Yesterday, Salesforce released the second annual State of Sales report. The company surveyed more than 3,100 sales professionals to understand the tools, strategies and struggles of modern sales management.
Sales leaders can learn a lot from the research: Click here to read the full report.
The 60-page report is packed with information. Before you dive into all of it, check out these top statistics.
12 top stats for sales management
- 79% of buyers says it’s absolutely critical or very important to interact with a salesperson who is a trusted advisor — not just a sales rep — who adds value to their business.
- 33% of sales teams rate improving their use of sales technology as one of their most important sales objectives over the next 12-18 months.
- 62% of sales teams rate collaborative selling (integrating other departments such as marketing, service, etc., in the selling process) as absolutely critical or very important to their overall sales process.
- 45% of sales teams say excessive administrative tasks make ineffective internal processes a challenge.
- 21% of sales teams say limited insight into issues until it’s too late / lack of timely insight into the sales process creates ineffective internal processes.
- 19 percent of high-performing sales teams say difficulty knowing how to take action on data is a challenge for internal processes.
- Only 36% of a salesperson’s time is spent on selling tasks: 24 percent on connecting with clients or prospects in person and 12 percent connecting with clients or prospects virtually.
- 50 percent of high-performing sales teams use guided selling and coaching (like adaptive intelligence that uses contextual data to provide recommendations for next best sales task, activity or offer), but 98 percent of all sales teams will use guided selling and coaching over the next three years.
- 51 percent of high-performing sales teams use next-step analysis that allows sales, service and marketing teams to anticipate customer needs and prioritize tasks. And 96 percent of all sales teams will use next-step analysis over the next three years.
- 70 percent of high-performing sales teams use predictive intelligence like recommended next steps and relevant insights from data analysis.
- 76 percent of sales teams have shifted their priority over the past 12-18 months to focus much more or somewhat more on being proactive.
- 54 percent of sales teams experienced a major positive impact across the productivity of sales reps from using intelligent selling capabilities.
What can sales sales management do with all of this information? Start by grabbing your own copy of Salesforce’s State of Sales report. Then download our free guide below to learn why modern sales leaders drive with KPIs.
