Sales Enablement Statistics 2026: Coaching, Content & AI
Sales reps spend 11% of their week on training, yet 52% say traditional enablement materials don’t give them the skills they need, and 75% say they’d be more likely to hit their targets with a coach or mentor. The coaching mostly isn’t happening: 46% rarely get feedback on their sales conversations, and 40% say their manager’s lack of time gets in the way. Two of the most quoted numbers in the field have no study behind them: “84% of sales training is forgotten within 90 days” traces to a link that went dead in 2016, and “65% of sales content goes unused” began as a range said aloud at a 2013 conference. Here are the sales enablement statistics worth knowing in 2026, each sourced inline with the year noted.
”84% of sales training is forgotten in 90 days” has no traceable study
“According to a recent survey, 84% of all sales training is lost after 90 days” is how a 2016 sales training article that is still online put it (CommLab India, 2016). Its “recent survey” link points to a sales training company’s “Friday Fun Facts” blog post, which the Wayback Machine already recorded as “page not found” by November 2016. We could not find a survey behind the number.
The research usually invoked to support it is Hermann Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve from 1880 and 1885, in which Ebbinghaus memorized lists of nonsense syllables and “used only himself as a subject” (Murre and Dros, PLOS ONE, 2015).
A 2015 replication confirmed the shape of the curve with one subject who spent 70 hours learning lists and relearning them after intervals from 20 minutes to 31 days (Murre and Dros, 2015). It is solid evidence that unrehearsed memory fades. It says nothing specific about how much of a sales methodology a rep retains after a workshop.
”65% of sales content goes unused” began as a 60 to 70% estimate
“At Summit 2013, we stated that 60 percent to 70 percent of content produced by B2B marketing organizations goes unused, sitting on sales portals and Web site shelves,” wrote a SiriusDecisions research executive in 2014 (SiriusDecisions, via Forrester, archived, 2014).
The original claim covered all B2B marketing content, not only sales collateral, and was stated as a range. The post gives no method or sample. It adds that after the statistic was released, some clients said more than 80% of their content went unused (SiriusDecisions, 2014). The single-number “65%” in later stat lists sits at the middle of that range.
Reps want coaching more than courses
75% of sales reps say they’re more likely to hit their targets with a coach or mentor, in Salesforce’s survey of 4,050 sales professionals across 22 countries, conducted in August and September 2025 (Salesforce State of Sales, 7th edition, 2026).
52% say traditional enablement doesn’t provide the skills they need, 46% rarely get feedback on their sales conversations and 41% don’t get enough chances to roleplay before customer calls (Salesforce, 2026).
40% of reps say their manager’s lack of time is an obstacle to enablement (Salesforce, 2026).
The most common enablement sales teams offer is performance reviews (51%), followed by account reviews (43%), sales strategy reviews (42%) and win/loss reviews (42%) (Salesforce, 2026). Only 34% offer regular one-on-ones with managers and 26% run roleplay sessions.
Why enablement stalls
Lack of access to data and insights is the top obstacle sales teams face when enabling reps (40%), followed by managers’ lack of time (38%), lack of enablement expertise (37%) and reps’ lack of time (34%) (Salesforce, 2026).
Insufficient technology (30%), lack of leadership support (29%) and insufficient budget (28%) rank lower. Only 7% report none of these obstacles (Salesforce, 2026).
72% of sellers feel overwhelmed by the number of skills their job requires, and 50% by the amount of technology (Gartner, 2024). Overwhelmed sellers are 45% less likely to attain quota, from a survey of 1,026 B2B sellers.
Where a rep’s week goes
Reps spend 22% of an average week meeting with customers and 18% prospecting, which together make up the 40% that Salesforce counts as selling (Salesforce, 2026). The rest goes to creating quotes (17%), planning (16%), manually entering data (13%), training (11%) and other work (3%).
The report’s own text calls prospecting “nonselling work,” while its chart counts it as selling (Salesforce, 2026). By the narrower reading, reps spend about a fifth of the week with customers. More on quota and productivity is in sales statistics.
Customers are asking more of that time. 69% of sales professionals say measurable ROI matters more to customers than a year ago, 67% say personalization does, 67% say customers need extensive education, and 57% say customers take longer to decide (Salesforce, 2026).
AI agents are moving into coaching and prospecting
54% of sales teams use AI agents today, and another 34% expect to within two years (Salesforce, 2026).
34% of sales teams with agents use them for coaching, for example to roleplay calls and give personalized tips, and high performers are 1.4 times more likely than underperformers to do so (Salesforce, 2026). Another 34% use agents for prospecting.
Sellers who partner effectively with AI tools are 3.7 times more likely to meet quota than those who don’t (Gartner, 2024). Tactical flexibility (3.4 times) and “mentalizing,” reading a buyer’s unspoken beliefs and intentions, (2.9 times) were the next strongest competencies.
67% of B2B buyers now prefer a rep-free buying experience, and Gartner’s advice to enablement leaders is to move from static content to AI agents that support both buyers and sellers (Gartner, 2026). Buyers who feel confident in their decision are twice as likely to report a high-quality deal. How buyers research before they talk to sales is in B2B marketing statistics.
Freeing up the hours coaching needs
Reps lose 13% of the week to manual data entry, managers say they lack the time to coach, and both show up as top reasons enablement stalls. Carly takes the admin side of that week off the team: it logs emails and meetings to the CRM, drafts follow-ups from each rep’s own inbox, books customer meetings across calendars and runs the recurring nudges as workflows, so the hours go to calls and coaching instead. Carly connects to thousands of apps, so it works with the CRM and sales tools a team already runs. What a fast, consistent follow-up is worth is in sales follow-up statistics.
FAQ
Is it true that 84% of sales training is forgotten within 90 days? We could not find a study behind it. A 2016 version that is still online cites “a recent survey” through a link that was already dead that year. The forgetting curve it leans on comes from Ebbinghaus’s 1880s experiments on himself with nonsense syllables (Murre and Dros, 2015).
What percentage of sales content goes unused? The number traces to SiriusDecisions, which said at its 2013 Summit that 60% to 70% of all content produced by B2B marketing goes unused, without publishing a method (SiriusDecisions, 2014). The popular “65%” is the midpoint of that range.
Does sales coaching improve performance? 75% of reps say they are more likely to hit their targets with a coach or mentor, but 46% rarely get feedback on their sales conversations and 40% say their manager lacks the time (Salesforce, 2026). These are self-reported views, not measured outcomes.
How are sales teams using AI for enablement? 54% of sales teams use AI agents today, and 34% of those teams use them for coaching, such as roleplaying calls (Salesforce, 2026). Sellers who partner effectively with AI are 3.7 times more likely to meet quota (Gartner, 2024).
Related: Sales Statistics · Sales Follow-Up Statistics · B2B Marketing Statistics · Cold Calling Statistics · CRM Statistics · Leadership Statistics · Account-Based Marketing Statistics
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