Business Opportunities Weblog

November 17, 2004 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

Most salespeople spend only 10 percent of their available time actually selling, according to the latest figures from Proudfoot Consulting’s annual sales force effectiveness study. The study also shows a serious disconnect between how sales people think they are spending their time and what is actually happening.

- Active selling - 10%
- Prospecting - 10%
- Problem Solving - 14%
- Downtime (e.g., personal phone calls and e-mails) - 17%
- Travel time - 18%
- Administration - 31%

“When you think about how critical sales performance is to a company’s top line, it is shocking how little time sales reps spend on what they were hired to do — sell,” said Luiz Carvalho, chief executive officer, Proudfoot Consulting

Despite the growing investments companies are making in sales training and technology, active selling time has not increased over the past year — in fact, time spent on administrative duties has grown by four points compared to last year’s study. Sales people in the study believe they spend 50 percent of their time actively selling, yet in reality, most of their day is spent on paperwork, travel and problem-solving for customers:

“Sales people are being pulled in too many directions,” said Carvalho.

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