Time Spent Selling
Percentage of a sales rep’s working week spent on direct selling activities vs. admin, internal meetings, and non-selling tasks
What is Time Spent Selling?
Time spent selling is the percentage of working hours that reps spend on direct selling activities. It shows how much of a rep's time goes to actually engaging customers.
Reps often lose much of their time to admin and internal tasks, so this measure highlights productivity gains available.
How this KPI is measured
- Function
- Sales
- Sub-function
- Sales Enablement
- Industry
- All Industries
- Type
- Leading
- Impact
- Efficiency
- Unit
- %
- Measurement frequency
- Weekly / Monthly
- Formula
- (Hours on direct selling activities / Total working hours) × 100
How to calculate it
Divide hours on direct selling activities by total working hours, and multiply by 100.
For example, if a rep works 40 hours and spends 14 on customer contact and selling tasks, the figure is 35%.
Define selling activities clearly and use surveys, calendar data or activity logs to estimate.
Where it is used
Improving productivity
Find time lost.
Evaluating tools and processes
Test what saves time.
Planning capacity
Understand real availability.
How to improve it
Tips and common mistakes
- Do not measure so closely that it feels like surveillance.
- Some non-selling time, like preparation, is valuable.
- Ask reps what gets in the way.
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