The debate about AI in sales keeps circling around the same question: how much of the job can it take over? New Firmable research points somewhere more practical. The teams growing fastest are not betting everything on AI, nor are they ignoring it.
For this study, we defined hyper-growth teams as those whose business grew by at least 30% over the past year. We surveyed 222 B2B sales professionals, from frontline reps to senior leaders, and compared the fastest-growing teams with everyone else. What set them apart came down to cleaner data, sharper targeting, and a few repeatable habits.
Key takeaways
- 75% of B2B sales pros would choose perfect prospect data over the best AI sales assistant on the market.
- Bad CRM data is still holding sales teams back, with B2B sales pros estimating that 32% of their contact and account data is inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated.
- Hyper-growth sales teams are nearly 3x more likely to say AI significantly improved results, at 29% compared with 11% of teams below 30% growth.
- Only 23% of B2B sales pros use AI to score or prioritize leads, suggesting many teams still aren’t using AI where it could directly shape pipeline quality.
What hyper-growth teams count as a win
The way the fastest-growing teams keep score looks a little different from everyone else.
- Quota attainment, or hitting their revenue targets, tops the list for hyper-growth teams, cited by 2 in 5 (40%), and they lean on it more than everyone else does (31%).
- Customer retention matters less to hyper-growth teams as a primary measure, at 10% vs. 23% for everyone else.
Great AI still runs on great data
For all the focus on AI, sales pros keep pointing back to the same foundation: the quality of their data.
- 3 in 4 B2B sales pros (75%) would rather have perfect prospect data than the best AI sales assistant on the market.
- Nearly half of B2B sales pros (45%) use AI to draft outreach emails or messages, the most common use.
- Just under 1 in 4 B2B sales pros (23%) use AI to score or prioritize leads, making it one of the least common uses.
- 7 in 10 hyper-growth teams (70%) are confident they use AI better than their competitors.
- Nearly 3 in 10 hyper-growth teams (29%) say their use of AI significantly improved sales results in the past year, compared to about 1 in 10 (11%) of everyone else.
- B2B sales teams believe that about a third of the contact and account data in their CRM (32%) is inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated.
The habits of hyper-growth sales teams
A few habits kept showing up among the teams pulling ahead.
- More than 9 in 10 (95%) B2B sales pros say what sets their top-performing reps apart is something other than raw talent. Better habits and consistency (31%) and better relationships (28%) are the top two answers.
- More than 4 in 5 B2B sales pros (83%) agree they could grow faster by improving their habits, not just working harder.
- 80% of B2B sales pros agree their best-performing reps follow consistent daily routines.
- About 2 in 3 B2B sales pros (67%) say inconsistent processes hold their team back more than a lack of effort.
- About 1 in 5 B2B sales pros (21%) say spending time on the wrong prospects is the biggest drag on their growth.
- Hyper-growth teams are more likely to conduct structured prospect research before outreach, at 41% compared to 32% for everyone else.
- Hyper-growth teams make more follow-up attempts before giving up on a prospect, a median of 4 vs. 3 for everyone else.
- Hyper-growth teams spend more of their week selling than on admin, research, and data entry. They put a median of 65% of their time into selling, compared to 53% for everyone else.
Methodology
For this campaign, we surveyed 222 B2B sales professionals, from frontline reps to senior sales leaders, to understand how the fastest-growing sales teams work differently from everyone else. Hyper-growth teams were defined as those whose business grew by at least 30% over the past year.
About Firmable
Firmable is the AI-native sales platform for B2B sales teams, providing the most complete prospect data, buying signals, and agent-driven actions to help you win more deals. As the salesperson’s favorite teammate, we don’t just give you data – we give you direction, whatever tool you work in.
Firmable’s agentic technology, built from the ground up, sources, assembles, and continuously refreshes a proprietary map of the market. It delivers the richest company and contact details, including data you won’t find anywhere else, to sales teams across the United States, Canada, and APAC.
Fair use statement
When referencing this data, please attribute Firmable by linking to this page so readers can review the full findings and methodology.
