Mar 06, 2017 By Devon McGinnis

in Sales, Research

If you’re in sales, you’re probably pressed for time. And if you’re like most salespeople (61%, according to a Quotable study), you probably work even on weekends. So we’ll keep this short.

We took the “State of Sales” research — 60 pages of insights from over 3,000 global sales professionals — and boiled it down to just the facts. Consider this the TLDR version of the report.

Here are 40 sales stats you’ll want to share.

High-performing teams are 3.4x more likely than underperforming teams to currently use artificial intelligence (AI).
High-performing sales teams are 10.5x more likely than underperformers to experience a major positive impact on forecast accuracy when using intelligent capabilities.
Sales teams anticipate 139% growth in AI to automatically recommend products to customers based on their preferences over the next three years.
Triple-digit growth is anticipated for smarter capabilities like predictive intelligence (118%) and automated lead-to-cash processes (115%).
High-performing sales teams are 2.8x more likely to be outstanding or very good at predictive intelligence.
Predictive intelligence is being used or forecast to be used in the next three years by 86% of high-performing teams.
78% of sales teams say they are more focused on anticipating customer needs, and 76% say the same about being proactive.
High-performing sales teams are 2.3x more likely than underperforming teams to currently use guided selling.
89% of high-performing sales professionals say that empowerment of sales has increased over the past five years — 2.1x more so than underperformers.
73% of sales professionals say the attention paid to sales has increased over the past five years.
The top two process challenges sales organizations face are meeting customer expectations and dealing with competitive concerns.
Meeting customer expectations is listed as the top overarching challenge to a sales organization’s process.
Sales teams that rate meeting customer expectations as a top challenge say the primary reason why is because customer needs have grown more sophisticated.
High-performing sales teams are 2.8x more likely than underperformers to say their sales organizations have become much more focused on personalizing customer interactions over the past 12–18 months and 2.9x more likely than underperformers to say the same about providing customers with a consistent experience.
87% of high-performing sales teams say their company is aligned on how to empower sales to exceed goals.
6 out of the top 8 sales objectives over the next 12–18 months are customer-centric.
Customer experience is ranked the top KPI type used by sales organizations to measure success.
High-performing sales teams are 2.4x more likely than underperformers to rate their team’s analytics and insights capabilities as outstanding or very good.
For those who didn’t list customer experience or success in their top three KPI types, their reason was that it’s “not easy to track.”
60% of sales professionals say that collaborative selling has increased productivity by more than 25%, and more than half (52%) say it has done the same for increasing pipeline.
Across all performance levels, 73% of sales teams say collaborating across departments is absolutely critical or very important to their overall sales process.
Across all performance levels, 62% of sales teams say collaborative selling is absolutely critical or very important to their overall sales process.
68% of sales professionals say it’s absolutely critical or very important to have a single view of the customer across departments/roles — yet only 17% of sales teams rate their single view of the customer capabilities as outstanding.
Top sales teams are 2.1x more likely than underperformers to be outstanding or very good at having a single view of the customer.
75% of sales professionals agree their company connects customers, employees, partners, and products.
76% of high-performing sales teams rate their partner and customer/prospect collaboration capabilities as outstanding or very good.
High-performing sales teams are 2.1x more likely to be very good or outstanding at their partner and customer/prospect collaboration capabilities.
On average, sales teams rate six channels as absolutely critical/very important for connecting with customers.
In-person communication remains sales’ top channel for connecting with customers.
67% of high-performing sales teams say social media is a very important channel for connecting with customers.
High-performing sales teams are 2.7x more likely to say online communities are absolutely critical or very important for connecting with customers.
High-performing sales teams are 1.9 x more likely to say knowledge bases are absolutely critical or very important for connecting with customers.
High-performing sales teams are 3.8x more likely than underperformers to strongly agree their company reaches out to customers proactively.
High-performing sales teams are 2.9x more likely than underperformers to strongly agree their company is available to customers at any time.
Among sales teams who cite ineffective internal processes as their top challenge, they point to excessive administrative tasks as the primary cause.
High-performing sales teams are 3.5x more likely than underperformers to rate their mobile sales capabilities as outstanding or very good.
79% of sales teams currently use or are planning to use sales analytics technology.
High-performing sales teams are 2.4x more likely than underperformers to rate their team’s analytics capabilities as outstanding or very good.
76% of sales teams say analytics has improved their ability to provide customers with a consistent experience, while 70% say the same about sales velocity.
80% of high-performing sales teams rate their sales training process as outstanding or very good.