RFPs are in fact a benchmarking exercise at least 90% of the time.
-Karan Chetal
118. Complex B2B Sales Strategy: Moving Beyond RFPs
Complex B2B sales is broken, and outcome based selling is the shift most teams are still missing. In this episode, we unpack why traditional RFP-driven selling fails and how modern sales and go-to-market strategy are evolving. Harry sits down with Karan Chetal, Global Chief Growth Officer at Monks, ...
In complex B2B sales, it’s easy to mistake activity for progress. Full pipelines, detailed RFPs, and well-structured responses can give the impression that deals are moving forward.
But what if many of those opportunities were never real to begin with?
In this episode of B2B Sales Trends, Harry Kendlbacher sits down with Karan Chetal, Global Chief Growth Officer at Monks, to explore why traditional sales approaches are breaking down and what modern teams are doing differently.
Together, they unpack how outcome based selling is reshaping complex B2B sales, why RFPs often reduce differentiation, and how shifting toward co-creation changes the dynamic between buyers and sellers.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔ Why many RFPs don’t represent real buying intent
If RFPs are often benchmarking exercises, what does that mean for how you qualify opportunities and allocate time?
✔ How translation inside organizations distorts real customer problems
By the time a requirement reaches the market, how much of the original need is still intact, and what gets lost along the way?
✔ What outcome based selling actually looks like in complex B2B sales
If buyers care less about solutions and more about results, how should conversations change?
✔ Why being comparable makes you replaceable
When your offer is easy to benchmark, what’s left to differentiate, and how do you avoid that position?
✔ How co-creation changes win probability
If the most successful deals are shaped with the customer early on, how do you move upstream into those conversations?
If you’re navigating complex B2B sales environments and looking to move beyond transactional selling, this episode offers a different lens on how deals are actually won today.