How to Check Whether a Benchmark Actually Has a Source

Somewhere in a sales deck that has been viewed a few hundred thousand times, there is a slide listing the standard contact-rate breakdown. Two percent of sales close on the first contact. Three percent on the second. Five on the third, ten on the fourth, and eighty percent somewhere between the fifth and twelfth.

Underneath it, in the slot where the citation goes, the author wrote that the source was "a popular sales meme" and that the numbers might be slightly off.

He knew. He put it in writing, in the citation field, and shipped the slide anyway. That statistic is now quoted across sales blogs, onboarding decks and vendor landing pages with a firm's name attached to it and no hint of the disclaimer.

That slide is the clearest example I have found of a process that usually happens invisibly. A number gets stated. Someone repeats it with an...

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