Tuesday 10 June 2014

Social Media & Technology in Sales – Sales Survey 2014

Aaron Wallis has recently undertaken the largest sales survey of its type which explores changing trends within the industry as well as a powerful insight into the minds of sales professionals.

With 62 questions answered by 726 completely anonymous sales professionals we have captured some impressive results helping us promote professional sales, raise awareness and gain a firmer understanding on how to succeed in sales teams.

To receive a full free copy of the 2014 UK Sales Survey please follow this link – 2014 UK Sales Survey Report


While Jeremy Kyle and others are constantly referring to Facebook causing problems and being the route to all evil, it does have some slight benefits in terms of helping the company you’re working for as it can help with advertising and expanding PR and publicity.

It also seems that the other well-known social media sites in business, Google+, Twitter and of course, LinkedIn, are beginning to help sales professionals develop leads and sales.
Promote your business correctly across the different forums and sites and it can quickly, and cost effectively, help you to gain a new audience .

It’s lucky for the 421 people who use these social media sites but for the remaining 305 there’s some catching up to do:

·         Quite astonishingly, 58% don’t or rarely use social media sites for lead generation
·         42% do regularly and proactively use social media sites for lead generation

Social networks aren’t just for posting egotistical ‘selfies’ or challenging your mates to drink crème de menthe with Dettol! In fact, these networking websites were found to be extremely effective for securing sales.

It is glaringly obvious that LinkedIn is the ‘winner’ for securing sales in the social website sector with 47% of workers using it; it’s hardly surprising either as this media site has all the best qualities; it is professional, prestige, popular and it’s specifically designed for business in the least annoying way.

Additionally, 17% of people own a Google+ account. Google+ is free and an excellent way to promote your company; it gives you the opportunity to really show off your business by adding specific detail and links to content that makes your business more approachable and noticeable.

Facebook has been running before the dinosaurs became extinct (well almost!); while 14% have secured sales from this site, it seems more of a casual, relaxed and personal bubble that individuals prefer to use for their ‘me’ time rather than promoting or using it for a business. However, at least you can visually monitor how well your work is doing by reading the comments and seeing how many likes it gains.  It also offers surprisingly strong analytical tools so you can see how your campaigns are working.

Twitter is the dark horse of the social networking family; it seems that Twitter is increasingly becoming popular, particularly for some reason in the UK with 9% using it.  There is talk that it could possibly overtake Facebook’s addictive nature which for a social media site originally created to take advantage of posting via text message (hence the 140 character limit) that will be quite a feat. Twitter is a great way to promote your business and those famous hash tags allow certain words to get you name anywhere that castor oil can’t. Twitter also gives you the freedom to add anyone and everyone without having to wait for friend acceptances or having to state how you actually know the person. It does sound invasive but if you want to get your company’s name out there, you’re going to want to approach certain organisations that you won’t personally know to learn what’s going on in their business to help hone your targets.

We appreciate that YouTube is primarily for watching cats pull funny faces and hilarious videos of people’s epic falls but we were quite surprised that YouTube hadn’t created more sales for the respondents (only 3% of respondents) bearing in mind the amount of great content that organisations are uploading to help promote their products and expertise. 

Realistically, Pinterest is only great, at the moment, for visual products, I personally know photographers and Fashion Designers that have developed rich contacts from the site but only 1% of the respondents in this survey can attribute a specific sale to this site.

We were also quite surprised that no one had generated a sale from SlideShare bearing in mind it’s prevalence on LinkedIn (0% could attribute a sale to the site!)

In conclusion, it seems that to grow sales it makes more sense to invest time and energy into the most popular accounts to broaden your audience.

Not only are these websites available on the PC at work, but nowadays you can easily access them on your smartphone, tablet and soon to be watches, glasses and more; which is great for the sales workaholics mentioned earlier who do not switch off!

Technology is a great and inventive method to promote your work and develop leads with the fast ability to communicate. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the sales professionals questioned felt the benefit of technology.

  • 49% think technology has been a complete benefit
  • 9% feel it has made absolutely no difference in getting sales
  • 21% believe accept that change happens and they just do things differently
  • 11% feel that technology has made them spend more time doing admin work
  • 4% feel that technology has robbed them of their freedom
  • Another 4% strongly believe they used to work less hours without technology
  • 2% wish they could have the power to turn back the clock
There are mixed reviews about technology; some people think that it hasn’t helped and it’s just created more work for them.  However, the majority have embraced it and it has helped them make sales more than before.

Written by Liam Oakes
Liam is the Office Manager at Aaron Wallis and has been with the company for 3 years after having a career with the RAF; Liam has helped hundreds of Sales Professionals secure a new Sales role and ensures that Aaron Wallis runs smoothly.

Monday 9 June 2014

Holiday & Typical Lunch in Sales – Sales Survey 2014

Aaron Wallis has recently undertaken the largest sales survey of its type which explores changing trends within the industry as well as a powerful insight into the minds of sales professionals.

With 62 questions answered by 726 completely anonymous sales professionals we have captured some impressive results helping us promote professional sales, raise awareness and gain a firmer understanding on how to succeed in sales teams.

To receive a full free copy of the 2014 UK Sales Survey please follow this link – 2014 UK Sales Survey Report


  • 52% took their holiday entitlement in 2012 whilst;
  • 48% didn’t and missed out on their full holiday entitlement
Some companies advise their staff to take lunch breaks in order to cool-down and walk away from their work so they can have a clearer and different perspective when they come back to it. Healthy foods are always a benefit to your health and can also make you feel alert. Most understand this; a heavy meal makes you feel tired and often leads to a desire for a snooze – not great for a sales pro which I guess is why the huge carvery is best kept for Sundays!

Sandwiches seem the popular choice for a typical lunch; they are filling but they are also light and small, which would allow the workers the time to quickly eat before returning to their desk.


A great method that is used to effectively relieve stress or conquer depression and anxiety is to perform some physical activity either at home or at the gym; exercising is an effective method which some sales experts practise. It can lift moods, be a great technique for eliminating pressure from a hard day’s work and also be beneficial for keeping healthy.

Written by Liam Oakes
Liam is the Office Manager at Aaron Wallis and has been with the company for 3 years after having a career with the RAF; Liam has helped hundreds of Sales Professionals secure a new Sales role and ensures that Aaron Wallis runs smoothly.

Friday 6 June 2014

Length of Time Worked in Sales – Sales Survey 2014

Aaron Wallis has recently undertaken the largest sales survey of its type which explores changing trends within the industry as well as a powerful insight into the minds of sales professionals.

With 62 questions answered by 726 completely anonymous sales professionals we have captured some impressive results helping us promote professional sales, raise awareness and gain a firmer understanding on how to succeed in sales teams.

To receive a full free copy of the 2014 UK Sales Survey please follow this link – 2014 UK Sales Survey Report

A question of the years worked in sales was asked.


  • It was conclusive that more people had worked in sales for 20-30 years (29%)
  • Only a slight amount fewer had worked for more than 30 years in a sales capacity (21%)
  •  The same amount of people worked  between 10-15 years and 15-20 years (16%)
  • 29 people (4%) had worked in sales in the duration of 1-3 years.
  • 22 people (3%) had worked in sales for 3-5 years.
  • 15 people (2%) has worked for less than a year in sales.
However, it seems, most were always trying to seek for new jobs to change their ordinary surroundings and scenery, even if it’s within the same industry sector.

  • 19% of people had worked at their current or previous job for less than one year
  • 9% had worked in their current/previous job for 1 year
  • 13% of people had worked in their job/pre-existing job for 2 years
  • 10% of people had worked for their current/old job for 3 years
  • 5% of sales workers had been at their job/previous job for 4 years

  • 6% of people had worked 5 years, 6 years and 7 years in their current/old job
  • 3% had worked in their current or previous job for 8 years
  • 1% of the participants had worked for 9 years in their current or past role
  • 2% worked for a decade in their current or pre-existing job
  • 6% had worked between 10-12 years in their job
  • 4% had worked between 12-14 years in their job
  • 2% had worked between 14-16 years in their role
  • 1% had worked in their job for 16-18 years
  • 1% had worked in their job for a lengthy 18-20 years
  • 6% had served their job for more than 20 years
The majority had been in their current role for less than one year; sales is without doubt one of the sectors with higher staff attrition which you can attribute to a number of factors so this is perhaps unsurprising.

Over half had been in their current role for less than four years.  In sales, we are not surprised; such is the transient nature of the sector, though we are sure that this would shock other sectors!  With the average tenure in a sales role estimated to be 2.8 years, the survey response draws similar parallels to this.

Forget the weekends, some work on those days anyway; it's all about the holiday entitlements! Yes, it is a satisfying feeling knowing you can actually put your feet up and catch up on the latest programmes rather than the loathsome paperwork and admin; if only that was the case!  

More people (41%) are awarded 24-28 days holiday at their current job, followed by 27% who are allowed 20-24 days. 9% are granted 18-20 days off, and 8% have less than 17 days entitled holiday.

For the remaining 16%, they are the lucky ones who are awarded more than 28 paid days holiday. How and why? It depends solely on the employer. The government states that almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday per year.  Multiply that by a 5-day week and this totals 28 days paid leave per year.  However, that can include statutory bank holidays. The survey here asked how many day’s paid holiday were received above statutory bank holidays. 

Do people actually take all of their holiday though? It would be more than inviting to take all of the entitlement days off but unfortunately in sales this isn’t always practical with targets to meet and many often find they are just too busy to take their holiday. This means that the individuals lose out and end up losing their holiday entitlement.

Written by Liam Oakes
Liam is the Office Manager at Aaron Wallis and has been with the company for 3 years after having a career with the RAF; Liam has helped hundreds of Sales Professionals secure a new Sales role and ensures that Aaron Wallis runs smoothly.