Looking forwards
This is the final Three Things of 2025. No retrospectives this week, no greatest hits. Instead, three predictions for 2026 that we’re confident enough to say out loud, in public, and without hedging.
Before we do though, thanks for reading Three Things this year. I hope you’ve found the content useful. Any / all feedback always welcome. Have a cracking Christmas and get some rest as 2026 is going to be INSANE!
Enjoy.
#1. The basics won’t change
Let’s start with the basics, because they’re not changing.
In 2026, great sales will still be built on listening more than you talk. Not waiting for your turn to speak. Actually listening. Taking the time to understand what your customer cares about, what keeps them awake at night, and what success really looks like for them.
And then doing something radical: following up.
Not once. Not twice. But until you get an answer.
That’s not being annoying. That’s doing your job. Silence is not a “no”, it’s just unanswered. The people who win in 2026 will be the ones who stay curious, stay human, and stay politely persistent.
#2. Super hyper personalisation
Personalisation in 2026 won’t be about first names in subject lines or clever merge tags. Everyone can do that. AI can do that in milliseconds.
What will matter is intimacy.
If you genuinely understand your customer, you’ll start to build intelligence that isn’t written down anywhere. Things that can’t be scraped, searched or bought. How they like to make decisions. Words they dislike. Pressures they’re under. What matters to them outside of work.
The moment you start sprinkling that level of understanding into your communications, something changes. Your customer knows this isn’t generic. They know you’re thinking about them. And trust accelerates very quickly from there.
That’s super hyper personalisation. And it’s only possible if you’ve done the hard yards getting to know your customer.
#3. AI will be transformative
Despite everything we’ve just said about being human, AI is going to be utterly transformative for sales and BD in 2026.
Used properly, it turns you into a superhuman. It’s an exoskeleton. It allows you to research faster, draft smarter, sense-check your thinking, pressure-test proposals, and operate at a pace and scale that simply wasn’t possible before.
So, don’t stand at the edge of the pool analysing the water temperature.
Jump in. Get your hands dirty. Build a relationship with AI. Shape how it supports your sales rhythm rather than pretending it’s not happening. The people who thrive in 2026 won’t be the ones who resist AI. They’ll be the ones who learn to dance with it.
One last thing…
As we head into 2026, we’ll be quietly rolling out a new delivery channel and tool that reflects just how fast technology is moving, and how it can genuinely help busy sales and BD professionals without stripping out the human bit.
We’ll say more soon. For now, consider this your teaser and a reminder that nothing stays the same. Not sales. Not technology. Not even this newsletter.
See you on the other side.
We’re building a team of voice enabled AI assistants to support you with BD activities and allow you to spend more time being human. Interested? We’d love to chat.
