Nelson Viegas, Superior Training TechnologyNelson Viegas, Superior Training Technology
NV · Analysis No. 1

Analysis No. 1 · October 2026 · Nelson Viegas

Why salespeople don’t sell

Salespeople who don’t sell rarely fail on their own.

We brought together the strongest studies on poor sales performance, from academic meta-analyses to real CRM data. A salesperson who doesn’t sell is almost always the visible link in a chain that fails before them and around them.

69%

of salespeople fall short of quota.

Ebsta and Pavilion 2024, real CRM data from 530 companies1
67%

of B2B buyers prefer to buy without a salesperson.

Gartner 2026, survey of 646 buyers2
40–60%

of deals are lost to customer indecision.

Matt Dixon, about 2.5 million recorded conversations3
28–40%

of a salesperson’s time is spent selling.

Salesforce, several editions, self-reported4

27 sources · 4 layers · 8 conclusions · 12-minute read

A note before you start

I have worked in sales and sales training for more than twenty years. I often hear the same question: why doesn’t this salesperson sell? I wanted to answer it with evidence. I gathered the strongest studies I could find and read them with the suspicion of someone who has seen a lot of made-up numbers. Every number in this analysis has a public source, numbered at the end. The popular numbers that did not survive checking are in a separate section, so you can see why they were left out. I wrote The Best Seller for salespeople. This analysis is for the people who lead them.

Nelson ViegasFounder of Superior Training Technology

Summary

Eight conclusions

Ordered by the layer they belong to. Each one links to the evidence.

  1. 1

    The salesperson arrives late to a decision that is almost made.

    77% of buyers go with the supplier that was already their first choice.

    See the evidence →
  2. 2

    Buyers accept help. They reject irrelevance.

    73% avoid suppliers whose approach is irrelevant.

    See the evidence →
  3. 3

    The salesperson’s biggest competitor is customer indecision.

    Faced with a very indecisive customer, the average salesperson wins 6% of the time.

    See the evidence →
  4. 4

    Most miss quota, and the failure is structural.

    69% miss it, even after quotas fell by 19%.

    See the evidence →
  5. 5

    The system steals selling time.

    With little internal friction, quota attainment is 1.7 times higher.

    See the evidence →
  6. 6

    What sets the best apart can be learned.

    Sales knowledge and adaptability matter more than personality.

    See the evidence →
  7. 7

    Training without coaching fades, and coaching is rare.

    Only 26% of salespeople get one-to-one coaching every week.

    See the evidence →
  8. 8

    Management and incentives create part of the salesperson who doesn’t sell.

    A bonus tied to quota raised sales by 20%. Paid straight away, it cut them by 8%.

    See the evidence →
1

Layer 1 · The buyer has changed

The salesperson arrives when the choice is almost made.

Buyers research on their own, draw up a shortlist and pick a favourite before the first meeting.

77%

of buyers buy from the supplier that was already their first choice before speaking to anyone.

6sense 2025, about 4,000 buyers, vendor data5
+23%

more purchase regret among buyers who prefer to buy without a salesperson.

Gartner 2021, survey of B2B customers6
73%

actively avoid suppliers who send them irrelevant outreach.

Gartner 2025, 632 B2B buyers7

More and more buyers prefer to buy without a salesperson

B2B buyers who prefer to buy without a salespersonGartner: 43% in 2021, 61% in 2025 and 67% in 2026.0%25%50%75%100%43%2021no sample61%2025632 buyers67%2026646 buyers
Self-reportedGartner, surveys of B2B buyers, sources 6, 7 and 2. The 2025 and 2026 editions are comparable (632 and 646 buyers, fieldwork in August and September). The 2021 figure has no published sample.

Against an indecisive customer, the average salesperson almost never wins

CustomerAverage salespersonTop salesperson
Decided39%≈70%
Moderately indecisive26%58%
Deeply indecisive6%31%
Win rate by level of customer indecision. Interview with Matt Dixon on about 2.5 million recorded conversations. The source does not describe the method (source 3).

By the time buyers speak to the first salesperson, they have already done about 61% of the journey on their own and ranked the suppliers5. The sale is decided before the meeting, by reputation, content and references.

Buying without a salesperson has a cost. Buyers who combine the supplier’s digital tools with a salesperson are 1.8 times more likely to complete a high-quality deal8. What buyers reject is the salesperson who repeats the website. 59% say salespeople don’t take the trouble to understand their business9.

When a deal doesn’t close, the most common opponent is the customer’s own fear of getting it wrong. That is exactly where the gap between the average and the top salesperson is widest.

What to do next week

  1. Review your last five lost opportunities and note at what point in the customer’s decision the team came in.
  2. Compare what the website promises with what your salespeople say in meetings. Fix the differences.
  3. In every stalled deal, ask what the customer is afraid of getting wrong. Work on that risk before going back to the product.
Read with care6sense sells software that detects buying intent, and its numbers reach us through a secondary source. Gartner confirms the direction, with published samples.
2

Layer 2 · The system steals time

Salespeople spend less than half their time selling.

Admin, approvals and too many tools eat into selling time. Almost everyone misses quota.

1.7×

more quota attained by salespeople with little internal friction than by those with a lot.

Gartner 2022, 908 B2B salespeople10
−45%

lower likelihood of hitting quota among salespeople who feel overwhelmed.

Gartner 2024, 1,026 B2B salespeople11
−19%

in average quotas. Even so, 69% of salespeople fell short of them.

Ebsta and Pavilion 2024, CRM data, vendor1

In no edition does selling time reach half

Share of time salespeople spend sellingSalesforce State of Sales: about 34% in 2018, 28% in 2022, about 30% in 2024 and 40% in 2026.0%20%40%60%≈34%2018indirect28%20227,775≈30%20245,50040%20264,050half the time
Self-reportedShare of time salespeople say they spend selling, by survey year, with the number of responses below. Salesforce, State of Sales, sources 12, 4, 9 and 13. Samples and countries change between editions. The 2018 figure comes from a secondary source. Salesforce sells software for this problem.

The rest of the time goes on admin, data entry and preparation, spread across ten tools on average. 66% of salespeople feel overwhelmed by them4.

Gartner identifies four causes of friction, all of them organisational. They are admin work that adds no value, a lack of development, feeling replaceable and weak feedback from managers. 89% of salespeople say they are burned out10.

Lowering quotas did not fix it. Among SDRs, only 60% hit quota, the lowest figure in the series, with meeting quotas 40% lower than in 201814. When almost everyone fails, the cause cannot lie only with the individual.

What to do next week

  1. Ask each salesperson for their actual diary from last week and count the hours spent with customers.
  2. Pick one internal approval or one report that nobody uses and get rid of it.
  3. Ask the team which tool they would drop tomorrow. If the answer is unanimous, drop it.
Read with careThese are associations from surveys. The salesperson who sells little may also be the one who feels most overwhelmed, and the cause can run both ways.
3

Layer 3 · What sets sellers apart

What sets the best apart can be learned.

Academic research puts sales knowledge, adaptability and role clarity ahead of personality.

18 vs 2

meetings a month for the top quartile against the average salesperson, from the same 800 calls.

Gong 2024, 300 million calls, vendor data15
0.04

is the correlation between cognitive ability and actual sales. With the manager’s rating, it is 0.40.

Vinchur et al. 1998, meta-analysis16
60%

of call time is the salesperson talking. It rises to 62% in lost deals.

Gong 2025, 326,000 calls, vendor data17

The five factors that weigh most on performance

Correlation of five factors with sales performanceSales knowledge 0.28; adaptability 0.27; role ambiguity minus 0.25; cognitive aptitude 0.23; work engagement 0.23.0.00.10.20.3Sales knowledge0.28Adaptability0.27Role ambiguitynegative relationship−0.25Cognitive aptitudeonly 12 effects0.23Work engagement0.23
AcademicCorrelation with sales performance, corrected for reliability. Meta-analysis of 268 studies, 79,747 salespeople and 4,317 organisations (1982–2008), source 18. Together, the five factors explain 32% of the variance. The performance measure mixes ratings and sales.

With the same effort, the best get nine times as many meetings. The difference lies in behaviour.

The three biggest factors can be taught or managed. Role ambiguity looks like a flaw in the salesperson, but it is a failure of the organisation, because they don’t know what is expected of them. Adaptive selling improves objective sales. Customer orientation, when it is only a stated attitude, improves only self-rated performance19.

Buyers say the same thing in other words. The factor that most separates the winner from the runner-up is bringing them new ideas and perspectives20.

What to do next week

  1. Sit in on one meeting with each salesperson and time how long they talk and how long the customer talks.
  2. For each sales role, write down three expected results and three expected behaviours. Hand them over.
  3. Choose one skill to train this month in short, repeated sessions.
Read with careGong’s data comes from Gong customers, mostly software companies in the US. The talk ratio may reflect reverse causality, because an interested customer talks more.
4

Layer 4 · Management

Management creates part of the salesperson who doesn’t sell.

It picks managers on the wrong criteria, does little coaching and designs incentives that hold back effort.

26%

of salespeople get one-to-one coaching at least once a week.

Salesforce 2022, 7,775 professionals, self-reported4
+20%

in sales with a bonus tied to a quota. The same amount paid straight away lowered performance by 8%.

Chung and Narayandas, field experiment with 80 salespeople21
131

companies studied promote the best salesperson even when other traits better predict a good manager.

Benson, Li and Shue 2019, salesperson microdata22

The more structured the coaching, the more deals won

Win rate by type of coachingCSO Insights 2017: random 43.6%, informal 50.9%, formal 58.8%, dynamic 66.1%; average 51.8%.0%20%40%60%80%43.6%Random50.9%Informal58.8%Formal66.1%Dynamicaverage51.8%
Self-reportedWin rate of forecast deals, by type of coaching. CSO Insights 2017, about 500 participants, source 23. Only 30.3% of companies had formal or dynamic coaching.

A manager who was chosen on the wrong criteria and is overloaded does not coach. 58% of sales managers say they cannot get through their tasks24. The effect of coaching is concentrated in the middle 60% of the team, with gains of up to 19% in quota, according to CEB, via a secondary source25.

Training delivered as a one-off event is lost without follow-up. Experimental research shows that practice repeated and spaced out over time is retained better26.

On incentives, quarterly bonuses give the weakest a rhythm, and commission above quota keeps the best working27. A plan with no milestones and no accelerator produces the salesperson who slows down.

What to do next week

  1. Book 30 minutes of one-to-one coaching every week with each salesperson in the middle of the rankings.
  2. Open the incentive plan. Check that it has quarterly milestones and no cap above quota.
  3. Before the next promotion to team leader, assess the ability to manage, not just the volume sold.
Read with careThe CSO Insights data is self-reported and the authors themselves talk about correlation. Companies with good coaching are probably better at other things too.

Numbers without a source

The numbers we didn’t use

These numbers have appeared in training courses and presentations for decades. We traced each one back to its origin. None passed.

80% of sales close after the 5th contactNo source

The cascade comes from a 1942 survey of one regional chapter, with fewer than 40 responses and no surviving copy. The author of the most cited version deleted the sentence in 2025.

Follow the trail ↗
44% of salespeople give up after one follow-upDistorted

It comes from a 1987 book, with no survey and no sample. It was about giving up after a “no”, which is a different behaviour.

Follow the trail ↗
87% of training is forgotten within 30 daysNo method

In 1990 Rackham cited an internal Xerox study from 1979, with no published method, on training without coaching. The 84%-in-90-days variant has no source.

Follow the trail ↗
Buyers complete 57% of the process before talking to salesDistorted

It is one point on a 2012 CEB chart. The survey has never been found, not even by CEB. Better data exists today, and we used it in layer 1.

Follow the trail ↗
Only 3% of buyers trust salespeopleNo source

The HubSpot article with that headline does not contain the number. The population was “people” and became “B2B buyers” in the copies.

Follow the trail ↗
Social sellers are 51% more likely to hit quotaNo method

It is an “internal study” by LinkedIn, with no sample or time period. The company that sells the tool is measuring the effect of its own index.

Follow the trail ↗
93% of communication is non-verbal (7-38-55)Distorted

The 1967 studies used students and messages in which words and tone contradicted each other. They say nothing about a sales meeting.

Follow the trail ↗
Calling within 5 minutes brings 100 times more salesDistorted

The study measured the likelihood of contacting and qualifying web leads, not closed sales. It was funded by a calling-software vendor.

Follow the trail ↗

Quick diagnostic

Test your sales team

Eight questions, two per layer. Answer for what happens today, not what is on paper.

Layer 1 · Question 1Do your salespeople get into opportunities before the customer has a shortlist of suppliers?
Layer 1 · Question 2In a stalled deal, can the team say what the customer is afraid of getting wrong?
Layer 2 · Question 3Do your salespeople spend more than half their time with customers?
Layer 2 · Question 4Does a typical deal move forward without needing more than one internal approval?
Layer 3 · Question 5Does each sales role have its expected results and behaviours in writing?
Layer 3 · Question 6In customer meetings, does the customer talk more than the salesperson?
Layer 4 · Question 7Does each manager have a one-to-one coaching session with each salesperson every week?
Layer 4 · Question 8Does the incentive plan have quarterly milestones and no cap above quota?
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Method

How we made this analysis

  1. Evidence, not opinion

    Every conclusion rests on published studies. The author’s experience guides the questions and the suggested actions.

  2. Every number has a numbered public source

    The superscript number takes you to the source, with its sample, method and a link to the original.

  3. We classify each source by type

    Academic, analyst, vendor or survey. When a vendor measures the problem its product solves, we say so.

  4. When studies disagree, we show both

    In CRM data, 69% miss quota. According to salespeople themselves, 84%9.

The limits of this analysis

We found no data specific to Portugal or to Portuguese-speaking markets. Salesforce includes Portugal in its 2026 sample but does not publish results by country. Most of the data is North American and much of it comes from software companies. Outside incentives and manager promotion, there is little experimental evidence. The rest are associations observed in surveys and company data.

Sources

27 sources, in order of citation

Academicpeer-reviewed journal Analystresearch firm Vendorsells a solution to the problem it measures Surveyconsultancy or association, self-reported data
  1. 1
    VendorEbsta and Pavilion. B2B Sales Benchmarks 2024, 2024. 530 companies, 4.2 million opportunities, real CRM and interaction data (2021–2023). open ↗
  2. 2
    AnalystGartner. Gartner Sales Survey Finds 67% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Experience, 2026. Survey of 646 B2B buyers, August and September 2025. open ↗
  3. 3
    AnalystMatt Dixon, interview with CustomerThink. The problem of customer indecision and how to get over it, 2022. About 2.5 million recorded sales conversations, analysed with machine learning; method not described in the source. open ↗
  4. 4
    VendorSalesforce. State of Sales, 5th edition, 2023. Survey of 7,775 sales professionals in 38 countries, August and September 2022, self-reported. open ↗
  5. 5
    Vendor6sense, via CustomerThink. 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Study, 2025. About 4,000 responses plus 766 supplementary ones, survey; secondary source. open ↗
  6. 6
    AnalystGartner. Gartner Says B2B Sales Organizations Need to Give Customers a Seamless Experience, 2021. Surveys of about 1,000 and 1,100 B2B customers (Nov.–Dec. 2020); the 43% figure has no published sample. open ↗
  7. 7
    AnalystGartner. Gartner Sales Survey Finds 61% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Buying Experience, 2025. Survey of 632 B2B buyers, August and September 2024. open ↗
  8. 8
    AnalystGartner. The B2B Buying Journey, n.d. 148 people involved in technology purchases, survey. open ↗
  9. 9
    VendorSalesforce. State of Sales, 6th edition, 2024. Survey of 5,500 professionals in 27 countries, March and April 2024, self-reported. open ↗
  10. 10
    AnalystGartner. Gartner Sales Survey Finds Nearly 90% of Sellers Report Feeling Burned Out, 2022. Survey of 908 B2B salespeople, December 2021 to January 2022. open ↗
  11. 11
    AnalystGartner. Gartner Sales Survey Reveals Sellers Who Partner with AI Are 3.7 Times More Likely to Meet Quota, 2024. Survey of 1,026 B2B salespeople, January to March 2024. open ↗
  12. 12
    VendorSalesforce, via Clearbit. State of Sales, 3rd edition, 2018. Figure cited by a secondary source; the 4th edition confirms “a third of the time”. open ↗
  13. 13
    VendorSalesforce. State of Sales, 7th edition, 2026. Survey of 4,050 professionals in 22 countries, including Portugal, August and September 2025. open ↗
  14. 14
    SurveyThe Bridge Group. 2025 SDR Models & Metrics Report, 2025. 351 B2B companies, 78% in North America and 83% in software; survey of companies. open ↗
  15. 15
    VendorGong Labs. The hidden power of cold calling: insights from 300M calls, 2024. 300 million cold calls by Gong customers, measured. open ↗
  16. 16
    AcademicVinchur, Schippmann, Switzer and Roth. A meta-analytic review of predictors of job performance for salespeople, Journal of Applied Psychology, 1998. Meta-analysis; separates manager ratings from objective sales (abstract consulted). open ↗
  17. 17
    VendorGong Labs. Mastering the talk-to-listen ratio in sales calls, 2025. 326,000 sales calls lasting 10 minutes or more, measured. open ↗
  18. 18
    AcademicVerbeke, Dietz and Verwaal. Drivers of sales performance: a contemporary meta-analysis, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2011. 268 studies, 79,747 salespeople, 4,317 organisations (1982–2008). open ↗
  19. 19
    AcademicFranke and Park. Salesperson adaptive selling behavior and customer orientation: a meta-analysis, Journal of Marketing Research, 2006. 155 samples, more than 31,000 salespeople (abstract consulted). open ↗
  20. 20
    VendorRAIN Group. Top 10 Factors Separating Sales Winners from the Rest, c. 2013. More than 700 B2B purchases, from the buyer’s perspective. open ↗
  21. 21
    AcademicChung and Narayandas, Harvard Business School. Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment, 2013. Field experiment with 80 salespeople at an Indian company; causal evidence. open ↗
  22. 22
    AcademicBenson, Li and Shue. Promotions and the Peter Principle, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2019. Salesperson microdata from 131 US companies. open ↗
  23. 23
    SurveyCSO Insights (Miller Heiman Group). 2017 Sales Enablement Optimization Study, 2017. About 500 participants, self-reported; the authors talk about correlation. open ↗
  24. 24
    AnalystGartner. Gartner Says High-Performing Sales Managers Prioritize…, 2020. Survey of more than 300 sales managers. open ↗
  25. 25
    AnalystCEB (now Gartner), via Selling Power. Strengthen your core, 2013. Sample for the 19% figure not stated; secondary source for a 2011 HBR blog post. open ↗
  26. 26
    AcademicCepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted and Rohrer. Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: a review and quantitative synthesis, Psychological Bulletin, 2006. Synthesis of 317 experiments. open ↗
  27. 27
    AcademicChung, Steenburgh and Sudhir. Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans, Marketing Science, 2014. Structural model using data from one company. open ↗

Salespeople who don’t sell rarely fail on their own. Fixing the system around them is in your hands.

Talk to Nelson Analysis No. 1 · October 2026 · Nelson Viegas · Superior Training Technology

Illustrative example

NAPA diagnosis — a commercial-leadership role

Based on a real report. Shows the reading by domain for the role, not the diagnosis’ full numeric values.

Revenue Strategy & PredictabilityStrong
KPIs & Revenue PerformanceConsolidating
Customer JourneyTo assess
Sales LeadershipTo develop
Leadership & TeamTo develop
Stakeholder OrchestrationTo develop
Negotiation & PartnershipsTo develop

The same domains, as a radar chart

Current levelRole requirement
RevenueStrategyKPIs &PerformanceCustomerJourneySalesLeadershipLeadership &TeamOrchestrationNegotiation
Diagnosis by domain, current level and role requirement
DomainCurrent levelRole requirement
Revenue Strategy & Predictability8885
KPIs & Revenue Performance6480
Customer Journey5070
Sales Leadership3685
Leadership & Team3875
Stakeholder Orchestration3480
Negotiation & Partnerships3378