Back to All Stories

Knowledge is power! Having access to the best available information is a vital aspect of almost any operation, but especially important in the competitive sales environment. The following are key statistics every smart sales manager should know. The source of the following data is The TAS Group.

1. A full 2/3 of all salespeople miss quota (Tweet this stat!)

  • 67% of sales professionals do not attain individual quota.
  • 23% of companies surveyed don’t even know if their sales force achieves quota or not.

2. Over 1/2 of all salespeople close at less than 40% (Tweet this stat!)

When pursuing a “Qualified Opportunity”:

  • 17% win less than a quarter of their potential deals
  • 37% win less than half of their potential deals
  • 46% win more than half of their potential deals

3. The best reps are 250% better at qualifying leads (Tweet this stat!)

  • The ability to assess and qualify opportunities accurately is a critical skill for any salesperson.
  • 59% of sales team reps are viewed by their organizations as being effective at qualification
  • High Performers are 2.5 times more likely to be good at qualification than the rest of the population.

4. 40% of salespeople can’t understand customer pain (Tweet this stat!)

  • When a customer problem arises, it’s tempting to panic and offer up the first solution that comes to mind. This can lead to disaster when your “answer” ends up addressing a problem the customer didn’t even have. Or, even worse, didn’t realize they had yet.
  • Only 61% of sales professionals report feeling good about their ability to uncover customer problems – and those reps are 28% more likely to achieve quota.

5. Only 46% of reps feel their pipeline is accurate (Tweet this stat!)

  • One study suggests that salespeople spend on average 2.5 hours per week doing their sales forecasts. All of this effort wasted on inaccurate forecasts is a critical issue that should concern sales leadership.

6. Almost 1/2 of all sales teams don’t have a playbook (Tweet this stat!)

  • The real shocker here is that almost half of all sales teams don’t have a playbook. For the 60% that do have a well-defined sales process in place, the benefits are clear.
  • Companies that follow a well-defined sales process are 33% MORE likely to be High Performers.
  • The win rate exceeds 50% for two-thirds of companies that have a defined process in place.

7. Only 52% of salespeople can access key players (Tweet this stat!)

  • While tending to the needs of all buying roles in a sale is important, accessing key players is a critical skill that must be mastered.
  • Just 52% of sales professionals feel they are effective at accessing key players in the buyer’s organization.
  • Those classified as “High Performers” report being able to access key players more than 60% of the time.
  • Those classified as “Poor Performers” report being able to access key players less than 40% of the time.

8. Sales/Marketing alignment adds 25% quota achievement & 15% win rate (Tweet this stat!)

  • Overall revenue achievement is as much as 25% greater at companies where sales and marketing are perceived to work well together.
  • High Performers are 57% more likely to come from companies where sales and marketing are well aligned.
  • Well aligned sales and marketing teams can account for a 15% increase in win rate.

9. Make competitors part of your strategy for 39% more high performers (Tweet this stat!)

  • With all this talk of high performers, wouldn’t you like to learn how to make your own? Easy, just study up on your competition. Building a competitive strategy that uses core sales methodology supported by a structured mechanism to differentiate against named competitors is an idea all leading sales organizations should adopt.

10. Sales contribution to strategy means a 15% revenue increase (Tweet this stat!)

There is a definite correlation between how much a sales organization contributes to a company’s overall strategy and the success of their sales performance.

  • A study found that quota attainment increases 15% when the sales organization contributes to overall company strategy.
  • Companies classified as “high performers” (where average achievement of quota is over 75%) display this behaviour 53% of the time.

ALSO:  See our awesome infographic on this topic here.