While most VPs of sales tout growth and new logos as key business imperatives, the state of sales teams from a holistic investment and management perspective reveals a different story; there is a stark disconnect between what management sees/does and what reps want/need.
For example, marketing mainly controls the budget that is meant to make sales more productive, but most marketers are not tying their work directly towards efficiency or effectiveness and have no way of measuring their impact.
Secondly, productivity is often measured in the absence of quality/effectiveness. Just because a rep is able to crank through more deals doesn't mean that key metrics like close rate or average selling price goes up. Finally, most sales leaders we talk to say that onboarding and analytics are two key areas of focus, but when we talk to individual contributor sales reps we hear them struggle with simple things like finding the approved sales deck and needing to manually upload data and content to a sales administrative tool.
Docurated recently released an infographic to highlight the state of sales productivity. The research is taken from a survey of 127 sales and marketing executives; this report examines the state of sales productivity from both the sales rep and sales management perspectives. Its findings paint a disconnect between what management sees and does and what sales reps want. Management is focused on hiring, onboarding, and analytics, but reps are struggling to find and use the basic systems and processes needed to do their jobs.
One of the goals of the graphic is to create greater awareness around the challenges facing sales teams and the resulting inefficiency and sub-optimal effectiveness that arise around content usage, on-boarding, and value selling. The results demonstrate a clear need for a greater sense of urgency around the problem of sales productivity, while also giving organizations the information they need to quickly take action.
Highlights of the research include:
- Sales productivity is a top driver for hitting new revenue targets.
- Organizations are investing more and more in sales productivity.
- Sales productivity is often marketing’s responsibility, however marketing does not prioritize sales productivity projects.
- Measuring productivity can be more expensive than realized productivity gains.
- Most organizations define productivity as just efficiency and are missing the gains that effectiveness can bring new sales is the #1 priority for sales execs.
Take a look at the infographic below:
About the Author
Fergal Glynn is Docurated’s VP of Marketing. Docurated accelerates sales in companies looking for fast growth by making the best marketing content readily available to Sales teams. Fergal helped produce Docurated's State of Sales Productivity Report, which examines key sales productivity trends and challenges facing sales and marketing executives. Fergal grew up in Ireland and now lives in Arlington, MA. To learn more about Docurated check out their Sales Enablement Tool on the AppExchange.
Fergal Glynn is Docurated’s VP of Marketing. Docurated accelerates sales in companies looking for fast growth by making the best marketing content readily available to Sales teams. Fergal helped produce Docurated's State of Sales Productivity Report, which examines key sales productivity trends and challenges facing sales and marketing executives. Fergal grew up in Ireland and now lives in Arlington, MA. To learn more about Docurated check out their Sales Enablement Tool on the AppExchange. 
