The three most underrated skills for B2B growth 2026.

Most careers in B2B hyper-specialise in one (sub-)domain. Fifteen years across strategy, brand, marketing, and advisory taught me why breadth creates a different kind of value.

A few days ago, I had a chat with a former colleague. We worked together years ago, and he is now five years into running his own finance company. We were catching up on growth challenges when he said something that stopped me mid-sip of my coffee.

"You know what's actually rare? People who truly understand B2B: not just one piece of it, but how it all fits together."

After fifteen years across brand, marketing, communication and growth strategy in enterprise, and now advisory, B2B felt like the water I swim in. But he was right. Most people specialise in one slice: brand, marketing, sales, or operations (even more granular actually). Few have navigated the complete journey from positioning to pipeline to scale.

That conversation emphasised why connecting the dots is an underrated expertise.

Why connecting the dots matters.

Customer journeys are no longer linear or simple, which makes growth not linear nor simple. It is rather cyclical, and each cycle requires a fundamentally different type of expertise.

Cyclical in how companies evolve, yes. But also cyclical in response to market dynamics: high growth periods versus constrained markets, capital abundance versus scarcity, expanding budgets versus cost optimisation. The market environment shifts what works, and the expertise that drives growth in one cycle may not translate to the next.

Most specialists excel within one cycle. The rare skill is knowing what expertise the next cycle demands.

The three critical skills for B2B growth in 2026.

1. The listening skill: When conversations say more than what you hear.

Clarity comes from conversation. Not just with customers, but with everyone who touches your business.The leaders who excel here are relentlessly curious. They do not just ask what customers need: they listen for what customers cannot articulate yet. They notice the pause before an answer, the problem mentioned in passing, the workaround that has become invisible.

This expertise requires asking questions that reveal the real opportunity rather than having all the answers.

2. The adaptability skill: When and how to switch gears.

   
   

The transitions between growth cycles are where most companies stall. What worked brilliantly in one phase becomes a constraint in the next. The expertise here is not just recognising the transition: it is knowing when and how to pivot.

Adaptability in B2B growth means building systems that let you shift gears when things change. Not rigid frameworks, but scaffolding that captures both activity and insight. Infrastructure that makes decisions based on data while reading market signals before they become obvious.

The companies that navigate transitions well do not abandon their strengths: they evolve them for the next cycle.

3. The influence skill: When reputation becomes revenue.

Your credibility shapes every deal, whether you are closing your first customer or your hundredth. The skill is knowing how to demonstrate that credibility as you scale.

The expertise shift here is clear: from delivering value to demonstrating it, from having insights to shaping industry conversations. This is how modern B2B markets work: companies that shape conversations create gravitational pull. They stop chasing opportunities and start attracting the right ones.

Why breadth wins.

Most people develop expertise in one context. They master their domain but miss how the domains connect. I have navigated enterprise environments through both growth and constraint, across multiple market cycles and dynamics. That range taught me to see the full journey, not just individual stops along the way.

That broader perspective of knowing what expertise looks like across the full B2B growth spectrum is what allows you to spot transitions before they become crises.

When a CEO tells me their conversion rates are dropping, I am not just hearing a metric problem. I am recognising a deeper signal. When a leader says their messaging is not landing anymore, I know to look at whether their market position has shifted without their positioning keeping pace.

This pattern recognition only comes from having lived it. You cannot learn it from a playbook because every company's version looks different. But once you have seen the patterns enough times, they become unmistakable.

That is what comprehensive B2B growth experience actually means: not knowing everything, but recognising how everything connects. As you close 2025 and plan for 2026, this skills matters more than ever.