Statistics we refused to publish.

“84 to 87 percent of sales training is forgotten within 90 days.”

Untraceable. It is a mutation of Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve that acquired a citation it never had. I use the peer-reviewed replication (Murre and Dros, 2015) instead, and I explain this to the reader directly in Chapter 16.

“Emotional intelligence accounts for 58 percent of job performance,”

and “90 percent of top performers have high EQ.” TalentSmart marketing figures, not peer-reviewed sales research. I use the Gartner mentalizing finding and the L’Oréal study instead.

“Deals with a champion win 60 to 80 percent of the time, versus 15 to 25 percent without one.”

Untraceable vendor ranges with no original study behind them.

“Value messaging took win rates from 23 percent to 43 percent.”

A single vendor customer testimonial, not research.

“A formal sales process produces up to 28 percent more revenue.”

A misquote of the Harvard Business Review finding, which is 18 percent. I cite 18.

Any PivotSales.ai proprietary statistic. I have not published a “500 reps analyzed” figure, a “92 percent confirmation” rate, or an “11 percent improvement” claim, because that research is not yet complete. When it is, I will publish it with its methodology attached, and you may hold me to the same standard I have held everyone else to in these pages.