Sales Performance: 3 Surprising Statistics to Motivate Your Teams

We all know that having key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential in a sales organization to understand and develop team awareness, collaboration, and sales performance. Without data and analysis, it’s impossible to identify a problem and therefore solve it. The sales sector is flooded with studies and statistics on what works and what doesn’t in terms of improving sales performance. And today, we wanted to keep it simple by offering you 3 surprising and original statistics that will help you motivate your sales teams to develop their knowledge, skills, and strategy.

Sales Drive: “92% of salespeople give up after 4 rejections.”
– Marketing Wisdom

This statistic is quite striking, and for good reason: the majority of salespeople miss out on sales opportunities due to poor lead follow-up. Indeed, over 44% of them abandon a lead after a first rejection or an uncertain decision from their lead. Furthermore, 22% of them give up after the second rejection. It is crucial for a salesperson not to give up and to understand their lead over time, in order to subsequently offer them suitable solutions. And today, most salespeople give up too quickly…

For your sales teams, these figures are good news. Yes, I assure you they are. Indeed, these figures indicate that half of your competitors’ leads were abandoned during the first part of the sales process after only one inquiry; you can therefore take advantage of this. The lead’s decision-making process often occurs after several follow-ups and over a more extended period. Use this statistic to motivate your teams by instructing them not to give up before at least 5 follow-ups. The goal is obviously not to harass your leads, but to use different methods to avoid abandoning any lead prematurely (calls, emails, direct mail, newsletters, invitations). You can also conduct coaching sessions, trying to help your teams understand what they can learn from sales objections. Understanding why a rejection occurs can be very instructive. To improve your sales performance, implement training that will allow your salespeople to better understand sales objections and manage them more effectively afterwards, for example.

Sales Knowledge: “58% of buyers state that salespeople are unable to effectively answer all their questions” – Forbes Insight

Do your teams understand and know your product or service well enough? The question may seem surprising, but know that most salespeople do not have the necessary expertise about the product or service they sell. The raw product is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, it is essential for your salespeople to acquire expertise regarding the industry they operate in, their target audience, and their product. Sales performance cannot evolve positively if, initially, your salespeople don’t have all the answers. Possessing this expertise helps reassure the client, provides better negotiation power, makes the client feel a certain authority, and ultimately optimizes the entire sales process. Know that understanding your product is the first key to successfully selling it.

According to Forbes Insight, more than half of buyers do not find all the answers they need from salespeople. And believe it or not, this statistic will not be a surprise when you announce it to your teams. More than 40% of salespeople state that they do not always have the necessary and adequate information and knowledge before making a phone call.

This statistic is a way to motivate your teams by developing their knowledge, both theoretical and practical. Dedicate time to implementing training, micro-training processes, seminars, field feedback, and guide your sales teams towards better general knowledge.

Sales Performance: “Thursday is 49.7% a better day than Tuesday to contact a lead by phone.” – Lead Response Management

Phone calls are an integral part of the sales process for most sales teams. It is therefore necessary to master this tool. Did you think a call made on Tuesday at 11 AM had the same sales impact as a call made on Thursday at 5:00 PM? Well, you were mistaken…And your salespeople can make the use of this tool, which might seem straightforward, more effective, with just the analysis of a few scientific statistics.
A study by Lead Response Management reveals that it is more effective to contact leads in the mid-to-late week. The study specifically details the most optimal days for calling your leads, the hours, and call durations that are most indicative of value. Regarding the days you should normally call your leads, here’s what it highlights:

• The best days to make contact and call your leads for qualification purposes are Wednesdays and Thursdays
• The worst day to make contact is Tuesday
• the worst day to call and qualify your leads is Friday

Naturally, these figures may vary depending on your industry, target audience, and the product or service you sell. Nevertheless, they will remain broadly representative. Use this data to optimize your teams’ tasks and increase your sales performance. Develop better management of your primary contact and qualification tools!

These statistics reveal problems within your sales teams that are sometimes overlooked. Half of your salespeople abandon their sales leads too early, and that’s a real problem. Almost 40% of them are not expert enough about the product or service they sell. Identify these problems if you haven’t already, and then address them by proposing process improvements, training, or simply more effective information dissemination.

Driving Performance in the Digital Age, download the guide here!