41 Important Sales Enablement Statistics for 2023

Sales enablement is the strategy of providing the sales reps with all the tools and ability to make a sale as quickly and efficiently as possible.

In bigger companies, executives are implementing sales enablement teams to build structure around sales teams. A sales enablement strategy typically offers content help, customer journey assistance, relevant training, and software tools with the end goal of increasing sales.

In short, sales enablement helps the sales team by removing the often repetitive tasks that take away their time to close a deal.

For instance, creating an automated sales funnel is an excellent enablement tool that guides sales reps through the customer journey with as much guidance as possible.

Sales Enablement Statistics

With today’s sales and marketing tools, it’s easy to track metrics relating to sales performance, customer engagement, win rates, and more.

Over the course of the sales cycle, many parts are in play, which interconnect to run a smooth sales process. One of the best ways companies are doing this is through sales enablement solutions. Already, here are some key takeaways discovered through the widespread adoption of sales enablement programs:

1. The global sales enablement market size was just under $1 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach over $3 billion by 2026. (360 Research Reports)
2. 77% of companies with over 500 people have a sales enablement team. (Business2Community)
3. 76% of companies that implemented sales enablement strategies increased sales between 6 to 20%. (Business2Community)
4. Sales enablement increased in popularity by over 343% since 2016. (Learn.g2)

Sales enablement is growing at a faster rate each year, both in implementation and popularity, because it’s profitable. 

But as of right now, larger companies have adopted enablement programs. That can and will change in the future as smaller businesses find out the usefulness of sales enablement.

Sales Productivity

Productivity is how many top-performing companies measure priorities. How productive was the sales rep in closing the deal? How productive was their time spent? How productive was the marketer in creating the best content? The list goes on.

Sales productivity metrics have increased as more companies track these measurements digitally, sometimes using AI-powered machine learning software.

Here are some numbers that reveal the productivity associated with the sales process and enablement:

5. Sales reps only spend 35.2% of their time selling. (Inside Sales)
6. Only 58% of sales reps hit their quotas. (Inside Sales)
7. 61.3% of sales reps have a time management system in place but only 23% follow it. (Inside Sales)
8. The most common sales enablement productivity goal (44.9%) is in decreasing a new sales reps’ ability to reach full productivity. (Learn.g2)
9. Half of the sales reps’ time is wasted on prospecting that doesn’t lead to sales. (Learn.g2)
10. 58% of sales funnels stop working because the sales reps can’t offer more value. (Learn.g2)
11. A total of 440 hours per year is spent by sales reps looking for the best content to share with prospective customers. (Learn.g2)
12. 65% of sales reps believe a lack of time and resources are their biggest challenge. (Data Dwell)

As is clear, a lot of time is wasted, and quotas are not met. That’s mostly because sales reps either don’t have enough information or they don’t have the right information.

Sales enablement techniques, like having a closer relationship with marketing and more coaching, can solve this problem.

You may want to build a data-driven sales enablement team, which boosts productivity through the use of proven data techniques that can also track important productivity measurements.

Sales Training and Coaching

If you want to boost sales productivity, one of the best methods is through training new recruits in a faster and better way. Also, coaching existing sales reps can improve sales numbers and conversions.

13. 65% of sales reps found that the quality of their training strongly correlated to positive levels of engagement. (Spotio)
14. It takes about 10 months of training for a sales rep to become fully productive. (Spotio)
15. 84% of sales training is lost after 90 days without continued support. (Spotio)
16. A sales team’s win rate can improve by 30% with proper coaching. (Business2Community)
17. Only 43% of sales reps feel their training is effective. (Sales Management Association)
18. 49% of sales reps believe that their training and development is ineffective at improving low performers. (Sales Management Association)
19. Less than half, 42%, of sales reps have enough information before making calls to clients and leads. (Spotio)
20. If your employees don’t feel like they’re receiving the proper training and support, you risk losing more than half of them in a few years. (Learn.g2)
21. Companies with the best sales training methods can get new sales reps to full productivity over three months sooner than average. (Learn.g2)

Just like with life, you should always strive to learn at every step, no matter how old and experienced. In your business, this will have measurable financial benefits.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Content management is another major aspect of sales enablement. When the sales reps are dealing with potential and existing customers, they need to have perfect content at the right time.

This is where the marketing team steps forward, which delivers content in all-in-one, easy-to-reach places. Also, enablement programs allow marketers all the data they need to know to craft the best content.

22. 65% of sales reps can’t find the most relevant content to share with prospective clients. (Business2Community)
23. An estimated $1 trillion is wasted every year with sales and marketing teams being misaligned and productivity wasted. (Business2Community)
24. When the sales and marketing teams are aligned, they can increase the amount of closed deals by 67%. (Business2Community)
25. Only 35% of sales reps follow how effective their content is for prospective customers. (Learn.g2)
26. A 41% growth in quota attainment was reached when the sales and marketing teams aligned. (Learn.g2)
27. 1 in 5 sales reps said they don’t have enough resources for the sales process. (Data Dwell)
28. 45% of sales reps “frequently” lose leads because of their lack of content and resources. (Data Dwell)

Customer Service

One of those places where sales reps can find the right content is in a CRM (customer relationship management) program. These tools regulate and guide the sales rep’s ability to close that deal as efficiently as possible.

But more importantly, it allows sales reps to offer amazing customer service and a personalized experience.

29. Companies with sales enablement teams in place are more than half as likely to have a sales funnel closely aligned to the potential customer’s expectations. (Learn.g2)
30. 74% of customers choose the first company to add value during the customer’s journey. (Learn.g2)
31. Less than a third of customers feel like sales reps rise above their expectations. (Miller Heiman Group)
32. 55% of customers will pay more for better customer service. (Webinar)

Having great customer service is a win-win scenario since no customer wants to be treated rudely and every sales rep wants to close more deals.

Sales Management

Along with the sales reps and marketing team, sales enablement software saves the sales managers a lot of time.

For instance, powerful enablement tools can find and score leads, which saves managers a lot of time in assigning prospective customers to the appropriate sales rep.

33. 81% of sales managers said that content utilization is their top priority in productivity. (Spotio)
34. 65% of sales managers find lack of time to be the biggest problem in performing their duties. (Data Dwell)
35. 81% of sales and marketing teams don’t frequently audit their sales processes. (Data Dwell)
36. Sales managers who devote half of their time to coaching have sales reps that close 24% more deals. (Webinar)
37. 55% of C-level executives believe investing in sales enablement solutions is the top priority when trying to boost sales. (Brainshark)
38. When sales managers implement sales enablement best practices, 84% of their sales reps achieve their quotas. (Brainshark)

Sales managers and upper management are quickly figuring out the effectiveness of sales enablement programs as they increase the bottom line and create a more productive workplace.

Formal Sales Enablement Charter

In your sales organization, you will want to consider adopting a formal enablement charter, which will create a rigid structure in how to follow a certain sales enablement strategy. The results appear effective:

39. Teams with formal sales enablement charters succeed 12% more than those without a formal charter. (Sales Enablement Pro)
40. Teams with formal charters improve their quota attainments by 35%. (Sales Enablement Pro)
41. Companies with formal charters retain 15% more customers. (Sales Enablement Pro)

Applying this information sooner rather than later to your business is important if you want to achieve more sales, train your sales reps better, retain more customers, gain a bigger market share, and reduce wasted time spent.

In Conclusion

Sales enablement can not only improve sales productivity, but can also align other departments and improve the customer journey. Sales enablement is an effective way to manage end-goal sales solutions and work towards continuous improvement. Through the use of sales training and coaching, you can increase sales effectiveness and sales win-rates.