Sales Benchmarks 2024 - Analysis and POV

Let’s analyse and understand the reasons behind sales benchmarks as per the latest report. We have uncovered key performance metrics, performance differences, buying trends, and focus areas.

Hey, Welcome to this week’s edition of “Future of Prospecting” Newsletter by “Evabot”.

We have been researching Generative AI Technology for the last 18 months and have been astounded by the use cases it brings in Prospecting through Hyper Targeting and Personalisation. For Sales leaders and Revenue leaders, the main challenge with AI-led Prospecting is “How and What not?”

If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed earlier:

1. We did a webinar on “Outbound 2.0 - Predictability with AI” on 8th March. Will share the recording next week, in case you have missed.

2. Account Research Tools - Expectations vs Reality

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Last week Pavilion and Ebsta released “B2B Sales Benchmarks - 2024 report”. Have you read it?

We were wondering how to analyze the insights and find actionables for

— Hand Holding our average performers to level-up and try becoming Top Performers
— Finding gaps in the existing sales process

We did a detailed analysis of the report internally and found the causations and correlations between what is happening in the market with the benchmarks from the report… 

Do you want to know what we uncovered?

Don’t worry! Keep reading …

First of all, Let’s clear one doubt… Is this report really credible?

Oh YES!! As per the report, The research is done over…

4.2 million opportunities
1m+ hours of conversations, 
from 530 companies
representing over $54 billion in revenue

Let’s look at the report's insights from a business point of view…

1. Sales Funnel Conversions

2. Top Performers vs Average Performers

3. Actionables for Average Performers

4. Road less traveled - Asking right questions

Sales Funnel Conversions

#1 Win rates declined by 18%

Why?

• Tightened Budgets

• Complex Decision Making

What to focus on? – Generating Trust

• Anticipate upcoming challenges and pains of the accounts – Pain based Personalisation to fast-track decision making

• Engaging stakeholders of pipeline accounts through series of initiatives – Build trust till decision making is done

• Focus on business value through customer stories – Builds credibility

#2 Sales Cycle grew by 16%

Why?

• Evaluating multiple solutions in a hyper-competitive market

• Not able to justify ROI to CFOs or other stakeholders

What to focus on? – Social Proof and ROI studies

• Record customer stories and share ROI case studies, relevant to the prospect’s context

• Collaborate with thought leaders and build positive word of mouth

• Have a competition benchmarking study ready to help your prospect convince other stakeholders

#3 Average deal value decreased by 21%

Why?

• Focus on small pilots rather than full-fledge implementation

• Justifying ROI with smaller package to show value to stakeholders and then taking a big bet on solution (No instant gratification on ROI)

What to focus on? – Relationship Building

• Give the delta difference in deal size as “Relationship Discount” for the first year.

• Have a fixed + success model, where fixed is reduced deal value and success fee is paid after achieving promised outcomes.

Outcomes - Top Performers vs Average Performers

#4 Reps missing quota

#4.1 Just 15% of sales teams had more than 50% of reps achieve 80%+ of quota.

#4.2 On average 69% of reps missed quota.

Why?

• Spray and Pray

• Spending too much time researching insights on not-ready prospects.

What to focus on? – Account Prioritization

• Have a list of accounts with “Relevant and Recent” pains – Requires narrow and focused search

• Equip team members with account research led prioritization tools which can identify pains and challenges as per context and mark priority along with reasons and sources.

  Advanced Account Prioritization for Scale

#5 Only 17% of reps generate 81% of revenue

Why?

• Top performers know whom to reach, when to reach, with what communication to reach, and on which channel to reach.

• Top performers spend 60% of their time researching about the prospects, identify their pains as per the context, understand their communication preferences and build on their personal brand to get the message through.

What to focus on? – Detailed Account Research and Contextual Triggers

• Have a list of contextual triggers (Pain and Challenges based - Relevant and Recent) that the sales team can use for outreach.

• Training team members on how to filter noise and redundant data from high quality insights.

Account Research Tools - Expectations vs Reality

#6 44% deals slipped

Why?

• Average performers find it difficult to build trust relationships with prospects and discussion becomes more transactional than strategic (which can also solve prospects' contextual pain areas).

• Similar template-based messaging to all prospects and they also receive similar follow-up messages from all other players.

What to focus on? – Pain-based Personalisation

• Have relevant and recent insights on the prospect’s challenges that fits with your value proposition.

• Instead of templates, start leveraging expert communication frameworks like PSA, OPPS etc to frame the personalized message with contextual insights.

Implementing Pain-based Personalisation

Qualification Approach - Top Performers vs Average Performers

#7 SPICED

For sales reps who adopted the SPICED (Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical Event, Decision Process) methodology for Qualification, 

• the difference between High Performers and Low Performers lies in their percentage focus on Impact, Critical Event, and Decision Process

• which is around 20% focus by Low Performers vs 70% by High Performers.

#8 MEDDPICC

For sales reps who adopted the MEDDPICC (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, Competition) methodology, 

• the difference between High Performers and Low Performers is their percentage focus on Competition, Metrics, Decision Criteria, and Decision Process

• which is around 25% focus by Low Performers vs more than 60% by High Performers.

What to focus on?

– Competitive Benchmarking
– Detailed Account Research
- Relevant and Recent Challenges
– Decision Making Criteria and Process (for each account)

Actionables for Average Performers

• Detailed Account Research with Relevant, Recent, Accurate and Precise Triggers

• Hyper-personalize your outreach communication through frameworks (like PSA, OPPS etc.), not through templates

• Prioritization scores for each account as per pains, challenges and context.

• Have the right mix of personal, professional and business triggers in communication.

Prepare, Anticipate, and Act

Road less traveled - Asking right questions

If you are a sales leader, just ask these 5 questions to understand the current gaps…

1. Are we fact checking our account research insights? 

2. Do we know the priority order on account insights?

3. Are we using templates or frameworks while sending personalized communication?

4. How much time our team is spending on account research for each prospect?

5. Is our tech stack effective and enabling us? Sometimes gratification takes ages…

In the end, I would like to give KUDOS to Pavilion and Ebsta for doing this research. It gave us time to rethink, re-evaluate and re-plan our approach, while keeping benchmarks as a base.

If you find our analysis and POV helpful, let us know in the comments and share with your network.

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