Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Salespeople spend only 30% of their working time actually selling

Phil Rader · The Sales & Marketing Tech Stack to Scale Successfully from $1 - $100M+ ARR · Jul 4, 2023 · at 7:45

This episode carries Phil Rader's own address, with nobody on the show putting questions to them. It still counts as said, and it is kept out of every score on their page.

Phil Rader explains why SaaS companies scaling from $5M to $10M ARR need sales automation tools to reduce administrative burden.

0:00 / 0:03exact quote · 3.5s

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“So, 30% of the time, salespeople are actually selling.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Salespeople spend only 30% of their working time actively selling.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Prominent industry benchmark studies published prior to and around the July 2023 claim date corroborate that sales representatives spend approximately 30% of their working time on active selling activities. Salesforce's 5th Edition 'State of Sales' report (December 2022) found sales reps spent 28% of their time actively selling, following its 3rd Edition (May 2018) finding of 34%. Similarly, CSO Insights annual studies (2015–2019) recorded active selling time between 32% and 35.9%, InsideSales.com (February 2018) measured 35.2%, Docurated reported 32%, and Forrester recorded 28% to 30%. These independent benchmarks consistently cluster around the 30% figure (within the specified 25% to 35% range).

Salesforce State of Sales 5th Edition (December 2022) surveyed over 7,700 sales professionals and found reps spend 28% of their working week on actual selling activities.
Salesforce State of Sales 3rd Edition (May 2018) reported sales reps spent 34% of their time actively selling versus 66% on administrative and non-selling tasks.
CSO Insights Sales Performance studies (2015–2019) consistently measured direct selling time between 32% and 35.9%.
InsideSales.com (February 2018) and Forrester research found sales reps spent 35.2% and 28%–30% of their working time on direct selling activities, respectively.

Checked against

[1] salesforce.com [2] salesforce.com [3] relayto.com [4] relayto.com [5] salesforce.com [6] salesprep.ai [7] sbigrowth.com [8] fellowmind.com

"CSO Insights" "32%" OR "33%" OR "35%" "selling" "sales reps" Salesforce State of Sales time spent selling percentage Salesforce State of Sales reps spend 28 percent 33 percent 34 percent selling Sales reps spend percentage of time selling Salesforce CSO Insights "CSO Insights" "time spent selling" percentage OR "selling time" OR "actively selling" sales reps spend percentage of time actively selling study

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

salespeople selling

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