Shifting as little as 10 minutes a week to more productive selling time is worth $57,000 per year, per rep
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., November 13, 2008 – Lee Levitt will be delivering the keynote speech at the annual SAVO Executive Summit in Chicago, November 13, 2008, where he will highlight findings from the IDC Sales Advisory Practice�s recent sales enablement research.
For the IT vendor community, sales productivity is more important than ever before. For the past year, it has been the key issue faced by most technology companies and, with the current state of the economy, sales productivity and efficiency will only become more important to sales and marketing executives and the executive teams running large companies.
Sales enablement, which IDC defines as the broad set of activities that prepare members of the sales team (including channel partners) for success in sales engagements, is a key lever for sales productivity. Despite this, most companies have not moved beyond first or second generation sales enablement strategies.
“In addition to the staggering 26% of their week spent on administrative tasks, we find that sales professionals are spending, on average, 2.3 hours a week searching for marketing collateral; 5.8 hours a week searching for customer related information; and another 6.4 hours a week creating presentations,” Levitt noted. “In short, they spend a third of their potential selling time in sales preparation activities that could be done better by automated systems and improved processes.”
“IDC research further suggests that shifting as little as 10 minutes a week from this unproductive time to productive selling time is worth $57,000 per year in increased revenues for an enterprise sales professional,” Levitt added.
Better sales enablement processes will have a profound impact on sales productivity. IDC found that “time to revenue” drops from months to weeks for organizations that have moved to “third generation” sales enablement environments. With more attention to enablement, sales people feel empowered, they perform better, and customer satisfaction increases.
For more information, or to participate in the IDC Sales Enablement Assessment and best practices research, please contact Lee Levitt at [email protected]
About IDC Sales Advisory Practice
The Sales Advisory Practice, a part of IDC�s Executive Advisory Group, helps IT sales executives and their operational counterparts calibrate organizational and infrastructure investments based on revenue, expense, and productivity benchmarks. The Sales Advisory Practice also provides critical insights and research-based advice to strengthen sales strategy and performance. Our mission is to provide clients with the most comprehensive and thorough research on sales performance and productivity, as well as insights to garner the necessary resources to successfully manage selling organizations. To learn more about IDC’s Sales Advisory Practice, please visit http://www.science-of-selling.com/.