Despite advances in sales technology, most B2B sales reps still spend less than 30% of their time actually selling. The rest is lost to admin, research, internal meetings, and disconnected tools.
This infographic maps out the five core breakdowns that cause quota misses — and the hidden inefficiencies behind each one. It’s a useful lens for teams rethinking their GTM strategy, enablement stack, or sales automation roadmap.
Sales Professionals’ Low Quota Attainment
Sales professionals in the RepVue Cloud Sales Index finished the year with quota attainment at 43.14%. 8 consecutive quarters of mediocre performance on this measure, far from the 53% quota attainment observed in Q1-22.
Source: RepVue Cloud Sales Index q4 2024
Sales Reps Spend 72% of Their Time Not Selling
Quote & Proposal Generation (9.4%)
- Time spent on formatting, approvals, and follow-up
- Often duplicative across systems
Prospect Research (9.3%)
- Manual customer data digging, LinkedIn browsing, Googling, talking to GPTs
- No automation for buyer/job/pain/context insights
Prioritizing Leads (9.2%)
- Gut feel vs data-driven intent scoring
- CRM doesn’t surface hot accounts
Prep & Planning (9.0%)
- Reps lack tools to auto-compile account summaries or signals
- No standardized pre-call planning workflows
Manual CRM Work (8.8%)
- Reps enter data instead of selling
- CRM is often seen as a tax, not a tool
Admin Tasks (8.8%)
- Time wasted on status updates, reporting, task-switching
Internal Meetings (8.8%)
- Weekly cadences are long and data-poor
- Low trust in CRM drives redundant calls
Downtime (8.3%)
- Cognitive fatigue from admin overload
- No AI support to lighten workload
Source: Salesforce Research 2023
How Sales Reps Spend Their Time During an Average Week
Sales reps spend just 28% of their time selling.
Note: Percentages are rounded to one decimal place. As a result, totals may not add up to exactly 100%.
Why B2B Sales Teams Miss Quotas
(72% of Sales Time is Non-Selling)
Quote/Proposal Generation (9.4%)
- Manual formatting and approvals
Prep & Planning (9.0%)
- No tools to auto-compile summaries or insights
Manual CRM Work (8.8%)
- Reps enter data instead of selling
Admin Tasks (8.8%)
- Time wasted on status updates, reporting, task-switching
Internal Meetings (8.8%)
- Weekly cadences are long and data-poor
Downtime (8.3%)
- Cognitive fatigue from admin overload
Technology Limitations
- Legacy systems reduce efficiency
- Tools not integrated → double work
- Reps use personal tools (BYOD)
- CRM bloated or untrusted
- AI is seen as a black box, low adoption
Data Fragmentation & Silos
- No unified reporting
- Poor cross-team data sharing
- Delayed/inaccessible insights
- Manual workflows
Prospect Research (9.3%)
- Manual data research, no automation of insights
Prioritizing Leads (9.2%)
- No intent scoring or heatmaps
Poor Differentiation & Value Comms
- Reps don’t understand buyer goals/tasks
- Generic pitches
- Products appear similar to competitors’ offerings
Lead Generation & Qualification
- Scarcity of qualified MQLs/SQLs
- Poor marketing-to-sales handoff
- High customer acquisition costs (CAC)
Insufficient HR & Org Support
- Limited training and development
- Reps not coached on Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP), buyer needs
Weak Sales Enablement
- No tools for customer insight, ICPs, prep
- Low personalization in pitches
Prep & Planning
- No tools to auto-compile memos, summaries, evaluations or coaching insights
Manual CRM Work
- Time lost tracking meeting/mail/chat history manually
Internal Meetings
- Cadences lack value, no actionable insights
Missed Run-Rate & Renewals
- No retention strategy
- No proactive upsell/cross-sell
- Missed revenue from existing contracts
Limited Pipeline Visibility
- No live data or signals
- Manual CRM updates leave gaps, outdated facts, and no reliable insights
- Gut-feel driven
Partner Sales Challenges
- No partner pipeline visibility
- Rigid incentive structures
- No control over customer experience
Misalignment Across Teams
- Sales – Marketing – Finance – Product: conflicting expectations
- Unclear revenue recognition and quota rules
- Lack of industries – customers – products insights
Data Fragmentation & Silos
- Manual, inaccurate CRM updates from sales activities
- Delayed or missing data for forecast inputs
- Scarcity of reliable data leads to the overreliance on gut-feel
Technology Limitations
- No advanced activity capture and forecasting tools integrated
Strategy & Leadership Gaps
- Leadership relies on outdated methods
- No quota rationale
- Lack of data-driven quota setting
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