Data Matters: Top 10 Stats that Demonstrate Data’s Importance to Creating a Successful Sales Org

Jan 7, 2023 | Blog

The news isn’t so much that data matters to the sales organization and to a business overall (that’s table stakes), it’s how MUCH it matters. Here we’ve collected some key stats that demonstrate just how much today’s sales teams need, leverage, and rely on (quality) data to drive business results.

  1. While data entry takes approximately 15% of a sales team’s time each week, organizations believe they are still missing over 50% of the most important data points. – Sales Management Association, Managing Salesperson Activity, 2022
  2. 71% of leaders acknowledge a sales team must be data-driven and capable of personalizing sales conversations through digital channels. – Zendesk, Wrangling the Disconnected Sales Org, 2022
  3. Nearly 30% of sales representatives’ primary goal for 2023 is to make the sales process more efficient, relying on data to achieve that goal. – HubSpot, 2023 Sales Trends Report, 2022
  4. 45% of sales professionals indicate that their biggest challenge is “dirty data,” or rather, incomplete or outdated data. – LinkedIn, Global State of Sales Report, 2022
  5. 50% of sales pros who regularly leverage customer data are likely to have “sales well above their competitors’” versus only 22% of low-performing sales pros. – McKinsey, DataMatics Survey, 2014
  6. Effective sales activity management means 28% higher sales performance, on average. – Sales Management Association, Managing Salesperson Activity, 2022
  7. High-performing sales reps are nearly 2x as likely to leverage AI versus their lower performing counterparts. – Salesforce, State of Sales Report, 2022
  8. Dirty data is estimated to cost businesses nearly $13 million each year. – Gartner, How to Improve Your Data Quality, 2021
  9. Only 42% of CRM users rate the trust they have in their CRM’s data as “high” or “very high.” – Validity, Insights to Improve CRM Data Quality, 2020
  10. 24% of businesspeople indicate that processing and analyzing data remains the key to achieving greater business success. – Dun & Bradstreet, The Past, Present, and Future of Data, 2019

Even more importantly, a data-driven sales org creates value not only for themselves, but for their company at large. The data they gather and maintain can drive long-term success for marketing efforts, customer experience, customer service, strategic planning, and more.

Want more details on how data entry and collection is impacting the sales org? Download the SMA’s newest report, sponsored by AutoPylot.