The purpose of the Demand Metric Quality Benchmark Study sponsored by sales enablement provider Showpad is not to treat sales reps as scapegoats, but to determine how sales opportunities are affected by bad client meetings — and hopefully gain insights about how to prevent bad meetings. Over 60 percent of participants in the study sometimes, often or always experience bad sales meetings.
Findings include:
• The median close rate for sales when they engage with a qualified prospect is between 21 and 30 percent.
• Price, a historical friction point between management and sales, was identified as the main reason that sales do not close with qualified prospects.
• Failure of the sales team/rep to perform is the second most frequently cited reason for failing to close sales with qualified prospects.
• There is a significant disagreement between sales and marketing about
the underlying reasons for the failure
of the sales team/rep to perform. Sales points to lack of marketing support as the primary reason. Marketing ranks lack of empowerment to negotiate
and lack of sales skill or ability almost equally as reasons.
• 72 percent of sales and marketing professionals agree that there is an immediate loss of revenue after a bad sales meeting.
• For 70 percent of organizations in this study, the recovery from a bad sales interaction can take a few months to a few years.
• The lack of sales and marketing alignment is evident in the significantly different perspectives on the quality of assets marketing creates for sales, and the degree of collaboration between these two functions.
Visit demandmetric.com to get more information on the study and to download a full presentation on the findings
