In-person selling still moves deals, but only when 3 conditions clear together: the right personas are in the room on both sides, the total contract value clears a real threshold, and the deal is at the stage where presence changes the outcome, not a courtesy stage where it does not. European B2B research across 340 companies puts the crossover point where field sales outperforms remote at roughly 50000 euro ACV. Below that, remote wins on ROI almost every time. Above it, presence starts paying for itself, especially late-stage, multi-stakeholder deals.
Read time: about 5 minutes. First step runnable this week.
Before your next travel request, whether yours or a rep's, calculate the total contract value, not the annual contract value, and check it against a real threshold.
Start here: take your next proposed trip and calculate ACV times committed term length. You need the deal terms and the buying group list.
Ignore this week: booking travel on relationship instinct alone, and skip any trip where you have not confirmed who is actually in the room on the buyer's side.
For: founders and revenue leaders selling into deals where travel is genuinely an option, any ARR band, hybrid or field-adjacent motion.
The problem: travel decisions get made on instinct, wasting scarce time on deals that never needed presence.