Playbooks · Brew Strength · 6 min read
Are 80% of sales really made after the fifth follow-up?
"80% of sales happen after the fifth follow-up." It is on slides, in sales trainings and in a thousand LinkedIn posts. We traced it back to where it started, rated it, and kept the part that is worth acting on.
The SellSip desk · 25 Oct 2026Brew Strength · Check 1
80%? Check the brew.
Quick answer · Are 80% of sales made after the fifth follow-up?
There is no good evidence for it. The figure traces back to a 1942 survey by one local chapter of a sales association, with fewer than 40 respondents and no published data. We rate the claim Decaf (10%). The useful part is real, though: modern outreach data shows follow-ups add replies, so plan at least two.
You have almost certainly seen this cascade, usually as an image with a confident source line in the corner:
- 2% of sales are made on the first contact
- 3% on the second contact
- 5% on the third contact
- 10% on the fourth contact
- 80% on the fifth to twelfth contact
It is often shortened to "80% of sales are made after the fifth follow-up". It sounds precise and it flatters persistence, which is why it spreads. So we checked it the way we check every claim: find the original, look at who ran it and how, then give it a Brew Strength rating.
- Strong Brew80%+
Solid, replicated evidence. - Good Blend60 to 80%
Real, with caveats. - Needs Stirring40 to 60%
Right direction, shaky numbers. - Weak Brew20 to 40%
Thin or untraceable support. - Decafunder 20%
No real evidence behind it.
The verdict
Brew Strength: Decaf · 10%
Decaf (10%). The claim has an origin, but the origin cannot support the way it is used today. The lesson people take from it, "keep following up", is sound. The number is not.
Where the number comes from
The cascade is normally credited to the "National Sales Executive Association". In 2014, VentureBeat's Stewart Rogers went looking for that organisation, found no trace of it, and reported the statistics as made up.
In 2021, Sales & Marketing Executives International (SMEI) answered on its own website. It says it was once called the National Sales Executives Association, and that after searching its archive it found the source: in 1942, its Long Island, New York chapter surveyed members about the ratio of calls made to sales made. SMEI adds that the sample size was less than 40.
So both sides were partly right. The association existed under a related name. But the data behind the famous slide is one local survey, more than 80 years old, from fewer than 40 people.
Why we rate it Decaf
- Tiny, local sample. Fewer than 40 respondents from one chapter in one region.
- No published method. SMEI has not published the questions, the answers or how a "contact" was defined, so nobody can check the maths.
- A different world. In 1942 a sales "call" usually meant a visit in person. It tells us very little about email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp or video calls in 2026.
- The wording drifted. The original speaks of the fifth to twelfth contact. "After the fifth follow-up" means the sixth contact onwards, a different claim.
- It describes closing, not booking a meeting. Even taken at face value, it is about closed sales, not replies to cold outreach, which is where it is now most often quoted.
None of this means anyone set out to mislead. The number was shortened, repeated and stripped of its context over eight decades.
What the better evidence says about follow-ups
We could not find an independent, peer-reviewed study of follow-up counts across industries. What we did find is large datasets from outreach tools. They come from vendors and their customers, so treat them as Good Blend (65%): real behaviour at scale, but not neutral and not your market.
Brew Strength: Good Blend · 65%
- Backlinko with Pitchbox (2019), 12 million outreach emails: 8.5% of first emails got a reply. Adding one follow-up lifted the reply rate to 14.1%, and a third email took it to 17.1%. Most of the gain came from the first follow-up.
- Emailchaser (2026), 55,329 people in three-email sequences: 0.81% replied to the first email, 1.38% had replied after the first follow-up and 1.61% after the second. About 30% of all replies came from a follow-up, yet 58% of campaigns never sent one.
Two different datasets, years apart, point the same way: follow-ups add replies, and the first one adds the most. Neither supports a magic number like five or twelve.
How many follow-ups to send
Our house rule, based on the data above:
- Plan at least two follow-ups for every cold first email.
- Make each one add something: a useful link, a short answer to a likely question, or a smaller ask. "Just bumping this" adds nothing.
- Space them out. A few working days apart is a sensible default.
- After the third email, change channel or stop. Call, connect on LinkedIn, or ask a colleague for an introduction instead of sending a fourth email.
- Measure your own numbers. Your CRM knows on which touch your won deals replied. That beats any statistic, including ours.
Use it this week
The two-follow-up sequence:
- Day 1, first email: one problem, one sentence of proof, one small ask. Check it in the Cold Email Grader before you send.
- Day 4, follow-up 1: "Hi [name], one thing I should have added: [one useful fact or link about their problem]. Worth a 15-minute look next week?"
- Day 9, follow-up 2: "Hi [name], I will stop here so I do not clutter your inbox. If [problem] becomes a priority, reply with a 1 and I will send the two-page summary."
The ten-minute audit: pull your last 20 won deals. Count the touches before the first reply. Write the median on a sticky note. That is your real number.
Before you quote any stat to a buyer, run the 60-second check from our sales statistics fact-check: who ran it, how many people, when, and does it measure what you are claiming?
Sources
- Stewart Rogers, Those incredible sales stats everyone cites are actually completely false, VentureBeat, 2014.
- Sales & Marketing Executives International, Sales Statistics: How many calls to close a sale?, 2021.
- Backlinko and Pitchbox, We analyzed 12 million outreach emails, 2019 (methods PDF). Vendor data.
- Emailchaser, Cold email benchmarks for 2026, updated October 2026. Vendor data from its own customers.
Questions people ask
Where does the "80% of sales after 5 follow-ups" statistic come from?
It is usually credited to the "National Sales Executive Association". Sales & Marketing Executives International (SMEI), which says it once used that name, traced the numbers in its archive to a 1942 survey by its Long Island, New York chapter about calls made versus sales made. SMEI says the sample size was less than 40.
How many follow-ups should I send?
At least two, then stop or change channel. In Backlinko and Pitchbox's analysis of 12 million outreach emails, replies rose from 8.5% after the first email to 14.1% with one follow-up and 17.1% with two. Measure your own reply data to find where your returns flatten out.
Is it true that most salespeople give up after one follow-up?
The figures usually quoted for that, such as "48% never follow up", travel with the same untraceable attribution, so we cannot rate them above Decaf. One 2026 dataset from an email tool found 58% of its customers' campaigns never sent a follow-up, which points the same way but is a single vendor's data.