U.S. Sales Reps Lagging Behind European Counterparts

Sales representatives in Europe are achieving quota more often than their U.S. counterparts, according to the latest research from XANT Labs. I discussed this aspect in my column in Forbes magazine, showing why sales reps in Europe are achieving better results. And it’s as simple as their day to day activity.

The “State of Sales 2017” study covers 1,151 companies in U.S. and 28 countries in Europe and shows that companies are doing to accelerate sales.

The combined research of all countries shows an average of 60.9% of all sales account executives are attaining quota, with the U.S. attaining an average of 58.4% and Europe averaging 65.0%.

European Sales Reps are 11.3% Better at Attaining Quota Than U.S.

Inside sales is growing rapidly in Europe, along with as overall sales productivity. While U.S. reps are using more basic activities, their European counterparts are posting more meaningful stats in areas that relate to actual sales conversations and close ratios.

The research results are showing that the U.S. is doing less effective prospecting work that isn’t showing up in actual sales progress when compared against Europe. Why?

U.S. sales reps are expanding their prospecting activities to include email, phone, voicemail, and social media far more than their Europe counterparts with 97.3 average activities per day in the U.S. versus 86.5 for Europe (11.1% more.).

However, there are The State of Sales study shows there’s something sales reps in Europe are doing to improve their quota attainment rates.

Phone Call versus Email – We Have a Winner

Sales representatives in Europe focus quite a bit more on using the phone than email. About 35.7 percent of their activities are phone calls versus 30.9 percent of the US sales activities.

Phone calls result in much stronger sales conversations than email. European sales reps have 12.2 meaningful conversations per day, versus 10.6 for the U.S. – a whopping increase of 15.1%.

This means they are having richer conversations, which seem to be assisting in the closure of more sales.

The other obvious element of the sale that may be a factor would be sales skills in bringing closure to the sale, though it was not an element of this study.

Download the State of Sales 2017 Study

The study was done in partnership with the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP), as well as Top Sales World, and the Association of Professional Sales (APS) who contributed access to a much-expanded database of companies in Europe.

You can find the full executive summary is available here.

This research report is incredibly telling on the state of sales today. I’ll discuss these results and other research in my columns on Forbes Magazine.

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