When there are problems within sales teams, opportunities plummet, conversion rates decrease, and commissions shrink. Frustration becomes real.
However, most of these negative results can be avoided. But teams need to know what challenges they face.
In this article, we've compiled the main causes of frustration experienced in B2B sales . Each of the pain points was identified by professionals who have directly encountered frustrating situations in their careers. If you want to retain your sales representatives and strengthen your sales team , you must avoid any of the following eight situations occurring in your marketing and sales processes.
1 – Re-engaging cold prospects
Questions like, “Where does marketing find these leads?” or “Why are they passing them on when they’re clearly not a good fit?” are common in sales teams. And it’s understandable that salespeople get frustrated, since converting ready-to-buy leads is their top priority. But it’s not surprising when you consider that at least 50% of leads aren’t a good fit for what you sell .
In fact, it might not be the marketing teams' fault. It's more likely that the problem lies with your systems and processes . Indeed, several weaknesses can cause this issue: a lack of alignment between teams, qualification criteria , a lack of follow-up and feedback, unsuitable strategies, insufficient prospect data, or ineffective qualification processes.
If this happens, you need to rethink your strategy, processes, and tools . To do this, you can use Smarketing techniques .
2 – Not having enough accounts in one's name
Most B2B salespeople don't like running out of accounts. In fact, more accounts mean more opportunities to close deals. That makes perfect sense. Nevertheless, most salespeople can't resist chasing after big brands . Salespeople love a challenge, and the prospect of a huge payday with major brands is a real thrill for them.
Note, however, that if a prospect is simply not interested , you're wasting time and resources trying to close a deal with them. You'll have a better chance of achieving your goal by focusing on a prospect ten times smaller, but who is actually in the market for your product .
3 – Missing an opportunity to close a deal
There's no greater frustration for salespeople than discovering that a perfect prospect was searching for a solution, but their logo appears on a competitor's website. The obvious question then becomes: why didn't we start the conversation sooner?
Sometimes the salesperson doesn't engage in the conversation early enough. It's also possible they missed it completely. In both cases, the main cause of these lost opportunities is limited visibility into the buyer's journey .
A complete and easy-to-use automation tool like Magileads is sufficient to solve this problem.
4 – Time wasted by not selling
It's annoying to waste time on bad deals. However, it seems that sellers find it even more frustrating to waste time not selling at all. Indeed, studies show that every day they spend
- 21% of their day spent trying to write persuasive messages
- 17% to enter data
- 17% spent prospecting and potential clients
- 12% to attend internal meetings
- 12% to schedule calls
That leaves only 21% of the day for real conversations . According to the Pareto principle, focusing on that 21% is the best thing they can do.
Fortunately, most of these tasks can be automated or avoided through marketing automation . Sometimes, knowing which accounts should be prioritized helps prevent workload overload and allows you to focus on revenue-generating activities.
READ ALSO: 20 essential tips for B2B sellers in 2025
5 – Inability to find or access the correct content
According to a study, 80% of the content created by marketing is not used by sales , a figure that raises questions for both teams. Why are these resources underutilized?
There can be two main reasons for this: it's too difficult to find the right content , or no available content matches a prospect's stage in the buyer's journey. Here's a resource that explains how marketers can start creating content that speaks to a buyer, wherever they are in their journey.
6 – Limited knowledge of B2B prospects
Salespeople hate feeling unprepared for calls . But the reality is, B2B buyers complete more than 70% of their buying journey anonymously before even speaking to a representative. As a result, it's difficult to know exactly what prospects have been viewing.
However, it is possible to find out about the keywords and competitors that prospects have searched for. This provides valuable information about potential customers.
You can learn how to prepare for a B2B sales meeting by watching this podcast:
7 – Errors due to misalignment
A lack of coordination between your teams can lead to unfortunate errors (too much time spent sending documents to clients, marketing contacting prospects in the middle of negotiating an upsell, etc.).
Furthermore, some prospects are passed on to sales too early, when they are far from ready to buy. These lukewarm prospects should still be followed up by the marketing department. Note that the ideal point in your prospects' buying journey, when they are in the market for your solution, is between the consideration and decision phases . When accounts are engaged at the right time in their buying journey, an average improvement of 120% in revenue has been observed.
When sales, marketing, and customer service work closely together, they can align on accounts, goals, personas, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
