Productivity Sinkholes: Where Your Sales Time Really Goes (And How to Get It Back)

If you ask any sales leader what their team needs most, the answer is almost always the same: more time in front of customers. Yet research shows that reality is very different. Sales reps spend only 28% of their week actually selling, with the rest eaten up by admin, internal meetings, and low-value tasks that never close deals (Salesforce, 2024).

These are the productivity sinkholes that drain revenue momentum.

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The Biggest Sales Time Wasters

1. Admin Overload

Data entry, updating CRMs, and endless reporting consume over 5 hours per week per rep on average (Forrester, 2023). Much of this is repetitive and could be automated.

2. Internal Meetings That Don’t Move the Deal Forward

The average salesperson sits through 7–10 hours of internal calls per week. Only a fraction of these have direct value to advancing opportunities. Poor meeting discipline is a major time trap.

3. Chasing the Wrong Opportunities

Without a clear qualification process, reps spend days nurturing deals that will never close. Studies show that up to 50% of forecasted deals end in no decision (Gartner, 2023). That’s precious time wasted.

4. Tool Overload and Context Switching

The typical sales rep uses 10+ digital tools daily, from CRM to email to chat to forecasting dashboards. Constant switching between platforms cuts productivity by as much as 40% (Harvard Business Review, 2023).

5. Firefighting Instead of Planning

Urgent tasks often push out proactive account planning. Reps end up reactive, responding to noise instead of executing strategy.

How to Get Time Back

The good news is that these sinkholes are avoidable. High-performing teams take deliberate action:

• Automate ruthlessly: Free reps from repetitive admin with CRM automation, email templates, and AI-powered insights.

• Redesign meetings: Challenge every internal meeting’s value. If it doesn’t help move a deal or develop a skill, cancel it.

• Qualify early, qualify hard: Equip reps with clear criteria to cut dead-end deals quickly.

• Simplify the tech stack: More tools doesn’t equal more productivity. Consolidate and integrate wherever possible.

• Prioritise planning: Protect time in calendars for account strategy, customer mapping, and proactive outreach.

The Payoff

When reps reclaim just 5 extra hours a week, that’s 250 hours a year – the equivalent of six extra selling weeks. Imagine the impact on revenue if every member of your team had that time back.

The reality is, sales productivity isn’t about working harder. It’s about plugging the sinkholes that drain time and energy, and focusing on the activities that truly drive results.