Study Reveals Sales Cadence of Thousands of Companies

“Perfecting cadence is a core component of both the art and science of effective inside sales,” said Dave Elkington, CEO of XANT. “When sales reps lead with an unstructured cadence, they put potential sales at risk. Optimal cadences can boost results by up to 110 percent. These are not trivial improvements we’re talking about.” Touchpoint Patterns When it comes to outreach practices, email leads the way. The most common touch pattern was a single email with 32 percent of respondents using that method, accounting for 61 percent of first contacts. The second most utilized cadence is a single call and voicemail (6 percent). Spacing Finding the sweet spot between reaching out enough without seeming overbearing is vital. The median gap between the first and second touch is typically the shortest, at around 16 hours, 45 minutes. After each subsequent attempt, the gap reaches its maximum between attempt numbers seven and eight, at six days, 21 hours. Finally, after eight attempts, the median gap hovers at seven days. Duration In engaging with leads over time, the study determined that the median period between first and last contacts was just under five days. However, when broken down by industry, significantly disparate medians emerge. Software representatives, for example, have the longest median duration, at 61 days; while the transportation industry’s median was the shortest at 12 days. Interestingly, on average, UK companies attempted to contact a lead for almost three days longer than their American counterparts. The median in the UK was 7.4 days while the median in the US was only 4.9 days. Additional information on the cadence audit report can be accessed here. About XANT XANT offers the industry’s first AI-powered predictive sales acceleration platform. Built on Neuralytics, a predictive and prescriptive self-learning engine that drives revenue growth by delivering an optimized experience for both salesperson and buyer. The platform fuels sales rep performance and provides buyer personalization with breakthrough innovations in predictive sales communications, engagement tracking, forecasting and rep motivation. XANT has received numerous accolades for its technology, including being named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 and Forbes Cloud 100 lists, and earning recognition as one of the fastest growing companies, according to Inc. XANT enterprise customers include ADP, Microsoft and Groupon.