Top 75 Sales Statistics to Improve Any Selling Situation

Table of Contents

Whenever you're trying to improve your sales results, modifying your behavior based on 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 and use to 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

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)

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

28% of cold calls get picked up, 55% are ignored or missed, and 17% are non-working numbers. (Source: Keller Center Research Report)

34% of marketers say that their top priority is to generate more leads. (Source: HubSpot)

Asking “Did I catch you at a bad time?” on a cold call makes you 40% less likely to book a meeting. (Source: Gong)

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: Bright TALK)

59% say SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation. (Source: Marketing Charts)

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)

80% of marketers believe that marketing automation creates more leads and conversions. (Source: SlideShare)

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

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

1 in 10–11 times, people who request to be called at a later time during a cold call express some form of interest. (Source: Keller Center Research Report)

1 in 59 cold calls results in a referral or meeting. (Source: Keller Center Research Report)

Starting a cold call with “How are you?” instead increases your likelihood of booking a meeting by 3.4 times. (Source: Gong)

Sales emails are two times more effective than cold calls. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

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

Companies get $42 back for every dollar spent on email marketing. (Source: Litmus)

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

Emails sent out for lead nurturing purposes have a click through rate of 8%. (Source: HubSpot)

Nurtured leads create 20% more sales opportunities. (Source: Demand Generation Report)

Companies that nurture leads generate 50% more opportunities at a 33% lower cost compared to companies that don't nurture leads. (Source: Marketo)

Only 34% of organizations surveyed touch leads monthly within their lead nurturing campaigns. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

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

Only 41% of companies report having an active lead nurturing campaign. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

Marketers with a lead nurturing campaign reported a 45% higher ROI than ones that do not utilize a lead nurturing track. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

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

Companies that focus on lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads, and spend 33% less doing so. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

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

79% of leads never convert into sales, but a lead nurturing campaign could help. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

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 close at 3.6% with referrals. This is the highest conversion rate among the ways sellers close deals. (Source: Implisit)

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

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

The sales experience affects more than 50% of the customer's loyalty. (Source: Harvard Business Review)

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

65% of sales leaders say that salespeople spend too much time on non-selling activities like paperwork and not enough time on things that lead to closing. (Source: SiriusDecisions)

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

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

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

Sales Management Statistics

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

Only 26% of the reps who experienced an onboarding process said that their training was effective. (Source: Training Institute)

27% of companies don’t have onboarding processes for salespeople. (Source: Training Industry)

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)

On average, salespeople spend over 7 times more time on administrative tasks than they do on training. (Source: HubSpot)

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

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

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

Just 56% of B2B organizations verify their leads before they’re sent to a sales team. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

57% of C-level executives and VPs list a cold call as their preferred method of first contact, compared to 51% of directors and 47% of managers. (Source: RAIN Group)

68% of B2B businesses use strategic landing pages for lead tracking. (Source: Marketo)

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)

79% of B2B professionals say that face-to-face meetings are the best way to meet new clients and sell business. (Source: Harvard Business Review)

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)

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

The top 3 social media platforms used by B2B organizations are LinkedIn (96%) and Facebook and Twitter (82%). (Source: Business 2 Community)

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

Inside Sales Statistics

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

Salespeople's success rates increased by 35% by using "we" instead of "I" on calls. (Source: Gong)

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

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

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

Face-to-face appointments have a close rate of 40% on average. (Source: Oxford Economics)

Field sales reps spend 45.4% of their time selling remotely. (Source: InsideSales)

Of non-retail salespeople in the US, 56.5% are outside sales reps. (Source: XANT, formerly InsideSales.com)

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

Outside salespeople must knock on approximately 40 doors to get a single sale. (Source: Lead Heroes)

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)

59% of millennials will go to Amazon first when online shopping. (Source: Inviqa)

By the year 2040, it’s estimated that 95% of purchases will be made online. (Source: Nasdaq)

The 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 ecommerce site.

Bottom Line

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. As long as they let data be their guide, they’re likely to find sales process success by doing what currently works and inspires businesses or consumers to make purchases.