Insight Papers · Field Research

What the data says. What we’d do about it.

Insight papers for revenue leaders: fast, actionable reads on CRM data, quota, seller productivity and buyer behavior. Every finding comes from the field, learned the hard way inside real revenue orgs, and backed by 2026 data.

CRM & Data Mar 2026 5 min read

Your CRM is lying to you.

Every CRO I’ve worked with has the same relationship with their CRM. They rely on it for every decision, they present it to the board, and somewhere in the back of their mind they know it’s wrong. 70% of CRMs have real accuracy issues, and contact data decays 22% a year.

Read the analysis
Quota Attainment Mar 2026 6 min read

Quota attainment collapsed to 43%.

The room gets quiet when the attainment number hits the screen. Leadership starts talking about coaching, accountability, maybe a round of PIPs. But 58% of orgs intentionally over-assign quota, and 17% of reps produce 81% of revenue. That’s not a talent problem.

Read the analysis
Seller Productivity Mar 2026 5 min read

Your sellers spend 70% of their time not selling.

Ask any sales leader what their team does all day and they’ll tell you: they sell. Ask the reps and you get a very different answer. 28 to 30% of the week goes to actual selling. The rest disappears into CRM updates, internal meetings, quotes and manual research.

Read the analysis
Buyer Behavior Mar 2026 6 min read

83% of buyers decided before sales ever engaged.

When your rep finally gets the meeting, the buyer isn’t discovering you. They’re confirming a decision they started making months ago. By Day 1 of evaluation the shortlist is set at 4 to 5 vendors, and 95% of the time the winner is already on it.

Read the analysis
CRM Hygiene Jul 2026 6 min read

Delete three-quarters of your CRM fields.

Open your CRM’s settings and scroll the field list. Most revenue leaders have done this exactly once, during an implementation years ago, and what they remember is the scrolling. Most B2B CRMs I open could lose three quarters of their fields, and the sales team would take a month to notice.

Read the analysis
AI Readiness Jul 2026 5 min read

AI-ready CRM data: a definition you can test.

Ask a data vendor what AI-ready means and you will get a story about outcomes. Ask for the pass and fail criteria behind the label and the deck moves to the next slide. Every provider sells AI-ready data now. None of them will hand you the test. So here is one.

Read the analysis
Research Reports Free · No email required

Go deeper than the papers.

The State of B2B Revenue 2026: ten chapters of original research behind every insight on this page, from quota attainment to AI readiness and the 2026 benchmarks.

View Aeolus Free Research Reports
Free CRM Diagnostic

Find out what your CRM already knows.

Book a free, read-only diagnostic. We connect to your CRM, run 30 checks across data quality, pipeline hygiene and ICP fit, and deliver a scored report within hours. Then we walk you through every finding live.

Book your free diagnostic
FreeRead-onlyReport within hoursNo pitch deck