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PRESS RELEASES |
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Silent Edge, the UK sales performance authority, today releases new research – based on objectively benchmarking the closing rates of 1000 UK business-to-business sales teams - which demonstrates that only 20%, or 1 in 5, deals between companies ever get closed in the UK each year. Silent Edge has been objectively and statistically evaluating the sales capability of sales forces across the UK for the past four years. The company’s data over that 4 year period states that, in an average year, 80% of deals do not get closed. The data encompasses UK businesses with a turnover of £1m+, from SMEs through to FTSE 100 companies. Russell Ward, Chief Executive of Silent Edge, comments: “These figures should be cause for concern among Sales Directors. If 80% of deals go missing each year, it means UK salesteams are running just to stand still. Part of the problem is the lack of focus on closing skills among many sales teams. Our data shows that sales teams in the UK are stronger on product knowledge, company background, etc. than they are at closing down deals and getting the prospect to sign on the dotted line.” “If so much of the average firm’s sales and marketing resource is being wasted, we need to identify the reasons why. In most of the cases we’ve seen, it’s actually more the fault of the training process than incompetence. We seem to labour under the delusion that great salespeople are born not made, and as a result, most sales training takes the ‘throw mud against the wall and hope some of it sticks’ format. It is often not relevant to the individual, does not take into account individual competency level or motivate them to want to change their behaviour to make sure more deals get closed.” |