The 2022 Field Sales Benchmark Report is now available! This second annual survey by Map My Customers reveals the state of the field sales profession, trends in sales roles, sales time management, key sales statistics, and how technology impacts the way teams operate.
Unlocking the ability to streamline your processes, maximize productivity, and close more deals starts first with understanding how sales professionals operate in their roles. We asked nearly
200 sales professionals to share their insights about responsibilities, behaviors, compensation, and their technologies. We are excited to share these insights with you to help your team discover standards and best practices in the field sales profession.
About the Report
Map My Customers asked over 200 sales professionals about the state of the industry. Respondents from all across the United States weighed in to share their insights about the state of the field sales profession along with their daily habits and behaviors. Sales reps, leaders, and influencers of all levels of experience and across a wide variety of industries responded, including manufacturing, construction, pharmaceutical, medical, financial, and food and beverage.
Sales Experience
Inside sales reps on average have seven years tenure, which is up five years from 2021, while outside sales reps have 4.8 years tenure. These reps average 19 years of sales experience overall. Ten percent of sales reps have over 30 years experience—that’s a generation that will be retiring soon.
These sales statistics serve as a good reminder to the whole industry to have succession planning in place, to ensure a smooth transition when reps retire so you’re not scrambling when you need someone new. You can do this by making a plan (defining the skills, roles, and experiences needed for a successor), identifying high-potential employees that are good succession candidates, informing them, and preparing them for the future by giving them professional development opportunities.
A Typical Week
As for sales metrics on how sales teams spend their week, respondents reported spending 21 hours driving in their typical work week. And keep in mind all this work in the field is happening in spite of the explosion of Zoom and other virtual meeting platforms over the last couple of years. And naturally, most people still prefer making big-ticket purchases face to face, from someone they’ve built some kind of relationship with. Lots of in-person sales calls are still common for reps in recent years. Just last year, 14% of reps reported more than 40 hours of windshield time per week. This is time that can be used to make hands-free calls or listen to sales podcasts!
And sales reps are spending 7.7 hours per week doing admin work in 2022, which is down from 11 in 2021. They spend four to five days a week in the field (which is up from 3.9 days in 2021), and make between 10 and 19 weekly visits to prospects.
Prospecting
96% of reps in 2022 report having to do their own sales prospecting, which is up even higher from last year’s 90%.
Many of these reps report that they don’t have a sales prospecting strategy from their company. But some use a tool like the Lead Finder functionality within Map My Customers.
Lead Finder finds you new prospects along your route while you’re on the go and optimizes your lead generation while you’re in the field. Within the feature, you can learn about the prospects, including their contact information and hours, and new accounts can be synced back into your CRM. Lead Finder allows you to fill in gaps in your schedule while on the go, and make it easier to find new sales opportunities.
CRM and ERP Tools
Companies report spending $7,722 of their sales budgets per sales rep on sales tech in 2022. And companies’ overall tech sales budgets are up too, now at $39,000 in 2022, up from $27,000 in 2021. This budget is often spent on things like:
- A CRM
- Sales enablement tools
- Communication and collaboration
- Business apps
- Print services
- Enterprise resource planning software
- Servers
- Storage and backup
- Cybersecurity
23% of teams this year (that’s an increase from last year) are using a spreadsheet or no CRM to store their customer data rather than a CRM or ERP, according to the report.
Why don’t more teams use a CRM? Some may have one at their disposal but not be properly trained on it. Maybe spreadsheets have been working just fine for them, or they don’t see the value in a CRM. Perhaps they think it’s too complicated or the one they’ve got isn’t customizable, so it doesn’t match up with their sales process.
But the sales statistics from this portion of the report illustrate a clear instance in which a CRM would come in handy–sales reps report that in 2022, they’re responsible for 454 accounts. This is up from 315 in 2021. But interestingly, sales leaders report lower sales metrics. They think on average, their reps are responsible for just 172 accounts.
Using software can ensure that there’s no confusion here and give sales leaders an accurate understanding of how many and what accounts their reps are working on.
Similarly, sales leaders report that 62% of their team reliably hits their quota, which is down from 64% in 2021. However, there’s a discrepancy here too, with sales reps reporting their sales performance as hitting their quotas 75% of the time.
But 64% of teams are using their CRM or ERP as their primary tool for storing customer data, which is up from 60% in 2021. More are relying on a CRM to improve sales performance, and, as the report says, “These centralized systems of record take individual knowledge and make it shareable and actionable across the entire business.”
Get the Full Report
The Field Sales Benchmark Report is full of actionable insights to better understand your team and the sales professional. Use this information to make informed decisions about succession planning, headcount, tech budgets, sales enablement tools, and more!
Download the 2022 Field Sales Benchmark Report here, and check out the sales insights you and your team can take into account this year!
