Sales have never been harder.
Over the last two years, I've witnessed one of the hardest markets of my 23-year career.
For many consultative B2B businesses, those that rely on stable demand, steady client behaviour, and structured buying cycles. 2024 and 2025 have felt like torture.
Two years defined by silence, confusion, and contradiction.
2024 was the year of ghosting. Buyers didn't just disappear, they stopped showing up entirely. Brands weren't buying, but more worryingly, they weren't even asking for help.
Pipelines thinned, briefs dried up, and the quiet became deafening.
Then came 2025, the year of gaslighting. Suddenly, the noise returned. Buyers started to engage again, to ask, to quote, to scope. But behind that flurry of activity, something subtler was happening.
Decisions dissolved, priorities flipped, projects evaporated. It was movement without progress.
2024: The year of Ghosting
If 2024 had a single defining feeling, it was disconnection.
The usual cadence of B2B, interest, enquiry, meeting, proposal, broke down entirely.
Whole quarters passed where good solution providers simply weren't being briefed. That wasn't just a demand problem, it was a confidence problem. Across industries, decision-makers froze.
The numbers backed it up. Reports from Pipeline360 showed that almost half of all B2B marketers faced either static or declining budgets.
Nearly as many cited economic slowdown as their top growth barrier. UK business sentiment told a similar story.
The services sector slipped below the long-term trend line, while optimism among business-service firms fell at the fastest rate in two years.
In other words, even if clients wanted to buy, they often couldn't.
And for consultative B2B businesses, those built on predictable project work, meaningful projects, or recurring retainers, that uncertainty was brutal.
Sales cycles didn't didn't just lengthen, they often evaporated.
Opportunities that looked promising one month simply went silent the next.
I spoke to multiple founders who said the same thing:
"We're not losing deals⌠they're just not happening."
This kind of market pressure doesn't just squeeze cashflow, it distorts behaviour.
When there's less to go around, sales teams chase anything that moves.
Bad behaviours creep in, like quoting outside core expertise. Pricing becomes reactive, not strategic. The discipline that once defined their brand gives way to short-term survival tactics.
The irony is that these responses, as understandable as they are, often make the problem worse. The more you chase, the less control you have.
What made 2024 so unique wasn't just the slowdown, it was the absence of signal.
The market stopped communicating. Buyers didn't say "no"; they just disappeared. That silence created doubt in an entire ecosystem of providers who had built their models around responsiveness and trust.
2025: The year of Gaslighting
Then came the great shift.
As 2025 began, the inbox started to flicker again. Brands were back in the market. Briefs reappeared. Discovery calls resumed. For a moment, it felt like recovery. But it didn't take long to realise that something was off.
Buyers were asking, but they weren't committing. They wanted strategy, not delivery. They wanted pricing, not projects. They wanted options, not decisions. And as soon as you adjusted to one version of their plan, it changed.
This was the new era: activity masquerading as momentum. For many solution providers, it felt like being gaslit by the market itself. You were told the opportunity was real. You invested in scoping, quoting, forecasting, and then the buyer vanished, again. Or the budget shifted. Or the project âwent internalâ.
Itâs easy to blame indecisive buyers, but the truth is more complex.
Corporate buyers in 2025 are under enormous pressure. Committees have ballooned, with more stakeholders, more governance, and more anxiety around ROI. Many are working within volatile conditions behind board-level directives that change quarterly, cost controls shift mid-project, and decision cycles now span months instead of weeks.
The result is a landscape of half-decisions. Deals that look active but arenât. Pipelines full of motion but thin on progress. And while all of this may feel deeply personal for the seller, itâs really systemic. The entire B2B buying process has become slower, more fragmented, and more defensive.
The emotional toll on teams shouldnât be underestimated. Quoting and re-quoting without closure drains confidence. Account managers lose faith in their pipeline. Leaders find it harder to forecast or plan. And when your business model depends on predictability, volatility is lethal.
Why the market is still slow
Despite flashes of optimism, the reality is that 2025 remains a slow, hesitant market.
Economically, conditions are still constrained: inflationary aftershocks, higher operating costs, tighter capital budgets. Many sectors are still in âprotect and preserveâ mode.
But the deeper issue is psychological. After two years of uncertainty, buyers have learned caution. Theyâve internalised risk aversion. Even when the money exists, they hesitate to commit it. What used to be a straight path from interest to contract is now a loop of meetings, internal reviews, and re-evaluations.
Meanwhile, the buying process itself has changed. Research shows that buyers now complete almost two-thirds of their journey before they ever speak to a vendor.
That means by the time youâre invited in, the narrative is already half-written, and not always in your favour. Add to that the rise of cross-functional buying committees and hybrid procurement models, and itâs no wonder sales cycles are ballooning.
For solution providers that built their rhythm around a consistent, referral-driven business, it's been a tough ride.
The old levers of reliability, credibility and reputation still matter, but they no longer guarantee flow.
Regaining control for 2026
So how do you navigate a market like this?
One that ghosts you, then gaslights you?
The first step is to accept that stability wonât come from the market. It must come from your systems.
Qualification now matters more than ever.
The days of chasing every lead are over. You need to know early whoâs serious and whoâs just browsing.
That means asking harder questions.
Who owns the budget? What happens if this project stalls? Whatâs the trigger that moves it forward?
Good qualification isnât about exclusion. Itâs about clarity. And it's never been more important.
Next, visibility.
In quiet markets, silence kills momentum. The businesses that stay visible through content, outreach, consistently showing value and know-how, stay top of mind when decisions finally move.
This isn't shouting louder. It's about staying present in the channels you control.
And then agility.
When client priorities shift weekly, rigidity becomes a liability. Your offering, pricing and engagement model should flex without losing integrity.
Phased projects, modular proposals, and gateway "entry "points all help buyers move from hesitation to action.
Finally, discipline.
Pipelines full of maybes are worse than pipelines half as full but better qualified.
The businesses that will outlast this volatility are the ones that combine creative selling with operational rigour.
Clear metrics, frequent reviews, and honest forecasting.
That's how we win.
Let's wrap this up
So if 2024 was the year of ghosting. Silence, hesitation, and fear.
2025 became the year of gaslighting. Noise, movement, and misdirection.
What does 2026 hold for us?
As we head toward 2026, the challenge for B2B solution providers is to stop waiting for the market to stabilise and start building control within their own processes.
Because if the last two years have proven anything, itâs that predictability doesnât come from demand. It comes from discipline and taking control of the channels you can and putting in x3, x4, x5 the effort.