Digital Sales Skills Gap Report 2024

Key takeaways from report:

• 89% of companies say there is a digital sales skills gap.

• AI, Social Media & Sales Analytics are the three most in demand skills from digital sales leaders.

• Only 24% of companies offer ongoing training to support their online sales staff.

• 92% of companies say their digital sales strategy is a key priority but only 13% are confident they can significantly scale their online sales results over the next 12-24 months. 

Digital sales transformation is continually evolving within every type of organization and industry. The direct outcome is that online sales leaders are focusing much more heavily on ensuring their companies have the right level of digital sales skills when hiring and developing their staff. 

This interesting area was examined by the research team at Sales Is Art by conducting a recent survey with a diverse range of digital brands and online sales leaders across Europe, the UK and USA. The major takeaway was that the large majority of organizations face consistent challenges when recruiting and managing digital sales staff. 

The survey interviewed 120 online sales managers and directors from a varied range of digital brands across Ireland, UK and the United States across multiple different industries and sectors including SaaS, Media, Consultancy, Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing and Government. 

The research collated quickly highlighted a heavy digital sales skills gap across most of these different industries within the survey sample. 

The questions asked to digital sales leaders focused on what were the key goals, challenges, threats and opportunities when managing their online sales teams currently as well as moving forward into the future.

All major data, insights, patterns and trends were collated to produce this Digital Sales Skills Gap Report 2024 which delivered the following key takeaways:

89% of Companies say there is a Digital Sales Skills Gap

From 120 companies that took part in the research study, 106 digital sales managers and directors stated that they felt there was a clear shortage in digital sales skills within their individual industries. 

51% mentioned that one of the major reasons for this was down to the rapid evolution of online sales tools & platforms which caused problems with the overall subject matter expertise, pipeline creation and sales enablement of their online reps.

46% of the companies mentioned that they felt a significant cause for this skills gap was down to not having enough internal and external digital sales training resources in place. A consistent theme of feedback provided by the companies interviewed was that they felt many new digital sales job candidates lacked relevant online sales qualifications when it came to the recruitment of new staff. A number of digital sales leaders also stated that competition had increased in the Post pandemic era where higher qualified candidates were looking for more remuneration and better flexible remote working conditions. 

“From 120 companies that took part in the research study, 106 digital sales managers and directors stated that they felt there was a clear shortage in digital sales skills within their individual industries.

AI, Social Media & Sales Analytics are the 3 most in demand skills from digital sales leaders

44% of the surveyed companies identify AI as the most important skill that their digital sales workforces need to quickly understand and embrace. A large number of companies agreed that digital sales staff who have AI expertise possess the greatest opportunities for achieving scale and revenue growth. 

The next most requested skills from digital brands were social media and sales analytics. More than a third of organizations in the study said they needed sales reps who can quickly leverage social media platforms such as Linkedin to help strengthen lead generation and build stronger relationships with current + future customers. The survey also highlighted that companies were looking to invest in more talent that had a firm grasp in sales analytics and data performance tactics.

Only 24% of companies offer ongoing training to support their online sales staff

From the respondents that took part in this research, only 24% of online brands confirmed that they invest in regular training and development to help their digital sales teams. A quarter of sales leaders say they have run some type of digital sales training in the past but are not able to maintain ongoing delivery due to a lack of supply when it comes to finding suitable training options in the market.

Feedback given by a number of digital sales leaders was that many traditional universities and colleges do not offer their degree graduates enough hands-on practical experience and instead build too much academic theory into their courses which does not match today's in demand digital sales skills requirements.

92% of companies say their digital sales strategy is a key priority but only 13% are confident they can significantly scale their online sales results over the next 12-24 months

A large majority (92%) of organizations agree that the implementation of their digital sales strategy is a significant focus for their senior leadership teams. However due to a wide number of problems and issues including misaligned resources, uncertain economic and geopolitical factors as well as uncertain market demand, they lack confidence in maximizing their forecasted online sales growth trajectory over a 1-2 year future period.

Survey Information

From October 2023 to November 2023, Sales Is Art carried out a research survey on a wide range of digital sales managers and directors from a sample size of 120 companies across Ireland, UK and the United States. These companies came from multiple different industries and sectors including SaaS, Media, Consultancy, Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing and Government.