An AI Answer to the Disturbing State of Sales

As we move into the fall season, for many companies the strategic planning process for 2025 is starting to get under way. All functional areas within an organization start to put together a list of what they need to meet their expected goals for next year, as well as justification for the funds they will need in order to meet those objectives.

For my colleagues in sales, let me share some key data points you need to know and also share with executive management in order to justify the sales optimization investments that will be necessary in the next year to not just stem a disturbing trend but reverse it.

The metrics I want to share are from Sales Mastery’s new 2024 Sales Performance Scorecard (SPS) survey. Of the 75 metrics we gather as part of this annual study, two are very concerning. We asked sales executives to share the percentage of salespeople who achieved their most recent annual quota, and what percentage of the overall revenue plan their sales team achieved.

The average figures across all the participants came in at 49 percent and 83 percent, respectively. To put that in perspective, the figures were 54 percent and 87 percent a year ago. So for those of you who are feeling that selling is getting harder, there is clear data to back up your assumption.

This is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed, because if history is an indicator of future behavior, the vast majority of companies are going to be raising their revenue goals for next year. If sales teams are already struggling to achieve today’s targets, the odds are that sales performance will deteriorate further unless something dramatically changes.

Well, the SPS study surfaced what that might be. As part of the survey, we set up three cohorts: sales organizations that had implemented artificial intelligence for sales, those that were evaluating AI or planned to implement it in the next 12 months, and those that had no current interest in AI. We then asked each group to share what impact AI would have on sales in the next three years based on their current understanding of these new technology innovations.

Across all the study participants, 50 percent said that sales organizations without AI will be at a competitive disadvantage to competitors that are using it. But when we further segmented the data by the three cohorts, a more compelling trend emerged, seen in the chart below.

The feedback from organizations that are already leveraging AI for sales is overwhelmingly positive, with 85 percent seeing it as a competitive advantage compared to 39 percent seeing it that way among the firms in the evaluation stage and 30 percent among the firms with no current interest. When we further asked AI user companies to point to specific benefits they were already achieving, increases in both revenue per salesperson and win rates of forecast deals topped the list. When the sales teams with firsthand experience using AI for sales see it as a fundamental game changer, you would be wise to listen to them.

So as you go through the planning process for 2025, weave these data points into your thought process. Calculate what the impact on revenue will be if you do nothing new and experience another dip in sales performance. Then compare that to what could happen if you joined the emerging AI trend. Make sure executive management sees what the deltas look like so you maximize the odds of getting the budgets you need for 2025 and beyond. 

Jim Dickie is a research fellow for Sales Mastery, a research firm that specializes in benchmarking case study examples of how companies are leveraging technology to transform sales. He can be reached at jim@salesmastery.com or on X @jimdickie.

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