Top 4 Insights from the Revenue Team Benchmark Report 2023
The Revenue Team Benchmark Report 2023 by Salesloft analyzed 570 million sales interactions across 4,500+ customers and 19 industries over one year, revealing four key insights including the significant opportunity to increase email personalization—since 86% of emails lacked it—to improve engagement, the potential to expand Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), the importance of managing talk time in sales conversations, and the critical role of attention to detail in closing deals.
Salesloft.
Top 4 insights
from the Revenue Team Benchmark Report 2023
Lessons learned from 570 million sales interactions
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Introduction
Know what “good”
looks like in sales
Many sellers, coaches, and leaders have had to hit the refresh button on their benchmarks and goals. But there’s never been a better time to open a dialogue with your team about performance expectations.
Use this guide as your starting point. Our experts discovered the most intriguing stats from our benchmark report, along with a few strategies for improving in those areas, so you can set out on the path to success.
About the report
Our data analysts reviewed millions of customer activities to build the Revenue Team Benchmark Report 2023.
25+ Aggregated, anonymously compiled metrics
570M Interactions tracked across our full platform
4,500+ Customers covering all global regions and company sizes
19 Different industries included
1 Year Data collected July 1, 2021-June 30, 2022
What’s inside this guide
Click to jump to selected section
Insight 1 pg 5 There’s more opportunity to personalize emails
Insight 2 pg 11 Your ICP might be bigger than you think
Insight 3 pg 14 Silence is golden. Manage talk time.
Insight 4 pg 20 The deal is in the details
There’s more opportunity
to personalize emails
Go beyond templates to be relevant, timely, and unique for your buyers.
Buyers expect better than basic
Across all 20 industries in the report, personalization averaged between 10% and 14%. This means at least 86% of all emails sent, no matter the industry, included no personalization whatsoever.
Sending the exact same email template to all email recipients is not an effective strategy.
We’ll share a few tips and takeaways, including a multi-tiered approach that has helped our team drive more scalable email campaigns with personalization.
Insight 1
A look at email sends, reply rates,
and personalization by role
Weekly email sends
The average number of emails sent per week per user — including bounced emails.
Emails sent per week 300 200 150.2 68.6 85.8 0 SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
Email replies
The average percentage of emails replied out of all emails sent.
Reply percentage 30 20 18.1 10 8.3 2.8 0 SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
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Insight 1
Personalization
The percentage of emails sent that include minimal personalization efforts (e.g. not just a single word was changed).
Percentage of personalization 30 20 13.8% 12.1% 10.7% 10 0 SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
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Insight 1
Takeaways
Account Executive
If selling is all about relationships, the results above don’t reflect the right way to get started. We suspect that as more AEs are taking on prospecting responsibilities, they just have so many more accounts and contacts to chase down. However, it’s all about building a consistent pipeline — and making the extra effort to personalize an email will make a big contribution.
Customer Success
It makes sense that CSMs have the highest reply rate of any group since they are working existing relationships; however does less than 1 in 5 replies sound good enough? Even if they are doing a blanket update across all their accounts, just that little bit extra of personalization, such as a reminder of an upcoming event or including an earlier recording they may have missed, can make all the difference.
SDR/BDR
An average of 150 weekly sends, paired with a paltry 2.8% reply rate, suggests that it’s taking a massive volume of emails for sellers to meet pipeline. Prospects can tell when they’ve gotten the template and when you’ve not put in any effort. But knowing what to personalize in an email can be tricky. Read on to discover the right way to do it.
How to infuse personalization into your emails
Your messaging should build a bridge between a genuine problem and a solution worthy of an investment. If your message doesn’t connect the dots from their situation to your offering, the email will seem insincere.
Quick tip
How much you change a template matters far less than the overall message relevance to the individual you are reaching out to-
Keep it short. Our research shows that the sweet spot for increasing replies is 25-50 words (ideal for a mobile screen)-
Use a relevant and unmistakably specific subject line. This is the greatest lever for open rates. At Salesloft, we see short (under 7 words) and direct subject lines perform better-
Simply editing a first line, or moderately adjusting a template, produces negligible returns for the effort. Shoot for 20% personalization within the first 100 characters of the email-
Take a look at more personalization information and tips-
You can let Salesloft assist with the personalization by using our Draft an Email Step with AI.
A framework for personalization at scale Insight 1
Tier 1 accounts
These accounts are where you should spend extra time and truly tailor your approach. We recommend having a list of top 25 accounts to follow on social and develop a multi-touch contact strategy that combines research, insights, and social touches. Do all your research at the same time and find multiple ways to make connections so that you can be much more efficient.
Tier 2 accounts
These accounts call for a more targeted approach based on a commonality between them. It could be based on a specific persona (e.g., VPs of Sales in the SaaS industry), a specific technology that you integrate with, a specific competitor you have a good story against. After finding the commonality for this group, develop a multi-touch strategy that focuses on priorities or challenges, and how your solution can help.
Your ICP might be bigger than you think
Looking outside your ideal customer set could lead to fresh opportunities.
Insight 2
It's not you
i, it's your ICP
It's not you
i, it's your ICP
If you're in B2B sales and you also happen to sell software within and to tech companies, a few things are extremely obvious right now. It's crowded, the messaging is homogenous, and creating new opportunities is at least 9% harder than it should be:
Opportunity create rate in software 0.8%
vs.
The opportuni 9.
medianity create rate 8%
Activities opportunity in 50.7
per Software 7
vs.
The m per o
edian activities opportunity rate 7.3
This clogged pipeline is evident in several other industries we examined, including wholesale, hospitality, and travel.
Wholesale
62
6
activities per opportunity
26.2 activities per opportunity
So what are sales teams in these industries Selling outside of your typical Ideal Customer receptive audience.
do? One theory: move to a quieter room. Profiles (ICPs) could help you find a more
Industries that required activities per opportun our research period.
fewer ity during
| Industry | Median activities per opp |
|---|---|
| Energy & Utilities | 1.9 |
| Education | 3.1 |
| Real Estate | 1.3 |
| Retail | 1.3 |
Takeaways
Selling outside of your ICP could present opportunities for more conversations, provided you can sell your solution, however imperfect the fit.
1 A pitch that feels tired now could be reinvigorated by a new set of customers who haven’t been exposed to your value propositions and messaging yet.
2 Opening new opportunities can be incredibly inefficient for software companies due to the noise. But other industries have far less friction, including energy, healthcare, and entertainment.
Insight 2
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Silence is golden. Manage talk time.
Reps who resist the urge to dominate a conversation see better results.
Opportunity is calling
For salespeople, the phone is where the stakes get higher and emotions come into play. You’re live, engaging with another human being in real time. You might make mistakes. You might get rejected.
So why do it? Because the rewards can be enormous. A well-executed call can lead to meaningful conversations and, ultimately, more closed deals. Emailing will always have its place — it's safe, it's controlled, and you can craft your message carefully — but phone is where the magic happens in sales.
Let’s take a closer look at how often salespeople are connecting with buyers, and where top performers are standing out.
Call connect rate and talk time
Call connect rate
The average percentage of calls that were logged as connected.
Percentage of calls connected 100% 75% 50% 25% 0 12.2 23.1 14.2 SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
Talk time vs. listening time
The average talk time percentage for reps across Conversations data.
Average talk time 100% 75% 50% 25% 66.4% Listening 59.7% Listening 65.4% Listening Talking Talking Talking SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
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Revenue pros are listening now
more than ever and reviewing
calls so they don’t miss details
Recording plays per week
The average number of Conversations intelligence recordings played-- per week per user.
Average recording plays per week 30 20 14.5 17.4 10 7.7 SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
Pro Tip
Conversational intelligence: your secret coaching weapon
The best-performing revenue teams use playback from conversational intelligence as a powerful coaching tool. With playback capabilities, managers can be a fly on the wall during each rep’s sales conversations, allowing them to provide strategic, tailored coaching to close more deals faster. Plus, reps can be in charge of their own improvement by listening to top performers and learning best practices early on. Using CI as a coaching tool makes it easier and faster to build a world-class revenue team.
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Takeaways
- 1.
Top performing reps are masters at asking probing questions and learning from past exchanges with buyers. It’s critical that reps go back and review prior calls for training — and to ensure they didn’t miss anything that could delay deal closure.
- 2.
One misconception we hear is that phone and email are binary (after all, that’s how the data is cut). But best practices show that these two channels should be leveraged in unison, with social touches mixed in when applicable.
- 3.
Many of today’s sellers tend to avoid the phone because fewer people are in the office and they don’t have relevant cell phone numbers. However, using Salesloft’s data enrichment will extract phone numbers from OOO replies.
- 4.
For SDR/BDRs, the phone continues to be the best way to “get in touch” with prospects and customers across all of the industries we reviewed, greatly surpassing email replies.
4 tips for talking
1 Great sellers keep the customer engaged. Make sure you talk less than 49% of the time.
2 Be aware of monologuing, particularly during a product demo, and keep the buying team engaged.
3 If you encounter a question you don’t know the answer to, don’t fake it. @mention your manager or a technical resource so they can hear the context that is provided by the voice of the customer.
4 If you or someone on your team has an incredible call with a buyer, share the recording to help uplevel your peers. Then, depending on your sales tools, you can also save them into libraries to speed onboarding of new team members.
The deal is in the details
Perseverance and intention are the keys to successful selling in today’s market.
It’s tough out there
for salespeople
Take all of the macroeconomic factors from the news headlines and toss in trends like increasing competition, higher buyer expectations, and a more complex buying process, and you have four formidable challenges to overcome.
To navigate deals successfully, sellers must invest the time and effort in relationship-building activities across various departments and levels within a customer’s organization.
But how many touches and activities does it take to win deals? And where are there opportunities to ratchet up win rates? Let’s discover more.
How hard do reps have
to work to win deals?
Inbound touches per region
The average number of steps for inbound candences.
Number of touches 15 10 7.3 8.3 7.5 8.6 5 0 APAC EMEA LATAM NAMER Region
Inbound touches by role
The average number of steps for inbound cadences. Note: CSM and AE inbound volumes are dramatically lower than SDRs. This is less significant due to the nature of their roles.
Number of touches 15 10 9.3 9.8 9.1 5 0 SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
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Insight 4
Activities per week per user
The weekly average for activities completed per users (emails, calls, and other steps).
Number of activities 152.2 150 100 50 30.6 68.8 SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
Activities per opportunity
The average number of activities it took to create an opportunity.
Number of activities 53.5 12.9 29.2 SDR/BDR Customer Success Account Executive/AM Role
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Insight 4
Win rates by region
The average number of closed won deals divided by open and closed deals.
Win rate percentage 100% 75% 50% 25% 0 29.9% 23.1% 65.1% 27.0% APAC EMEA LATAM NAMER Region
This data covers both new and existing business opportunities and spans all deal sizes. This is why the win rates are higher than the general rule of 20% (via The Weekly Pitch).
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Insight 4
Deal gaps
The average number of data points that could negatively affect a deal (e.g. missing info).
Number of data points 10 8 6 4 2 0 APAC EMEA LATAM NAMER Region
Defining terms
Deal gaps
Deal gaps are rule-based conditions that help identify risk within an opportunity. Examples of deal gaps would be: overdue close dates, a small number of stakeholders associated with the opportunity, or opportunities that haven’t been updated recently.
In Salesloft’s platform, deal gaps work in conjunction with our AI-powered Deal Engagement Score to draw attention to “at risk” opportunities.
Intentionality
Intentionality is the mutual accountability between a leader and a sales rep to keep opportunities up to date, address deal gaps, or low Deal Engagement Scores to proactively resolve issues in the selling cycle. This is especially important in an era where even the winnable deals are harder to pull across the line. If you haven’t already, consider setting up a list of formal expectations for your team to keep proper hygiene in the pipeline.
Takeaways
1 Deal gaps are leading indicators of pipeline health across metrics like age, stage, velocity, stakeholders, and more. The lower the number of gaps, the more likely a deal is to close.
2 With the economy impacting deal volume, reps seem more focused on the technical aspects of selling to de-risk narrow pipelines. Transactional motions typically demand higher win rates than 20%, and seat-based subscription services are seeing smaller new deals and shrunken upgrades without a large portfolio to sell. It’s paramount to give your team context based on your unique sales process — from first touch through post sale.
3 Intentionality at every single customer touch point is now the only way to win business. Successful sellers are proactive: they conduct thorough research on prospects, infuse value selling to address customer pain points, and can win over decisionmakers all the way up to the C-suite.
Now it’s your turn to
put these benchmarks into practice
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Ask us anything Reach out to your Salesloft Rep.
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About Salesloft
Salesloft is the first AI-powered revenue workflow platform that brings certainty to every revenue action and customer interaction. Close more deals, forecast more accurately, and coach to success throughout your revenue organization. Thousands of the world’s top sales teams, like those at Google, 3M, IBM, Shopify, Square, and Cisco, drive more revenue with Salesloft.
For more information visit salesloft.com.
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Now it’s your turn to
put these benchmarks into practice
All links are interactive!
Ask us anything Contact Us
Follow Salesloft in
Read the full report Access Now
About Salesloft
Salesloft is the first AI-powered revenue workflow platform that brings certainty to every revenue action and customer interaction. Close more deals, forecast more accurately, and coach to success throughout your revenue organization. Thousands of the world’s top sales teams, like those at Google, 3M, IBM, Shopify, Square, and Cisco, drive more revenue with Salesloft.
For more information visit salesloft.com.
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