State of Sales
Report Pocket Guide

Businesses are increasingly investing in sales technology. Sales teams are turning tocloud-based software, in particular, to accelerate productivity, gather contextual detailsabout customers and automate tedious tasks.

Three-quarters of sales professionals (73%) use technology to close more deals. Of this group, 97% consider sales technology “very important” or “important.” The majority of sales professionals (59% overall and 65% top performers) say they’re spending more time using technology, too; 93% are using sales technology just as much or more than in 2017. CRM adoption alone has grown 113% since 2016, with 64% of sales professionals reporting that they use CRM tools

Sales and marketing are starting to work more closely together, benefiting both sales professionals and decision makers alike. Forty-four percent of sales executives say they work more closely with marketing than in past years. Overall, those who say they work “very closely” or “closely” with marketing has grown 35% since the 2016 survey.

Top sales professionals have a stronger relationship with their marketing counterparts. They are 13% more likely to say they work “very closely” or “closely” with marketing in prospecting efforts than their peers.

On a scale of one (a very small role) to 10 (a very big role), 57% of the top sales professionals rate marketing’s importance in closing deals at an eight or above, while 41% of their average counterparts say the same.


Still, the data divide remains. While many sales and marketing teams are keen to partner more closely, data is often siloed in the technology platforms used by each function. Only 20% of sales professionals say they see significant overlap in the data used by marketing and sales to target prospects.

This misalignment could contribute to the quality of leads sales professionals say they receive from marketing. Only 22% say leads from marketing are excellent and 42% say they’re good.

Millennials are quicker than other age groups to use new strategies and technologies. These younger sales executives mirror the technology usage of the most successful sales professionals at the highest rates. Sixty-two percent of millennials (and 65% of top performers) say they anticipate spending more time this year using sales technology. On the other hand, 56% of Generation X and Baby Boomers say they anticipate investing more time this year compared to last year.

A tight-knit relationship with marketing is paying off for millennials, who tend to outperform Generation X and Baby Boomer sales professionals. Top performing millennials are 23% more likely to say they work “very closely” with marketing than Generation X and 73% more likely than Baby Boomers.

This partnership has strengthened over the past year. Millennial sales pros are 12% more likely than Generation X and 24% more likely than Baby Boomers to spend more time working with marketing than in past years.

In turn, millennials say they see excellent leads from marketing at 56% higher rates than Generation X and 115% higher than Baby Boomers.

Millennials also credit a larger portion of their success to sales technology. Twenty-eight percent of millennials think CRM tools are “extremely critical” to their success, compared to 18% of Generation X and 9%of Baby Boomers. Similarly, almost one-third (30%) of millennials think sales intelligence tools are extremely critical, compared to 22% of Generation X and only 7% of Baby Boomers.

Conclusion

Today’s selling landscape comes with heightened consumer expectations and skepticism—without a personalized purchasing experience, you’ll quickly lose buyers’ interest.

That’s why it’s important to implement a modern selling strategy: tap into technology to scale, lean into marketing to align insights, but don’t forget real human connections are irreplaceable. Top sales professionals are closing more deals on a foundation of trust; relationships are still at the heart of selling.

This approach will enable you to better target prospects, personalize experiences and meet buyers’ expectations, today and in the future.

Methodology

Market Cube, a research panel company, conducted two online surveys from August 7-15, 2018.

For 2018, two sample groups were surveyed representing both sales professionals and decision makers. The first was a sample of 507 professionals from the United States who primarily work in B2B sales. The second was a sample of 502 business decision makers from the U.S. who have influence over purchasing decisions at B2B companies. Both samples includes respondents over 21-years-old who are employed at companies of different sizes and functions.

The report also references a group of “top sales professionals” who are defined as sales professionals who exceed their sales target by at least 25%.