Poor time management, regular rejections from leads, and a lack of understanding of the right target customer are just some of the many productivity-draining hurdles SDRs encounter daily.
You can solve each of these with the right processes, tools, and coaching.
This guide covers practical strategies for improving sales team performance and actionable ways to keep reps motivated.
What is sales efficiency?
Sales efficiency measures how effectively your sales team utilizes its available resources, primarily time, budget, and effort, to generate the maximum possible output, such as revenue, closed deals, or qualified opportunities. It's about achieving the best sales results with the lowest necessary investment of resources.
Why is tracking sales efficiency important?
Tracking sales efficiency is important for several critical reasons:
Provides visibility beyond revenue: Revenue growth shows your results. Efficiency metrics show whether your team worked smart or just worked hard. It shows whether your team is working smart or just working hard. You'll see which processes work, where resources go, and what baseline performance looks like.
Identifies bottlenecks and inefficiencies: Monitoring metrics like sales cycle length, lead response time, or conversion rates between stages helps pinpoint exactly where deals are stalling or where salespeople are struggling. This lets you diagnose and fix specific problems in your sales process or spot where reps need coaching.
Optimizes resource allocation: Efficiency data shows which activities, channels, or customer segments yield the best results for the effort and cost invested. This lets you allocate budget, time, and personnel more effectively, focusing resources where they drive the most revenue.
Improves forecasting accuracy: Teams with efficient, well-tracked processes have more predictable sales cycles and conversion rates. That means more reliable pipeline data and more accurate forecasts.
Increases profitability: Reduce wasted effort and lower CAC relative to LTV. You'll see higher profit margins and more sustainable revenue growth.
Supports scalability: Inefficient sales processes become increasingly costly and difficult to manage as a company grows. Tracking and optimizing efficiency lets your sales engine scale without costs ballooning.
9 common sales efficiency challenges
The goal is clear: improve sales efficiency. But several obstacles get in the way.
Sales teams face specific issues that drain resources, slow processes, and hurt revenue.
Here are the most common sales efficiency challenges: Here are some of the most common sales efficiency challenges:
Lack of automation
Sales reps end up tied to an unproductive work cycle between manual prospect research, data entry, and other admin tasks, spending less time on core selling activities.
As a result, reps can’t focus on their primary job: qualifying and nurturing leads.
HubSpot research shows sales reps spend only one-third of their time talking to prospects. The rest of it goes into writing emails (21%), entering data (17%), prospecting and researching leads (17%), and scheduling calls (12%).
💡Pro tip: A CRM automates many tasks and streamlines workflows, from choosing which leads to contact first to getting AI-backed suggestions on when to follow up with prospects.
For example, a good CRM automatically pulls prospect data from multiple sources. It can also track progress on each account by automatically logging in updates such as follow-up emails sent to prospect A, demo calls delivered to prospect B, etc.
Poor time management
Outreach calls take time, especially when SDRs are still learning to identify the best leads. These calls often go nowhere and demotivate reps.
What’s more, it’s not uncommon to see SDRs focusing too much on a lead that never converts, all while delaying closing a warm lead.
Sales professionals need better time management to avoid wasting hours on low-value activities.
Struggling to follow the sales script
A sales script is a performance shortcut. It helps reps focus on proven strategies and tactics that deliver results.
The problem: not all SDRs realize the sales script's potential, so they don't use it consistently.
Lack of customer understanding
Not knowing who to target makes SDRs inefficient.
Without a clear ICP, sales reps waste time chasing the wrong leads.
It also means there's a high risk of losing warm leads because reps don't reach out in time.
No data or bad data for target accounts
Manually researching target account data can be time-consuming and error-prone.
Some sales intelligemce tools don't refresh data in time. Sales professionals end up with wrong or outdated target account data.
Called someone in California at 5 am
This happens often when SDRs manually review prospect information in their database.
They call at the wrong hour, dial incorrect numbers, or contact the same number twice.
Lack of motivation
SDR motivation often runs low due to tedious tasks and consistent rejections from prospects.
SDR motivation runs low due to tedious tasks and frequent rejections from prospects.
Deals stalling in the sales cycle
Opportunities frequently get stuck at specific stages, such as negotiation, legal review, or security assessments. Difficulty maintaining momentum and proactively moving deals forward extends the sales cycle length, increases the cost per deal, and delays revenue recognition.
Time spent on non-revenue generating activities
Sales reps often find their days consumed by tasks that don't directly contribute to closing deals. Excessive time allocated to internal meetings, manual CRM updates, compiling reports, and other administrative burdens significantly reduces the time available for active selling and prospect engagement.
10 best practices for improving your sales team’s performance
Here's how to improve SDR performance:
Create a repeatable sales process
Define daily, weekly and monthly sales activities
Sell to customer needs
Manage and nurture leads effectively
Invest in high-quality sales training
Host regular one-one meetings and help reps set SMART sales goals
Develop a consistent sales prospecting workflow
Create a sales enablement process
Use an automated sales intelligence software
Align incentives with strategies that boost sales
1. Create a repeatable sales process
Set up a clear, consistent plan for how your sales team finds and qualifies leads, talks to prospects, and closes deals. A set process reduces wasted time and makes it easier to spot where deals stall.
The main steps usually involve researching, prospecting, understanding customer needs, presenting your solution, handling questions, closing the deal, and following up afterwards.
When everyone follows the same steps, it's easier to spot where things might be going wrong if deals aren't closing.
2. Define daily, weekly and monthly sales activities
This is about listing out the regular tasks your sales reps need to do to keep things moving and ensure there are always new opportunities coming in. This is essentially a productivity checklist.
Daily tasks are the everyday basics: reaching out to new people, following up, updating the CRM, and getting ready for calls.
Weekly tasks often cover planning the week, checking progress numbers, team catch-ups, and looking over the pipeline.
Monthly tasks are usually more big-picture: looking at overall results, planning your sales strategy, reviewing key accounts, and maybe some training.
Having these activities clearly defined helps everyone stay focused and productive.
3. Sell to customer needs
Before selling your product, find out what the customer needs. Spend time learning about their problems and what they're trying to fix. Once you know their main issues, you can show them exactly how what you offer helps them specifically. Talk about benefits that solve their specific problems. This leads to more effective conversations than a standard pitch and makes customers feel understood.
4. Manage and nurture leads effectively
After you get leads, track them and move them through your pipeline. This means regular follow-ups and using a CRM to track all conversations.
Good lead nurturing and management prevents lost opportunities. It's also about knowing which leads to focus on and keeping the sales process moving forward smoothly, so deals don't get stuck.
5. Invest in high-quality sales training
High-quality sales training is essential for building a team that consistently performs well. When reps are well-trained, they understand customer needs better, build stronger relationships, and ultimately close more deals more effectively. Well-trained reps understand customer needs better and build stronger relationships.
New hires need a solid foundation covering core skills like finding the right prospects, engaging customers meaningfully, presenting solutions clearly, understanding the chosen sales methodology, and confidently handling questions or pushback. This foundation helps them avoid early mistakes and ramp faster.
Training must continue beyond onboarding. Top-performing teams invest in ongoing learning as markets, techniques, and tools evolve. Regular updates and skillrefreshers keep your team sharp, help them adapt quickly, and ensure they use the best approaches available.
Modern sales tools can accelerate development. Some platforms analyze sales calls and offer data-backed feedback. Reps see exactly where to improve and get personalized coaching at scale.
Invest consistently in developing your team's skills. You'll build a more capable, confident sales force that meets challenges and drives better results.
6. Host regular one-one meetings and help reps set SMART goals
Sales managers should hold regular one-on-ones with SDRs to review progress and see where time goes. These sessions should include specific coaching on where to improve.
SDRs often manage time poorly when they feel overwhelmed by goals. Help them break bigger goals into smaller ones, then into daily or weekly tasks.
For example, if a rep wants to become an AE, use SMART goal setting to create a path. Set a target of 15 SQOs per month for ten months. Then break each SQO into smaller goals: 100 dials, 300 emails, 30 videos. A clear plan gives reps direction and makes them more productive.
Clear results and well-defined incentives boost SDR motivation and efficiency. Sales managers should define measurable key results for their team with specific timeframes. Then they can add incentives to encourage reps to achieve these results.
7. Develop a consistent sales prospecting process
Establish a well-defined, repeatable process for how your team prospects for new business. This provides structure and ensures reps follow proven steps efficiently.
Here’s what you should do:
Show, don't tell why the script works. For example, give SDRs access to (and coach them using) call recordings of reps leveraging the sales script and how they’re succeeding with it. It’s also good to conduct calls in front of reps to see exactly how the script helps.
Create a sales prospecting process complete with check-ins. Doing so will help you keep a pulse on your team’s performance.
💡Here at UserGems, we follow this workflow for our remote sales team, feel free to swipe it.
8. Create a sales enablement process
84% of sales reps hit their quota when their employers implement a sales enablement strategy, as reported by Aberdeen.
However, what makes a successful SDR program is ensuring you don’t just dump reps with sales enablement content. Instead, run them through the content (battle cards, case studies, and pricing guidelines, etc) to understand how, when, and why they should use it.
For example, explain how email templates can optimize your reps' prospecting workflow.
9. Use an automated sales intelligence software
To maximize SDR efficiency, it’s essential you invest time in identifying the right sales intelligence tools to increase sales productivity.
Keep in mind that the right tool can improve sales team productivity. And drive up your ROI by cherry-picking the right prospects for reps to connect with at the right time.
Take UserGems, for instance. Our B2B prospecting tool has helped companies like UserTesting grow their ROI by 18 times in one year. [Read the case study.]
10. Align incentives with strategies that boost sales
Your sales compensation and incentive structure is a powerful lever for driving behavior and should be carefully designed to support your key strategic goals and efficiency efforts. Simply rewarding total revenue might not be enough if your sales strategy requires focusing on specific products, longer-term contracts, higher-margin deals, or faster sales cycles.
Ensure your incentives directly motivate reps to pursue the outcomes and activities that matter most for efficient growth. Clearly communicate how the incentive plan works, ensuring reps understand exactly what actions lead to rewards. Regularly review the plan's effectiveness using performance data to ensure it consistently encourages reps to focus their energy on the most productive and strategically valuable actions, thereby boosting overall sales efficiency.
6 Sales efficiency metrics and KPIs to track and measure success
Improving efficiency isn't just about implementing new strategies; it's also about understanding whether those sales efforts are actually working.
Tracking the right key performance indicators and metrics provides crucial visibility into your team's performance, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for optimization.
1. Customer Acquisition Cost
This metric tells you the average amount of money your company spends to gain a single new customer.
It's calculated by dividing your total sales and marketing expenses over a certain period by the number of new customers acquired in that same timeframe.
Tracking CAC is vital for efficiency because it directly measures the cost-effectiveness of your customer acquisition strategies; a lower CAC generally indicates higher efficiency in acquiring customers.
2. Customer Lifetime Value
This represents the total net profit your company predicts it will gain from a customer over the entire duration of your business relationship.
While LTV itself measures value, its ratio to CAC (LTV:CAC) is a critical indicator of sales efficiency and business health.
A strong LTV:CAC ratio signifies that your sales and marketing efforts are efficiently acquiring customers who generate significantly more value than they cost, supporting sustainable growth.
3. Lead Response Time
This measures the average speed at which your sales team follows up with a new lead after they make an initial contact, such as submitting a website form or requesting information.
Reducing lead response time is crucial for efficiency, as studies consistently show that faster follow-ups dramatically increase the chances of connecting with and qualifying leads before competitors do or the lead's interest cools.
4. Number of Sales Calls Per Rep
This activity metric tracks the volume of outbound calls made by individual sales reps over a set period, like a day or week. It helps measure individual productivity and effort levels.
Call volume alone provides limited insight into results. Monitoring this figure can reveal valuable insights into how reps manage their time and workload, potentially highlighting efficiency gains or bottlenecks when analyzed alongside conversion rates and call outcomes.
5. Frequency of Customer Contact
This metric looks at how often your sales reps are interacting with prospects or existing customers over time or during key stages of the sales cycle or relationship.
Maintaining the right contact frequency is an efficiency balancing act, providing enough touchpoints to keep deals moving and relationships warm, but not so many that it wastes rep time or becomes intrusive to the contact.
Tracking this helps optimize sales cadences and ensure timely follow-up without unnecessary effort.
6. Average Deal Size
This metric calculates the average revenue value generated from each closed-won deal within a specific timeframe (Total revenue from closed deals divided by the number of deals closed).
Tracking average deal size is important for efficiency because closing larger deals often requires a similar amount of sales effort and resources as smaller ones. Therefore, increasing the average deal size means achieving more revenue for each unit of sales effort expended, significantly improving overall efficiency and profitability.
Monitoring this metric helps the team focus on higher-value opportunities and strategies, such as upselling or targeting larger accounts, making the entire sales process more productive.
Boost your sales efficiency and double your pipeline with UserGems
Tired of sales teams working harder, not smarter? It's time to boost your sales efficiency and pipeline impact without just adding more resources. UserGems is the AI platform specifically designed to help your sales and marketing teams focus their sales efforts intelligently, ensuring every action drives maximum results.
Our AI agent, Gem-E, acts as your team's intelligent co-pilot. It continuously scans crucial market buying signals, like job changes, technology installs, funding news, and intent data, and integrates deeply with your own CRM history for context. By connecting these external triggers with your internal knowledge, Gem-E provides clear, actionable recommendations on exactly who to target, when to reach out, and why they're a priority now.
Gem-E doesn't just identify opportunities; it helps draft personalized, high-impact outreach messages, saving your reps valuable time and boosting conversion rates.
This AI-driven focus delivers proven, tangible results. Hundreds of companies, including market leaders like Mimecast, UserTesting, and SAP LeanIX, leverage UserGems to achieve over 15X ROI in closed-won revenue and contribute to the millions in pipeline generated through our platform.
Ready to see how UserGems can transform your sales results? Book your personalized demo today.
FAQs
What’s the difference between sales efficiency vs. sales effectiveness
Sales efficiency focuses on optimizing the process and minimizing the resources (time, cost, effort) used to achieve sales results. It's about doing things right, for example, reducing the cost per lead or shortening the time spent on administrative tasks.
Sales effectiveness focuses on achieving the desired sales outcomes and hitting overall goals. It's about doing the right things, such as targeting the correct customer segments, closing high-value deals, or meeting revenue quotas.
Overall, Efficiency measures the cost and speed of sales activities. Effectiveness measures the success and impact of those activities. You need both. They measure different aspects of performance.
How do you calculate sales efficiency?
The most common way to calculate a sales efficiency ratio (often called the "Magic Number" in SaaS) is to compare the revenue generated to the cost incurred to acquire that revenue over a specific period (like a quarter or year).
The formula:
Sales Efficiency Ratio = (Gross Revenue Generated in Period X) / (Total Sales & Marketing Expenses in Period X)
Sometimes, companies use New Gross Revenue or Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in the numerator, or Gross Profit instead of Gross Revenue, depending on what they want to measure. The key is consistency in how you calculate it over time. This ratio tells you how much revenue you generate for every dollar spent on sales and marketing.
What is a good sales efficiency ratio?
The definition of a "good" ratio varies, as it heavily depends on your industry, business model, company stage, and growth strategy. However, here are some general benchmarks:
Ratio < 1.0: This means you are spending more on sales and marketing than the revenue you are generating from those efforts in that period. This is common and often acceptable for early-stage startups focused on rapid growth and market capture, as they invest heavily upfront.
Ratio ≈ 1.0: This indicates you are roughly breaking even, generating about $1 in revenue for every $1 spent on sales and marketing.
Ratio > 1.0: This suggests your sales and marketing engine is generating more revenue than it costs, which is typically considered healthy and sustainable, especially for more mature companies. Many established SaaS companies aim for a ratio above 1.0.
More crucial than hitting a specific number is tracking your ratio over time and comparing it to relevant industry benchmarks and your own historical performance. An improvement in the ratio usually signifies increased efficiency.
