stakeholders
Competitors who sell consultatively are viewed as partners in solving problems, while others remain commoditised vendors.
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15. Digital Fluency and CRM Mastery
Modern selling is digital-first. High performers know how to use technology to sharpen their timing, improve accuracy and sustain visibility. You’ll recognise this when they:
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Master the CRM for pipeline accuracy, visibility and collaboration
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Use automation and analytics to target outreach effectively
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Build meaningful virtual relationships with digital fluency
Competitors who use digital tools skilfully outpace teams still stuck in spreadsheets.
16. Data-Driven Decision Making
Top performers don’t rely on gut feel. They use evidence to guide effort, diagnose issues, and adjust quickly when deals stall. You can see this when they:
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Apply analytics to prioritise accounts and allocate resources
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Test, measure, and adapt rather than relying on instinct
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Use data to identify the root cause of problems in stalled deals
Competitors who act on data are more efficient and accurate, leaving less disciplined teams behind.
17. Stakeholder Engagement
Complex deals involve many decision-makers, and strong sellers know consensus doesn’t happen by accident. They systematically map and engage all influencers by: • Building multi-threaded relationships across the entire powerbase • Creating internal champions who advocate on their behalf • Tailoring value messages to resonate with each persona Competitors who engage stakeholders broadly rarely lose to a ‘surprise veto’ because they’ve already built consensus.
18. Objection Handling
Top sellers treat objections as buying signals, not threats. They bring concerns into the open and resolve them constructively by:
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Surfacing objections proactively rather than waiting for them
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Combining empathy, logic and proof to address concerns
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Reframing risks into opportunities for shared progress
Competitors who embrace objections keep deals moving forward, while others let them stall or collapse.
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19. Effective Communication
Clarity is power. Sellers who communicate well make value simple and memorable across email, presentations, and conversations.
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Craft concise proposals and emails that cut through noise
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Use storytelling to drive emotional impact
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Control meetings with effective planning, clarity and summaries
Competitors who communicate crisply become the internal voice of their solution within client organisations.
20. Time Management and Productivity
Productive sellers get more done by doing less of the wrong things. They protect focus and prioritise what drives revenue. You’ll notice this when they:
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Block time and prioritise high-value activities consistently
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Automate or delegate low-value admin
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Say no to distractions that dilute momentum
Competitors who manage their time well outsell peers simply through efficiency.
21. Product and Industry Expertise
Authority wins trust. The strongest sellers combine technical product mastery with deep industry understanding, making themselves go-to sources of knowledge. They show this when they:
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Develop deep expertise in their solution
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Track industry disruptions and regulatory shifts
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Share valuable perspectives clients can’t get elsewhere
Competitors who educate and inform buyers earn credibility that lasts well beyond the pitch.
22. Storytelling Ability
Features are forgettable, but stories stick. The best sellers frame client success stories in ways that resonate emotionally and are easy to retell. They do this by:
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Using case studies and analogies to illustrate value
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Positioning the client as the hero and the solution as the enabler
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Simplifying complex benefits through clear narrative
Competitors who tell better stories win both hearts and budgets.
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23. Collaboration and Team Selling
Nobody wins an enterprise deal alone. Winning sellers orchestrate teams seamlessly, drawing on the expertise of colleagues and partners. In practice this means they:
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Involve cross-functional colleagues at the right time
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Share credit openly and co-create solutions
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Maintain strong internal and external communication
Competitors who collaborate present a united, stronger front that clients trust.
24. Change Management and Influencing Skills
Selling is about change. Winning sellers help buyers adopt new ways of working by guiding them through transition and adoption. They demonstrate this by:
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Painting a compelling vision of the future outcomes
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Building internal consensus among resistant stakeholders
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Providing adoption playbooks and support for champions
Competitors who master change management prevent deals from collapsing at the implementation stage.
25. Value Communication and ROI Articulation
The last mile of the sale is proving value in terms that stand up internally. Strong sellers make the case by:
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Quantifying ROI with tailored business cases and evidence
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Providing references and proof points at every stage to reduce risk perception
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Equipping buyers to retell the value story inside their organisation
Competitors who prove value and ROI decisively close deals that others leave hanging.
The Bottom Line
Deals aren’t typically lost because of product gaps. They are lost because of competency gaps. Every sales opportunity is a test of mindset, skill, and tenacity. Competitors who invest in these 25 areas through training, coaching, and reinforcement consistently win more.
The question is simple: which of these competencies are your team’s blind spots, and which should you build with urgency?
If these perspectives resonate, let’s have a conversation.