How to Boost Sales Productivity: A Practical Checklist for GTM Leaders
Sales productivity has never been more important—or more challenging. Today’s sales teams must navigate longer sales cycles, larger buying committees, and greater pressure to deliver revenue with fewer resources.
Yet while many organizations push their teams to “work harder,” the real path to greater sales productivity lies elsewhere: in smarter processes, tighter alignment, and better enablement.
What exactly does that mean? To find out, I talked with a few folks on Allego’s go-to-market (GTM) team—a sales manager, two sales enablement managers, and a senior product marketing manager. They constantly strive to improve productivity and efficiency for the sales team, because they know it impacts the overall business.
Research from McKinsey & Company supports that. The firm’s 2023 analysis of nearly 500 B2B companies across industries found that “those in the top quartile significantly outpace their peers in productivity—generating roughly 2.5 times higher gross margin than the bottom quartile for every dollar they invest in sales.”
Top-performing companies offload up to 50% of non-selling tasks and aggressively automate workflows across the sales organization. — McKinsey & Company
One of the main ways top-performing companies achieve that is by offloading up to 50% of non-selling tasks and aggressively automating workflows across the sales organization, McKinsey reports.
Sales organizations that focus on automation, sales enablement, and smarter selling processes consistently outperform their peers. But improving sales productivity requires more than just new tools—it demands a clear strategy for minimizing wasted effort and maximizing selling time.
Why Sales Productivity Must Be a Priority
At its core, sales productivity is about how efficiently and effectively your sales team turns effort into revenue. That means minimizing wasted time, maximizing selling activities, and giving reps what they need to move deals forward faster.
Key to that is providing the right systems and support and reducing the number of hours sales reps spend on non-selling skills. You want your reps building pipeline, engaging prospects, and closing deals—not updating the CRM, searching for content, qualifying leads, or other administrative tasks.
Leading companies understand this. According to McKinsey, leading B2B companies have off-loaded as much as 50% of non-selling tasks to shared center services and are “aggressively automating within those centers and across the sales organization.” That move has freed up 20% of a sales team capacity.
In addition, leaders are looking to boost sales rep productivity further by layering AI capabilities into their processes to help identify leads, score them, and personalize sellers’ outreach.
Allego’s GTM team sees these dynamics play out every day. Through conversations with leaders from the sales, enablement, and product marketing team, we identified the most impactful steps leaders can take to boost rep productivity—without adding more pressure or complexity.
Here’s a practical checklist, based on their insights and supported by industry research, to help GTM leaders drive real sales performance improvements.
Sales Rep Productivity Checklist: Key Actions for GTM Leaders
Sales productivity doesn’t improve in isolation. It takes a coordinated effort across your GTM teams. Sales, enablement, and product marketing leaders each play a distinct and critical role in streamlining processes, equipping reps, and driving better outcomes.
Below are specific, high-impact actions for each group to help your sales team operate more efficiently and close more deals, faster.
Sales Leaders: Drive Revenue by Streamlining Rep Activity and Aligning Teams
Set clear goals for individuals and the team.
Clear, measurable goals (like SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) give reps a target to aim for and leaders a way to track progress and coach toward better outcomes. Well-defined goals also help prevent wasted effort on low-priority activities.
Define and enforce a consistent sales process.
When every rep follows the same repeatable process, it eliminates guesswork, speeds up deal cycles, and ensures best practices are applied at every stage of the pipeline. A well-documented sales process also makes it easier to onboard new hires faster.
Review conversation intelligence data weekly.
Analyzing call recordings and sales interactions through a conversation intelligence tool gives managers real-time insight into what’s working—and what’s not. This enables targeted coaching, faster deal progression, and earlier identification of risks.
Track core efficiency metrics.
Key sales metrics, such as time-to-productivity, win rates, pipeline velocity, and deal cycle length, show how effectively your team is moving prospects through the funnel. Monitoring these indicators helps leaders spot performance bottlenecks early and course-correct quickly.
Download the Sales Rep Productivity Checklist for GTM Leaders
This one-page, expert-backed checklist outlines the most impactful actions sales, enablement, and product marketing leaders can take to increase sales productivity. Use it to align your teams, eliminate inefficiencies, and equip your sellers with the tools and guidance they need to perform at their best.
Download the checklist PDF now.
Align cross-functional teams (sales, marketing, enablement, customer success).
Tight alignment across GTM teams ensures a consistent buyer experience and prevents reps from having to “fix” misaligned messaging or mismanaged handoffs. Regular collaboration on goals, messaging, and processes pays off in stronger results.
Adopt digital selling best practices.
Standardize how reps use video, content-sharing tools, and digital engagement platforms. Digital selling is now a core competency. Equipping your team with the right skills and tools ensures they can build trust and move deals forward even when they can’t meet buyers face to face.
Use AI insights to prioritize coaching.
AI-driven coaching tools can surface leading indicators, such as talk-time imbalances, objection handling gaps, or low engagement rates, that point to coaching opportunities. This allows managers to intervene earlier and more strategically, rather than reacting to lost deals.
Create peer benchmarking opportunities.
Sharing examples of top-performing behaviors helps motivate the team and spreads best practices organically. Use leaderboards, internal spotlights, or peer learning sessions to celebrate what great looks like.
💡 Pro Tip:
Prioritize cross-functional alignment early in the quarter. When sales, marketing, enablement, and customer success teams align from the start, deals close faster and win rates improve dramatically.
Product Marketing Leaders: Equip Reps with Messaging and Content That Closes Deals
Map content to buyer journey stages.
Ensure that your sales content matches the prospect’s stage in the buying process—from early awareness to final decision-making. Content that speaks to the right concerns at the right time keeps deals moving forward.
Incorporate relevant validation from customers.
Use case studies, testimonials, and customer quotes to strengthen your sales content. Proof points from real customers build trust and credibility, helping prospects envision success with your solution.
Centralize content in one searchable repository.
Reps lose valuable selling time when they hunt for content—or worse, create their own. A single, easily searchable content hub ensures reps can quickly find the right assets for every selling situation. AI-powered sales content management systems are even better because generative AI can instantly surface answers from sales content, expert knowledge, and training materials.
Collaborate with enablement on message rollouts.
New messaging sticks only if it’s reinforced consistently. Partner with sales enablement to integrate new positioning into training sessions, sales playbooks, and coaching conversations.
Use engagement analytics to optimize content effectiveness.
Track which assets are opened, shared, and used in winning deals. Data-driven insights help you refine your content library, invest in what works, and retire what doesn’t.
Build persona-based messaging playbooks.
Equip reps to tailor conversations by buyer persona. Clear guidance on pain points, objections, and messaging strategies for each stakeholder improves engagement and win rates.
Conduct regular win/loss analysis.
Reviewing why sellers win—and why sellers lose—provides invaluable feedback to refine messaging, content, and positioning. Schedule regular debriefs to spot patterns and adjust strategy.
💡 Pro Tip:
Audit and refresh sales content quarterly to ensure relevance and accessibility. When reps can’t quickly find the right materials, they often go off-message—or worse, create their own.
Enablement Leaders: Empower Reps with the Knowledge, Skills, and Coaching to Perform at Their Best
Build a continuous training program.
Go beyond onboarding. Create an ongoing learning environment with microlearning, skill refreshers, and just-in-time training that helps reps adapt as products, markets, and buyer needs evolve.
Use competency maps to measure seller skills.
Identify individual skill gaps by mapping the competencies needed for success. Then deliver targeted, personalized learning paths to close gaps and build stronger, more confident sellers.
Implement AI-powered coaching.
Scaling personalized coaching is possible with AI-driven insights. Use conversation intelligence and performance analytics to guide more targeted, timely feedback without overloading managers.
Enable “learning in the flow of work”
Deliver critical knowledge and training resources inside the platforms reps already use—such as CRM systems, email, and sales enablement platforms. Provide mobile-friendly access to sales content, playbooks, and training so reps can learn and find answers anytime, anywhere. Learning at the point of need reinforces skills without pulling reps away from selling activities.
Create and maintain scenario-based sales playbooks.
Equip reps with targeted playbooks that outline best practices for specific selling scenarios. Playbooks offer quick, practical guidance that helps reps adapt faster and sell more confidently.
Operationalize digital selling training.
Ensure reps are confident running remote meetings, sharing content digitally via digital sales rooms, and using asynchronous video effectively. Digital selling is now a core competency, not a side skill.
29% of sales pros say that reducing their tech stack would make them more efficient. — HubSpot
Measure time to productivity.
Track how quickly new hires ramp and how ongoing training impacts rep effectiveness over time. Reducing time-to-productivity is one of the clearest ways to demonstrate enablement and sales training ROI.
Foster peer learning.
Capture and share best practices from top performers through video examples, peer-to-peer coaching, or internal “win story” sessions. Peer learning drives faster skill development and creates a culture of continuous improvement.
Align your tech stack with GTM goals.
Fewer tools, better integrations. In fact, 29% of sales pros say that reducing their tech stack would make them more efficient, HubSpot research shows. So, audit your technology ecosystem regularly to ensure that it supports rep productivity—not overwhelms it.
💡 Pro Tip:
Integrate learning into the daily flow of work—not just onboarding. Giving reps access to bite-sized training, talk tracks, and win stories when they need them most builds skills faster and improves long-term performance.
Turn Sales Productivity into a Competitive Advantage
Sales productivity isn’t about pushing your team to work harder. It’s about giving them the tools, content, and support to work smarter. That means aligning your GTM teams, removing friction from the sales process, and enabling reps in the moments that matter.
Whether you lead sales, enablement, or product marketing, the actions you take can have a direct impact on sellers’ performance—and on your company’s ability to hit revenue targets more efficiently.
About the Author: Michelle Davidson is a content marketing manager at Allego, where she partners with sales and enablement teams to create content that helps reps engage customers and prospects in meaningful conversations.
Download the Sales Rep Productivity Checklist for GTM Leaders
This one-page, expert-backed checklist outlines the most impactful actions sales, enablement, and product marketing leaders can take to increase sales productivity. Use it to align your teams, eliminate inefficiencies, and equip your sellers with the tools and guidance they need to perform at their best. Download the checklist PDF now.
