Top 71 Sales Statistics to Improve Any Selling Situation

Selling Signals content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

Whenever you're trying to improve your sales results, modifying your behavior according to relevant industry statistics is key. This data can help make you and your business more efficient by influencing evidence-based shifts. We’ve compiled the top sales statistics to reference as you adapt your business practices, and we’ve broken them up into the following categories to make them easier to analyze:

• Lead Generation Statistics: Stats relating to generating new leads and growing your pipeline through inbound and outbound methods. Read more below.
• Lead Nurturing Statistics: Stats on the usage and success of lead nurturing strategies, tactics, and more. Read more below.
• Deal-Closing Statistics: Stats regarding final negotiations and the closing process, including overcoming objections and signing the contract. Read more below.
• Sales Management Statistics: Stats relating to team leadership, recruiting, and goal-setting helpful for new and experienced managers alike. Read more below.
• B2B Sales Statistics: Stats about the way business decision makers prefer to be contacted and what works best when selling to them. Read more below.
• Inside Sales Statistics: Stats on selling from inside the office, including strategies such as cold calling and cold emailing. Read more below.
• Outside Sales Statistics: Stats related to in-person sales and networking best for local lead generation or territory sales. Read more below.
• Ecommerce Sales Statistics: Stats regarding online store sales helpful for ecommerce sellers as well as marketers. Read more below.

Lead Generation Statistics

Only 1 out of 5 marketers believe outbound lead generation can result in high-quality leads. (Souce: Salesmate)

Cold calls convert to a sale 2.5% of the time. (Source: Kenan-Flagler Business School)

Less than 10% chose cold calling when asked about their primary approach to marketing. (Source: HubSpot)

Sellers must call a cold lead an average of 18 times to connect with them. (Source: Gartner)

Companies that use animated GIFs often or always in marketing emails saw a 21% increase in ROI. (Source: Litmus)

Companies get $36 back for every dollar spent on email marketing. (Source: Litmus)

Outsourcing B2B lead generation accounts for a 43% increase in results than inhouse strategies alone. (Source: TrueList)

45% of salespeople believe hosting webinars is one of the most effective tactics for lead generation. (Source: Statista)

When companies generate about 40–60% of leads from online sources, they experience the greatest growth. (Source: Hinge Research Institute)

53% of marketers say they spend at least half of their budget on lead generation. (Source: BrightTALK)

There’s a 55% likelihood a lead will attend a work-related conference in 2022. (Source: Hinge Research Institute)

61% of salespeople consider their biggest challenge to be generating leads and traffic. (Source: HubSpot)

66% say they generate leads via social media after spending 6 hours on social media. (Source: Social Media Examiner)

82% of companies surveyed actively use content marketing. (Source: HubSpot)

87% of marketers turned to social media for lead generation during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Source: Statista)

91% of marketers say that lead generation is their most important goal. (Source: Ruler Analytics)

Small businesses gain 126% more lead generation growth when they offer an online blog than those that don’t. (Source: Salesmate)

$3.2 billion is the estimated spend marketers will have allocated to digital lead generation by the end of 2023. (Source: Statista)

The door-to-door sales industry was estimated at $67.5 billion in 2020. (Source: IBIS World)

Lead generation is a top priority for most business leaders, and there are many different ways to grow your pipeline. However, cold calling appears to be an underutilized strategy. For more information, check out our list of top cold calling statistics and cold emailing statistics.

Lead Nurturing Statistics

Nurturing emails have a two times higher likelihood of being opened compared to their one-off email counterparts. (Source: Annuitas)

There is a 20% increase in overall sales opportunities with leads who’ve been well nurtured by reps. (Source: SPOTIO)

Sales processes have 23% shorter sales cycles with leads who’ve been nurtured than those who weren’t nurtured. (Source: Data Axle)

Only 27% of leads are ready to make a purchase when they’re originally generated. (Source: Data Axle)

35% of businesses contact their leads weekly during their nurturing process, versus 22% for every other week or every three days, and 13% for only once a month. (Source: DemandGen)

Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases compared to non-nurtured leads. (Source: Annuitas)

58% of businesses surveyed use social media to contact leads in their lead nurturing process. (Source: DemandGen)

65% of B2B marketers don’t have an established lead nurturing strategy currently. (Source: SPOTIO)

66% of salespeople run 1-10 lead nurturing campaigns every year. (Source: DemandGen)

Those who do adopt a lead nurturing program see significant results, and more companies should consider implementing a lead nurturing campaign. For more information, check out our article of the top CRM statistics for processes and software.

Deal-Closing Statistics

Salespeople who make 12 contact attempts perform almost 20% better than colleagues that stop at eight or fewer attempts. (Source: The Bridge Group)

36% of salespeople admit that deal closing is the toughest part of their sales process. (Source: HubSpot)

The average win rate after offering a proposal or giving a quote is 47%. (Source: RAIN Group)

48% of sales calls end without the lead directly attempting to close the deal. (Source: SPOTIO)

61% of salespeople say they're good at identifying their prospect's pain points. (Source: Resourceful Selling)

71% of sales professionals say that closing more deals is their #1 priority. (Source: HubSpot)

Leads generated from a website close after 75 days, while leads from social media networking close in about 40 days. (Source: Resourceful Selling)

91% of the top-performing sales organizations collaborate across all departments to close big deals. (Source: Resourceful Selling)

Persistence, collaboration between departments, and a focus on selling-specific activities seem to be the keys to closing deals.

Sales Management Statistics

On average, salespeople spend over seven times more time on administrative tasks than they do on training. (Source: HubSpot)

23% of sales managers spend less than 30 minutes individually coaching their sales reps each week. (Source: The Brooks Group)

It takes 38 days, on average, to complete the sales onboarding process. (Source: Allego)

44% of executives think their sales reps are not effective when it comes to managing their sales pipelines. (Source: Zety)

44% of salespeople of any experience level look to their managers for tips to improve their selling. (Source: HubSpot)

Only 45% of sales managers say they spend 30–60 minutes individually coaching their sales reps each week. (Source: The Brooks Group)

53% of salespeople with two or fewer years in sales rely on their manager for improvement, compared to 56% of those with 3–4 years in sales, 45% of those with 5–10 years in sales, and 39% of those with over 10 years in sales. (Source: HubSpot)

84% of sales managers say it's crucial to socialize and integrate new sales hires into their existing team members within three weeks of onboarding. (Source: Allego)

Sales managers can make or break their team’s performance, and giving managers more time to train can help improve a company’s performance.

B2B Sales Statistics

6–10 decision makers comprise the typical buying group for a complicated B2B solution. (Source: Gartner)

Buyers spend 17% of their time meeting with potential vendors. (Source: Gartner)

25% of the contact information in B2B lead databases is incorrect. (Source: Pipeline)

Those with formal sales processes generate 28% more revenue than those without. (Source: Harvard Business Review)

Only 30% of B2B companies have a formalized referral program. (Source: Influitive)

41% of B2B sellers admit that breaking into a new territory or market is a major challenge. (Source: Adobe)

Only 46% of B2B customers agree their B2B vendor followed through with their promises. (Source: Gallup)

There’s a 66% increase in conversions for B2B sellers who run promotions. (Source: Adobe)

Referrals help B2B companies close 69% faster. (Source: Influitive)

B2B companies with referrals experience a 70% higher conversion rate. (Source: Influitive)

77% of B2B buyers state that their latest purchase was very complex or difficult. (Source: Gartner)

84% of B2B buyers start their buying process with a referral. (Source: Zety)

86% of B2B companies with formalized referral programs experienced more revenue growth. (Source: Influitive)

Referrals continue to be vital for B2B business, as is making your sales process quick and easy for purchasing teams.

Inside Sales Statistics

Inside sales are growing 15 times faster than outside sales. (Source: Zety)

24% of sales emails are opened. (Source: Gartner)

41.2% of salespeople said their phone is the most effective sales tool at their disposal. (Source: Sales Insights Lab)

94% of surveyed employers report that company productivity has been the same or higher since employees started working remotely during the pandemic. (Source: Mercer)

Increase the chance of conversion over 100% by texting a new contact after the first meeting. (Source: Velocify)

It appears that even through the pandemic, access to phone, email, and verbiage training can empower inside sales reps to meet their quotas.

Outside Sales Statistics

Outside sales reps earn about 14% more than their inside sales counterparts. (Source: MarketSplash)

34% of closed deals in the real estate industry come from the agents' existing network. (Source: TechJury)

Field or outside sales teams make up 71.2% of the sales force currently. (Source: SPOTIO)

72% of business professionals say they’re influenced not only by a salesperson’s looks, but by their handshake, too. (Source: TechJury)

Outside sales reps spend 89% more time selling remotely than they did in 2013. (Source: SPOTIO)

Outside sales is alive and well, even in the online age. For more stats on in-person meetings and networking, check out our networking statistics article.

Ecommerce Sales Statistics

There was a 4.4% year-over-year increase in digital buyers between 2020 and 2021. (Source: Statista)

58% of online purchased goods are apparel and accessories, making them the most common online purchase. (Source: Statista)

217 million Americans shop online. (Source: Statista)

The total number of digital buyers reached $2.14 billion in 2021. (Source: Statista)

The future of retail sales is online, and retailers should consider getting their listings on a popular website like Amazon or creating their own site and managing it with an ecommerce CRM.

Bottom Line: Sales Statistics

Companies seeking sustainable sales success should stay up-to-date on sales statistics, using them to make informed changes to the way they generate and nurture leads, close deals, and train their salespeople. Continue using data as your guide, and check out our article on sales processes that covers how to map your own process, the steps you should consider including, and tips to improve the process you currently have in place.

This article was written by Trey LaRocca and updated by Allyssa Haygood-Taylor.