Business to business (B2B) sales differs from selling to consumers as often there is a longer time span between buyers discovering the product and payment. B2B sales are also more complicated because you’re usually dealing with multiple teams within the buying company.

With this in mind, the average sale cycle for B2B is up to 8 months, which reveals the complexity of selling online and how long it can take to close a deal.

Whether you are in the early stages of creating a sales process or looking to see what gaps you have in your execution, there is always a way to optimise.

Benchmarking is the first step to figuring out where you can improve or adjust. You shouldn't view these sales statics as the be-all and end-all. It is far better to get an idea of how others are performing based on industry reports rather than use these as a checklist for what you should be doing.

That's because it does not take into account factors such as your product, price, market, company size etc that may affect your results.

Hopefully your (B2B) sales team is making great progress but if you're looking to optimise sales processes and benchmark any areas of weakness this post is for you. It's packed full of useful B2B sales statistics that help you benchmark performance, highlight opportunities for improvement and boost your B2B sales.

So without further ado…

Buying Journey Stats‍‍

• In companies with 100-500 employees, an average of 7 people are involved in most buying decisions. (Gartner Group)

So make sure your sales reps don’t just have one point of contact for each deal that’s in their pipeline, the more people involved the higher the likelihood it will convert.

There are two questions you need to ask yourself here;
1) Do you know your average sales cycle length?
2) How do you stack up against these averages?

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trumpet has helped sales teams speed up their sales cycles by 28% and is free to use.

Just like eating out, the service we receive is one of the most influential parts of a buying decision yet so many companies ignore the buyer’s experience. When was the last time you mapped out and evaluated the buyer’s journey to see if there were any flaws or areas where you could improve? It might be time if not.

Sales Tech Stack Stats 

• 76% of B2B sales reps say that sales technology is critical to closing deals.
  
  What does your sales tech stack look like outside of your CRM system? Are you using Gong for coaching, Mixmax for email automation or Lusha for email verification? It’s time to invest in your team so that they can stay competitive and deliver a stand-out buying experience.
  
  You can try trumpet out for free and increase your deal conversion rate by 35%

• 60% of sales teams use five or more sales technologies

Findings from conversation and revenue intelligence platform, Jiminny, found sales teams are using 5+ tools on average in addition to their CRM.

With more and more tools available, to complete a multitude of tasks, it’s great to see teams embracing automation in effective areas of their sales process so reps can focus on the value-added activities.
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• 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally (IDC)

You better not be using paper and killing trees. Documents can be signed electornically using the likes of DocuSign, sales demos can be performed with platforms such as DemoDesk and proposals can be sent and interacted with by the buyer using trumpet.
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• The average employee receives 200 emails per day, of which 24% have attachments and only 6% are actually accessed.

This means that 94% of those delivered attachments will never be touched. Does your sales team know if the presentations and proposals they spent hours making were even opened? trumpet not only gives you these insights but also helps to continue the conversation with buyers through interactive digital sales pods.

• 75% of consumers expect companies to leverage technology for their benefit

Are you making it easy for buyers to book a demo, trial your software and even purchase it? Sometimes it’s easy to assume so but why not try it out yourself and go through the buyer journey with your own team, you might be surprised at what you uncover.
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• Companies that automate lead management see a 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months (Gartner)
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Automation is the top buzzword in sales lately and it should be as it’s saving salespeople time so they can focus on building relationships, expanding their expertise through training and perfecting their pitch.

Automation also doesn’t mean that your high standards will be dropped, you can easily personalise the buyer experience with tools like SalesLoft for email sequencing and Dux-Soup for LinkedIn outreach.

• High-performing sales teams use nearly three times the amount of sales technology than underperforming teams.

Is your sales team exceeding targets time and time again? If not, have you supported them with the right tools and software they need to excel?

• 9/10 B2B buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on purchasing decisions.

Salespeople aren’t designers but are expected to personalise presentations, proposals and decks for buyers. trumpet can help you to create beautiful digital sales pods that are also automatically branded in a few clicks, saving you hours every week. 

Outreach Stats

• 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up (Scripted)

How many emails are you sending on average to each lead? 2? 3? 5? More? Well you might be surprised to know that 93% of converted leads respond on the 6th attempt (Velocify)
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• Emails sent on a Tuesday have the highest open rate compared to other weekdays. (Experian)

Mondays

• The best times to email prospects are at 8am and 3pm (GetResponse)

This doesn’t mean you should only email leads at these times, but it might be worth comparing this data to your own to see how it works for you. 

Social Stats

• The top salespeople use LinkedIn at least 6 hours per week (The Sales Management Association)

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With 800 million users, LinkedIn has to be part of every salesperson’s workflow. We wrote an article [LINK] on the top sales influencers to follow who can inspire you further to use this valuable platform.

• 73% of salespeople using social selling as part of their sales process outperform their sales peers and exceeded quota 23% more often (Aberdeen)

You need to be where your buyers are and if that means creating a Twitter, LinkedIn or even a TikTok account then there should be no better incentive than knowing that you can exceed your quota. 

Referral Stats

•  91% of customers say they’d give referrals. Only 11% of salespeople ask for referrals. (Dale Carnegie)

If you don’t ask, you don’t get!

•  84% of B2B decision-makers begin their buying process with a referral (Sales Benchmark Index)

Building strong relationships with buyers goes beyond closing the deal and it can pay dividends in the long term. 

There we have it, our top 17 B2B sales statistics. You can use these to get a sense of where your sales processes rank, compared to industry standards, and perhaps how much room for improvement there is.

The main takeaway? Embracing digitisation in sales and leveraging new technologies is undoubtedly the most effective way to increase your competitiveness and sales performance.