Generating leads seen as vital factor for sales success. But 45% of companies aren’t performing at lead generation, survey finds
B2B sales teams around the world are affected by a series of capability gaps that holds back their effectiveness, according to a new survey. According the State of Sales report, compiled by financial technology company DueDil, 89% of B2B sales professionals identify generating quality leads as a key factor that results in sales success. Graphic by Shutterstock.
However, only 55% of respondents said that their company was ‘very effective’ or ‘effective’ at generating leads – showing that many respondents don’t believe their company performs as well as required in an important part of the B2B sales process.
DueDil Head of Marketing Andrew Warren-Payne said: “The results show that although nearly everyone in B2B sales teams thinks lead generation is vital, only half of the respondents thought their companies were good at finding quality new prospects.
In order to improve performance and hit target, firms should re-evaluate if their lead generation process is as effective as it could be.”
DueDil’s State of Sales report is one of the largest vendor-led B2B sakes surveys ever conducted, surveying 1,435 respondents worldwide during Q3 2015. In addition to the capability gap outlined above, it finds that:
- Around 69% of companies meet their sales targets
- The biggest challenges faced in B2B sales are increasing the number of deals, and generating higher numbers of stronger leads
- More than one-third of companies are unprepared to deal with change across key areas of sales transformation
- Only 21% of respondents accelerated their sales pipeline in 2015