28 Remarkable Sales Stats Leaders Need to Know for 2019

It’s that time of year when sales, marketing, and business pundits share predictions for what’s to come in 2019. You can hardly open a website, newspaper, or social media site without reading someone’s forecast.

Everyone has their own opinion for what the year ahead holds. These opinions vary widely, many times contradicting one another. This leaves sales leaders scratching their heads trying to figure out where the opportunities are for their organization and what they need to prepare for going forward.

To cut through the opinions and projections, with research from the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, we share cold hard facts from buyers, sellers, and sales leaders.

Here is what to keep in mind as you prepare for the year ahead: 

The Sales Stats You Need to Know

• Buyers report that 58% of their meetings with sellers are not valuable.
• The number one factor separating sales winners from the closest second-place finisher is the winner educated the buyer with new ideas and perspectives.
• Only 36% of sales organizations have individuals with the sales skills to consistently bring new ideas to their buyers.
• Value driving sales organizations are much more likely to:
  • Grow revenue: 90%
  • Have higher win rates: 54% compared to 46%
  • Experience lower undesired turnover (i.e. losing top sales talent): 27% compared to 39%
• Only 17% of companies report that their sales training is effective.
• Top performers are nearly 2X more likely to rate their sales training as effective.
• Top performers are 1.6X more likely to have good or excellent investment and focus on sales training.
• 66% of top performing sales organizations prioritize developing sellers to be valuable to buyers versus only 39% of companies outside of the top performer category.
• 77% of elite performers, 61% of top performers, and only 32% of the rest agree that they are effective in maximizing sales to existing accounts.
• 65% of top performers agree that their sellers have the skills needed to drive account growth, versus 43% of those who do not fall in the top performer category.
• 70% of companies have existing accounts willing to collaborate.
• 77% of top performers agree that making phone calls to existing accounts is an effective prospecting tactic.
• 66% of companies do not believe their managers have the skills needed to manage and coach sellers.
• Elite performers are 2.4X more likely to agree that sales managers are effective at maximizing selling energy.
• Only 27% of companies agree that they have processes to coach their strategic account managers to be most effective.
• 28% of companies agree that they are effective at holding strategic account managers accountable.
• Only 25% of companies agree that they build effective plans to grow and protect strategic accounts.
• 82% of top performing sales organizations agree that they set challenging sales goals.
• 100% of top performing sales organizations meet their sales goals.
• 100% of the top 5% of salespeople have written goals, compared to only 16% of the bottom 5%.
• 71% of companies do not believe their sellers manage their time and day effectively.

Placing Value at the Center

There’s a trend that ties many of these findings together: value. Value is not only one of the 9 keys to B2B sales success, but also at the center of the sales competency wheel.

Want to achieve greater sales results in 2019? Put value at the center of your sales and account development process. Infuse value in everything you do, and watch what happens.