What Sales Leaders Value

Sales leaders tend to back tools that make managers more effective and show a direct lift in rep output, not just new features. Salesforce’s latest sales report says 94% of sales leaders with agents consider them essential to growth. (salesforce.com) That preference starts with a time problem. Salesforce found sales reps spent only 28% of their week actually selling in its fifth State of Sales survey, based on 7,775 responses collected from August 24 to September 30, 2022, across 38 countries. (salesforce.com) Salesforce’s July 25, 2024 write-up on its sixth State of Sales report put the same issue another way: reps said 70% of their time went to non-selling work, and 81% of sales teams were already experimenting with or had fully implemented artificial intelligence. (salesforce.com) The pitch to a sales vice president is usually operational, not abstract. McKinsey said in May 2023 that about one-fifth of current sales-team functions could be automated with generative artificial intelligence, mainly by taking routine work out of the sales process. (mckinsey.com) Outside sales, the best-known workplace evidence points in the same direction. A National Bureau of Economic Research paper on 5,179 customer-support agents found access to a generative artificial intelligence assistant increased productivity by 14% on average, measured by issues resolved per hour. (nber.org) What sales managers can measure, they can usually defend in a budget review. HubSpot’s June 5, 2025 guide to pipeline management training says the work is about helping managers spot bottlenecks early, predict revenue more accurately, and keep opportunities on track. (hubspot.com) That is why pipeline velocity, ramp time, and forecast visibility keep showing up in software pitches. Gong says pipeline tools are built around automated data capture, deal-stage tracking, risk alerts, forecasting, and coaching new hires faster. (gong.io) The easier a tool fits into the existing sales motion, the easier it is for a frontline manager to enforce. McKinsey wrote on February 13, 2025 that business-to-business sales leaders still need to execute on core commercial basics even as they add new technology. (mckinsey.com) That leaves little room for software that creates a second workflow or another dashboard no one checks. In sales, the tools most likely to win internal champions are the ones that help managers see the pipeline, coach reps faster, and return more of the week to selling. (salesforce.com)