02 A Data-Driven Sales Playbook Emerges State of Sales 11 Data insights are emerging as the weapon of Data Supersedes Intuition When Prioritizing Leads choice for top sales teams, and lead prioritization is a prominent use case. In the past, sales reps relied Today’s sales teams are twice as likely to prioritize leads based on data analysis of on intuition when weighing which opportunities propensity to buy than on intuition. to pursue — and how to nurture them. Yet as reps’ mandate to develop deeper customer Percentage of Salespeople Whose Leads and Opportunities Are relationships has intensified, intuition is no longer Primarily Prioritized Based on the Following the status quo. Today, sales teams’ primary method of prioritizing leads is data analysis of propensity to buy. 33% Data analysis of propensity to buy High Performers vs. Underperformers 1.6X more likely to prioritize leads based on data analysis — and half as likely to prioritize based on intuition 16% Intuition Still, data-driven lead prioritization is hardly 14% Geography universal. Only one-third of teams use this methodology by default, while others stick with more basic criteria such as geography, company 13% Company size size, or job title. 7% Job title 5% Last in/first out 5% Alphabetically 6% None of the above (I don’t prioritize leads) Base: Sales representatives, executives, and managers See page 54 for data broken down by performance levels. Salesforce Research